Day Conference Abstracts, Report and Papers

Revealing ruralities: exploring issues for the VCS in rural areas

Abstracts

• The voluntary sector and the state in rural towns and villages: co-existence, co-operation and competition

• Bridging capital and social cohesion in an English village setting

• Re-Designing the delivery of rural policy

• Successful capacity-building: is there a greater challenge in rural areas?

Report from Rob Macmillan

The University of Manchester hosted the November 2008 Day Conference on the specific theme of exploring issues for the voluntary and community sector in rural areas. Thirty six people took part in what proved to be an interesting and engaging set of discussions around rurality and the VCS.

Dr Graham Gardner from Aberystwyth University gave the first paper, drawing on research focusing on the changing nature of the state in rural areas undertaken over the last decade. For this presentation, he concentrated on how some dominant conceptions of the relationship between the state and the VCS (in particular, the 'shadow state' thesis and 'governmentality') may lack an appreciation of rural context. More specifically, he argued that the relationships between the VCS and the lowest tiers of the state (for example, at parish level) were less asymmetrical than in urban areas. He illustrated this argument with empirical examples from a range of research studies, including those looking at rural governance, parish and town councils and community empowerment. He concluded that a more complex understanding of state-VCS relationships was required to embrace different local circumstances and contexts.
 
Roy Greenhalgh, a PhD student from the University of Southampton, then presented a paper based on his Masters dissertation focusing on micro community relationships amongst residents of a small village in Gloucestershire. The presentation was a fascinating example of social network analysis in use, with graphical displays to understand the complex connections and relationships between residents involved in three community-based activities: a village shop, a Women's Institute committee and a Parish Council. Informed by social network and social capital theory, the study aimed to examine the extent to which and how cohesive networks can spread beyond organisational boundaries. Roy concluded that bridging does occur through some individual relationships, but there is little evidence of inter-organisational networking.

The annual general meeting of VSSN was held before lunch (AGM minutes and papers available here). In his Chair's remarks, Peter Halfpenny welcomed the formation of two new research centres (Third Sector Research Centre and the Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy), while acknowledging that the processes through which they were established had led to a certain amount of competition across the Network and the subsequent need to re-build collegiality between members. The independence of VSSN from the two centres was stressed, alongside an acknowledgement of the importance of working with them, as with all institutions engaged in voluntary sector studies. Representatives from both centres expressed their commitment to VSSN.

The afternoon papers continued the discussion on rural issues. Chris Elton, a PhD student from Sheffield Hallam University, gave a paper discussing the development and delivery of rural policy over the last 20 years, with a particular emphasis on the implications for the voluntary and community sector of redesigning rural policy. The paper provided an account of the twists and turns of policy development in terms of successive attempts to provide a coherent and integrated approach to rural issues. Chris concluded that rural policy has suffered from an unstable institutional and policy framework, and that the latest policy shift, involving attempts to 'mainstream' rural issues across government, may blur the distinctive identification of rural concerns.

The last paper focused on capacity building in rural areas, given by Dr Jill Mordaunt and Dr Kristen Reid of the Open University Business School. The presentation was a reflection on some emerging issues involved in supporting voluntary and community organisations in rural areas, based on an ongoing evaluation of the work of Sustainable Funding Cymru. Jill and Kristen sought feedback on how two theoretically framed issues might operate in rural areas: the skills required for building horizontal and vertical networks amongst voluntary and community organisations, and the challenge of resource acquisition, which importantly involves power and legitimacy as well as money. The presentation concluded by noting the specific challenge of capacity building in rural areas - namely working with small, thinly stretched organisations, operating within relatively closed networks, with little spare capacity to develop sustainable funding approaches.

Finally, Duncan Scott rounded the conference off with some closing remarks reflecting on some of the common issues raised by the papers, as well as some neglected avenues for further exploration. A key theme underlying much of the discussion was the nature of any difference between 'urban' and 'rural': whether, to what extent and how the experience of voluntary and community action might differ between rural and urban contexts. Some avenues for further research included the role of ideology, class and gender in rural areas, the importance of 'goldfish bowl' social relations and the impact of new issues relating to migrant workers and the changing demographic composition of rural areas. Overall the papers had the great value of bringing 'rural' into VCS studies, and more work was perhaps needed in understanding the different kinds of voluntary and community organisations operating across different ruralities.

Abstracts and presentations

Dr Graham Gardner, FRSA, Aberystwyth University: The voluntary sector and the state in rural towns and villages: co-existence, co-operation and competition

This presentation will discuss the characteristics of relationships between the voluntary sector and the state in rural towns and villages. In the light of the ‘shadow state’ thesis and notions of ‘governmentality’, relationships between the voluntary sector and the state have tended to be characterised in asymmetric terms with the state seen as very much having the upper hand. Such characterisation, I will argue, because it is largely based on analyses of the state and the voluntary sector in urban areas, tends to overlook the importance of the rural context. In small towns and villages, relationships between voluntary sector organisations and the state are far more complex than theories of the shadow state or governmentality allow. Most importantly, at the scale of the small town and village, the state and the voluntary sector tend to be highly interdependent. Consequently, their relationships, whether framed in terms of institutions or individuals, tend to be close, mutually beneficial and non-hierarchical. I will go on to argue, however, that these relationships have often come under strain as central government has sought to increasingly use voluntary organisations as vehicles for citizen engagement and democratic renewal. The presentation draws on empirical research into the voluntary sector and local councils undertaken over the last ten years.

Graham's presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).

Roy Greenhalgh, University of Southampton: Bridging capital and social cohesion in an English village setting

The Post office isn’t the only service that is closing in our villages: pubs are unprofitable, village schools are being merged and our children bussed, and village shops are struggling in the face of “one Tesco in every post code”.  Besides these public services, changes are under way in the communities and associations that have formed the corner stones of English village life.  What, if any, are the emerging agencies that are replacing school gates, pub bars and the post office queue? 

This micro study set out to explore if and how social cohesion can diffuse across the boundaries of formal organisations in a village situation. It asked if and how small communities or formal groups with high social cohesion could positively affect others with low cohesion. In short, is social cohesion diffusible? Using the village shop as the core, the study used Social Network Analysis theory and techniques to explore the nature of the relationships between the volunteers and supervisors working in the shop.  With measures in place, it then identified other village societies and organisations that had some, but not all, common membership. Choosing two organisations, the study then moved out to understand how these two organisations operated through their volunteer committees, and if any of the qualities or strengths of the group of shop volunteers were “bridged” across to these other organisations.

The presentation will show the aims of the study, discuss key aspects of the underpinning literature, and then present the method adopted.  Some of the SNA maps will be presented together with their interpretations leading to the key conclusions that were drawn from the study.

Roy's presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).

Chris Elton, Sheffield Hallam University: Re-designing the delivery of rural policy

For forty years after the War, rural policy was narrowly focused on the production of food and was delivered through a closed policy community comprising the government and the National Farmers Union.  Following the budget crisis in the Common Agricultural Policy in the late 1980’s, the rural policy framework had to embrace broader issues of economic and social restructuring as well as safeguarding the rural environment. Integrated rural development became the key objective of rural policy, but raised difficult questions about the most appropriate means of delivering it.

The presentation will focus on the succession of contrasting approaches to delivering a coherent and integrated rural policy, and the implications of this for the VCS. Over the past decade, a range of different institutional and governance structures have been designed to coordinate rural delivery, against a background of significantly reducing funding for rural policy; for example, the establishment and demise of the Countryside Agency. Mainstreaming rural policy throughout government has become the latest attempt to coordinate rural delivery.

Chris' presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).

Dr Jill Mordaunt and Dr Kristen Reid, Open University Business School: Successful Capacity-Building: is there a greater challenge in rural areas?

As the funding environment of voluntary organisations becomes increasingly competitive (Reichardt et al 2008) developing the capacity of voluntary organisations to be come self-sustaining and less reliant on short-term funding assumes a greater importance. NCVO has hosted a Sustainable funding project since 2000 and in 2006 the Wales Council of Voluntary Action launched its own outreach project to develop the capacity of organisations in Wales. However, the funding situation is different in Wales. There are very few large organisations and only one UK national organisation has its headquarters in Wales (Collis, 2007). Many organisations are very small and isolated from each other by the geography of the country. Is developing the capacity of organisations in this context more challenging?

The authors have been working with WCVA to evaluate this project since it started. We have developed case studies, evaluated their website, undertaken a qualitative evaluation of their training delivery and are currently undertaking a longitudinal evaluation of their work with sustainable funding champions. This paper draws on that work and reports on our findings to date. The paper will explore some of the assumptions about sustainability and the challenges this poses particularly in more rural and isolated areas based on the evidence we have gathered.

Initial findings indicate that organisations approach funding sustainability in very different ways.  For some, it is a matter of diversifying funding; for others, it is setting up income-generating plans as part of an overall scheme to move toward a social enterprise model.

The structure of the organisations and how sustainability is approached by different members of the organisations will affect the success of new sustainable approaches.  In many cases, organisations need both a ‘champion’ both to promote changes in and secure the buy-in of their board members.

These and other challenges have implications for how a model of sustainable funding can be disseminated throughout the Welsh voluntary sector.

Bibliography

Collis, B (2007) Baseline Survey: Sustainable Funding Project, WCVA, Cardiff

Reichardt O., Kane D., Pratten B.,  & Wilding K., (2008) The UK Civil Society Almanac 2008, NCVO, London

Jill and Kristen's presentation is available here (Powerpoint format).