Rural Scotland - skills action plan: process evaluation 2019 to 2021

Chapter 5: Benefits and coverage

This chapter addresses the third research question, "Has the creation of the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland (SAPRS) contributed to additional activity / investment?" and considers its added value to Scotland's rural economy.

Overall, this research has found that the SAPRS has added value to Scotland's rural economy in three key areas: providing a fresh focus on the skills needs of the rural economy; enabling collaboration and partnership opportunities; and raising the profile of skills needs in rural areas.

Together, these three benefits have helped wider stakeholders to understand the importance of considering rural needs in their decision-making in the development and delivery of skills interventions.

The SAPRS was not intended to create strands of new activity, but to bring together and raise the profile of existing activities. There is substantial evidence from the research that it has achieved this aim and that the SAPRS has been fundamental in improving the quality of, and raising awareness around, existing skills interventions.

Looking to the future, stakeholders from both the Implementation Steering Group (ISG) and those outside the ISG would like to see the SAPRS continue. Some think it should continue in its current form while others would like to see more focus on specific cross-cutting areas such as digital skills or green skills.

Introduction

This chapter discusses findings related to the third research question, "Has the creation of the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland (SAPRS) contributed to additional activity / investment?" The chapter explores the broader effectiveness of the SAPRS by discussing how the partnership and plan brings about additional or more effective activity, including examples of this in practice, and the value that stakeholders consider it to bring to the rural economy. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the future direction of the SAPRS, considering how it might evolve to continue meeting the skills needs of the rural economy.

This chapter draws on interviews with stakeholders, which included both ISG members and wider stakeholders. The stakeholder interviews have also informed the case study presented in this section.

Added value of the SAPRS to the rural economy

The SAPRS has made three key achievements in adding value to Scotland's rural economy. The programme has provided a fresh focus on the skills needs of the rural economy, enabled wider and deeper collaboration and partnership opportunities, and has raised the profile of skills needs in rural areas.

Reframing skills through a rural lens

Most stakeholders agreed that a key achievement of the SAPRS has been to reframe skills information, interventions and support through a rural lens. This has helped organisations to better understand the needs of rural businesses, as well as drawing learnings from other sectors or regions. The first national Rural Scotland Business Panel Survey (see Chapter 5) is an example of a project that has benefitted from this reframing. The survey captures broad measures on the economic health of rural Scotland and information on skills needs.

A non-ISG member shared how the SAPRS had helped them to ensure they consider rural needs in all aspects of their job. It has done so by highlighting rural challenges that are less typical in urban settings, like poor digital connectivity, poor public transport links and longer travel times between locations. This stakeholder learned about these factors through the dedicated SAPRS communications (see Chapter 4), and through word of mouth at meetings and other events related to their job role. The stakeholder felt that other attendees at meetings and events raised rural challenges more frequently, which they also attributed to the SAPRS. One ISG stakeholder noted the SAPRS had helped them to identify gaps in their own provision:

It's highlighting where the data gaps are and where therefore the gaps in provision might be falling. The original plan has provided some means of starting to recognise that.

Enabling partnerships and new collaborations

The SAPRS has also brought together different stakeholders in the rural economy, enabling wider and deeper collaboration and collective knowledge-sharing. As a result of the SAPRS, individuals representing a variety of organisations have been brought together in ways that had not happened before, as illustrated below:

That coordination, the ability to network, a shared approach to the challenges, and a sharing of ideas and information has really helped drive action and delivery and benefit for rural skills.

One stakeholder explained how the knowledge-sharing channels SAPRS enabled resulted in them identifying an opportunity to work together on a mutually beneficial initiative. Without SAPRS, that common need and willingness to collaborate may not have been identified.

Raising the profile of skills needs of the rural economy

Additionally, the SAPRS has served to raise the profile of the skills needs to be addressed in rural areas. As rural businesses are typically more remote, their needs risk 'flying under the radar'. The SAPRS has helped to promote the issues faced by the rural economy, targeting a range of audiences. These audiences have included national and local government, training providers and industry representatives. This benefit of the SAPRS was noted by an ISG stakeholder:

It has brought to the forefront some of the good work that was going on that ministers may not have been aware of. I think there's more to do, but I think we've really got a much clearer story to tell than we did 18 months ago.

A stakeholder working in Careers Advice Information and Guidance offered another example of SAPRS helping to raise the profile of skills needs. They described reading their industry news and gradually, over a period of over a year, hearing more about the SAPRS. Through this, they came to understand how important the rural sector was to Scotland's economy, and that rural areas had unique challenges that the stakeholder had not previously considered when offering careers-related resources. They reached out to SDS colleagues to collaborate on the creation of a rural-specific online hub, offering resources to those involved in different rural sectors and highlighting specific careers within those sectors.

A separate, non-ISG, stakeholder stated that the SAPRS had acted as a framework for their organisation, enabling them to stay on track and communicate their vision. They have used the SAPRS as evidence when talking to decision makers. They have specifically referenced the data made accessible by the SAPRS, and also referred to it as an essential guide, during their interviewing process for a new rural skills role.

The Rural Youth Project provides another example of how the SAPRS has added value to a project that already existed. Case study three^[76] below draws on an interview with one of the Rural Youth Project's founders.

Case Study 3: The Rural Youth Project

The Rural Youth project was launched in 2018 in response to the trend of young people born in rural areas moving away to urban locations to pursue careers. Its aim is to develop strategies to both encourage young people (age 18-28) into rural careers, and to facilitate their involvement in agricultural and rural activity by better understanding their current situation, aspirations, opportunities and challenges.

The project uses a number of creative, interactive methods including its bespoke "Ideas Festivals" (a series of talks and workshops to share knowledge and promote leadership), other workshops, storytelling and sharing the voices of young people.

The Rural Youth Project has used the SAPRS in a number of ways. The SAPRS' focus on inclusivity has helped the project's founders think about their strategy for how to ensure that young people who have left a community are welcomed back more holistically. For example, rather than focusing only on helping and encouraging young people to develop skills that are useful to a rural community, activities also cover how to facilitate the community welcoming the return of young people to the community. As the founder of the project states:

"If that community won't welcome them back and won't welcome them to contribute, then that's a problem…that is the essences of the Plan [the SAPRS], which very much drives what we what we do."

Consequently, the Rural Youth Project often refers to the SAPRS to ensure that the Project's aims are aligned with Scottish Government's aims. The project's founder refers to the SAPRS as a "guiding light that governs our strategy and the direction of travel".

The Rural Youth Project has also formed new partnerships – for example, linking up with Scottish Enterprise's Rural Leadership program and jointly produced activities to encourage the peer-to-peer learning as well. They have also recorded a video case study for the Skills Planning Manager at SDS, for a forthcoming SAPRS blog, and would like to find more ways to link up with SDS and the SAPRS in the future.

Overall, the research has found that SAPRS has added value to Scotland's rural economy. It has done so in three ways:

• The SAPRS has helped to reframe skills information, interventions and support through a rural lens. This has helped organisations to better understand the skills development, planning and needs of rural businesses and people living in rural communities, and how these might differ from the needs of businesses and people in urban areas.
• The SAPRS has also helped different stakeholders in the rural economy to collaborate and share knowledge. As a result of the SAPRS, individuals representing a variety of organisations have been brought together in new ways.
• Finally, the SAPRS has helped to raise the profile of the skills needs in rural areas. As rural businesses are typically more remote, their needs face the risk of 'flying under the radar'. In this way, the SAPRS has helped to promote the issues faced by the rural economy.

Evidence of the SAPRS contributing to additional activity and investment

In this section we consider how the SAPRS has contributed to additional activity and investment. It is important to note that the SAPRS was delivered on a very small budget, and was not intended to fund new skills interventions. Rather, the intention was to bring together and enhance existing and new activities, of which there is ample evidence from both the progress reports and research interviews of this occurring. One stakeholder summarises this approach as follows:

The plan was never all about developing new projects. It was partly about putting it in a framework together. There's been a lot of value in understanding some of the stuff that was going to be taking place anyway. But we didn't have a really strong understanding of how all of it fit within 'Rural', and how we could develop a compelling story about it.

Chapter 4 highlighted projects the SAPRS has supported. While for the most part these would have occurred without the SAPRS, there was a general consensus among stakeholders during interviewing that it has helped to either promote projects or to ensure that project design and delivery has better met the needs of the rural economy.

Although stakeholders recognised the difficulty in assessing the extent of the SAPRS' contribution to stronger outcomes within the rural economy, there was little doubt that it has contributed to progress.

Stakeholders also identified three broad areas where the SAPRS has contributed to activities that were not necessarily foreseen when the plan was originally launched. These relate to activities funded through the National Training Transition Fund (set up to respond to the coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic), a somewhat linked focus on digital learning and skills, and growing concerns around the environment and the climate emergency. Each of these is described below.

The National Training Transition Fund (NTTF)

As detailed in Chapter 4, part of the Scottish Government's coronavirus (COVID-19) response was to introduce the National Transition Training Fund (NTTF) in 2020. A recurring reflection of ISG members in the interviews was that they were able to utilise funding from the NTTF to support activities relating to skills development in rural Scotland, such as in the seafood and land-based sectors, and the creative industry.

The SAPRS has had a positive impact on the engagement many training providers have with the NTTF. Some suggested that without the SAPRS, and the work done by the ISG in promoting it, they would never have engaged with the fund. This highlights the benefit of the type of collaborative working that the SAPRS has encouraged and how this is more broadly benefitting the wider skills landscape in rural Scotland. One stakeholder in the interviews offered an example of this in practice:

As a result of being engaged with the SAPRS, we are now working more closely with Developing the Young Workforce and the initiative with the green job skills hub, workforce academy and the NTTF. Those are initiatives that have been happening that we would not have engaged with necessarily.

Digital learning and skills

One of the SAPRS's objectives^[77] is to "Support and encourage skills for the future with a particular focus on digital, leadership and management skills". The importance of digital skills has increased substantially since the SAPRS launched, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to large-scale remote online working and learning. It is clear from previous minutes and reports from ISG meetings that this is now a key development influencing skills needs in rural Scotland.

ISG members reported that businesses in rural communities sometimes lack the necessary digital skills they require, or suffer from connectivity issues. In addition, some ISG members felt that local provision for digital skills could be improved. Addressing these challenges is therefore key when supporting skills development in rural Scotland. Some felt the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic provided no other option than to face the digital skills gap, and as a result, they felt this contributed to activity and initiatives in the digital landscape and skills development area.

There was general consensus among those interviewed that any future iterations of the SAPRS could further increase this focus on digital skills due to the significant cross-cutting benefits relating to digital upskilling.

Climate emergency and the transition to Net Zero

While developing 'green' skills was not a focus of the original SAPRS, SDS have been quick to respond to the changes that have happened since the plan was launched in 2019. At the national level, SDS facilitated the development of the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan^[78] (CESAP) in 2020, in response to the climate emergency. The plan recognises the need to develop new skills to support the transition to a Net Zero economy. This includes improving access to skills training in sectors that will help create new green and sustainable jobs.

An example of how this is translating into action is the Green Hub, which is an enhancement of the SDS internal digital platform to support Careers Information Advice and Guidance. Launched in August 2021, the Green Hub has a focus on labour market information and insight relating to green jobs. This resource makes links with the SAPRS, stressing the importance of material that has been developed by ISG members. For example, the Green Hub includes a blog on the climate emergency by Scotland's nature agency, NatureScot^[79] (June 2021). The blog discusses the impact of climate change and changes that are occurring in the rural sector to combat its effects, with a focus on providing skills pathways for young people to enter the nature-based sector^[80].

ISG meetings have incorporated discussion on the climate emergency, with a spotlight session on the climate emergency held in the September 2020 meeting. Many of the stakeholders interviewed were pleased the environmental and climate emergency gap is being addressed in this way, as they believe it is an integral part of skills development in rural Scotland.

However, stakeholder views on the role of SAPRS in environmental or green skills were more mixed. Stakeholders whose roles include sustainability development were less clear on how activities within both the SAPRS and the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan aligned. These stakeholders recognised the potential value of collaboration and knowledge exchange with the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP), especially where the same stakeholders work across both. These stakeholders would benefit from a clearer understanding of how these fit together across a shared strategic approach.

While developing environmental or 'green' skills was not a focus of the original SAPRS, SDS have been quick to respond to the changes that have happened since the plan was launched in 2019. The SAPRS was not intended to fund new skills interventions, but to bring together and enhance existing and new activities, of which there is ample evidence from both the progress reports and research interviews of this occurring.

Indeed, stakeholders typically reflected that whilst skills activities in rural Scotland would have occurred without the SAPRS for the most part, there was a general consensus that it has helped to either promote projects or to ensure that project design and delivery has better met the needs of the rural economy.

The skills landscape has evolved quickly since the launch of the SAPRS, as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic introducing new, and exacerbating existing, challenges. The SAPRS has enabled stakeholders to be more responsive to these challenges, and support the skills needs of the rural economy accordingly.

Future focus of the SAPRS

This final section outlines stakeholders' views on the future of the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland. Stakeholders interviewed for the research were asked their views on whether the SAPRS should continue, what direction it should take and what skills needs the SAPRS should prioritise.

Continuing the SAPRS

The vast majority of stakeholders agreed that the SAPRS should continue. Their reasons relate to the range of benefits discussed above; namely, the plan has successfully highlighted the importance of the rural economy and its skills needs to the Scottish economy. The collaboration and activity has strengthened and connected skills activity in rural Scotland.

Of those who thought the SAPRS should continue, some suggested that policy makers could consider how the SAPRS might move forward and evolve in the future, while remaining open to change as needed. Stakeholders who felt the SAPRS should continue felt it would benefit from a policy approach that allows room for greater flexibility so it could better respond to emerging needs. One of the strengths of the SAPRS lay in how quickly and flexibly it was able to respond to the changes imposed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, such as adapting activities to accommodate a large-scale move to remote online working and social distancing. This is more fully described in the chapter outlining Progress By Priority. Stakeholders felt that this kind of flexibility will continue to be critical; for example, digital and green skills needs are evolving quickly, so any future iterations of the plan will need to be able to adapt as circumstances and needs change.

Across all interviews, with both ISG members and wider stakeholders, only one person was unconvinced that the SAPRS was a suitable way of resolving skills issues in rural Scotland. This stakeholder did not agree that the challenges faced by rural Scotland were unique, and thought that separating rural Scotland from urban Scotland risked creating unnecessary division in the country. However, their views did not represent the majority of stakeholders who were generally positive about how it had raised the profile of skills needs in rural Scotland.

Suggested future priorities

Stakeholders shared suggestions in interviews for additional areas for the SAPRS to prioritise. These included:

• How to get industry to commit to innovation that would contribute to more attractive job opportunities;
• The rapidly evolving skills needs within industry that need to adapt to technological change and environmental pressures;
• How to ensure that rural opportunities are highlighted to young people before they make career choices (for example more opportunities for outreach in schools); and
• A clearer articulation of its alignment to other government strategies – for example, the Scottish Government's new economic strategy, and the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP).

One stakeholder offered examples of areas of Scottish Government policy where better alignment could be articulated:

I think it's a future that will need an articulation relative to the developments that are coming out in the current political and skills landscape. So the work of the Enterprise and Skills Strategic Board and the work of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

Clarity around priority areas

A small number of ISG stakeholders would also like to better understand how their role and activities fit into the wider plan and would appreciate more clarity around the five priority areas. One ISG stakeholder suggested that this could be achieved by referencing the priority areas during the ISG meetings:

I'd like more clarity so people understand more about what the groups are and their purpose. To concentrate more on the five priority areas and ensure all members are aware of them in each [ISG] meeting.

The majority of stakeholders who took part in interviews would like to see the SAPRS continue, with several offering suggestions about how the plan could be strengthened going forward.

Many highlighted the flexibility of the plan, in responding to changes due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as a key strength. Embedding a flexible approach to any future iteration of the SAPRS, so it could continue to respond to emerging and changing needs, was seen as critical.

A smaller number of stakeholders would like more clarity on how the SAPRS aligns with other policies. They shared ideas of how to strengthen any future iterations of the SAPRS and to better support stakeholders to understand how their roles, organisations and activities fit within the wider plan.

Others would like to see an increased focus on the emerging, cross-cutting skills needs in digital and green skills.

Conclusions

This chapter has addressed the third research question, "Has the creation of the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland (SAPRS) contributed to additional activity / investment?" and considered its value to Scotland's rural economy. To make this assessment, this chapter has primarily drawn on stakeholder interviews with ISG and non-ISG members.

The vast majority of stakeholders agreed that the SAPRS has benefited existing skills activities in rural Scotland. The key benefits of the SAPRS, as described by stakeholders in research interviews, are as follows:

• It has helped to reframe skills information, interventions and support through a rural lens. This has helped organisations to better understand the needs of rural businesses and how these might differ from the needs of businesses in urban areas.
• It has helped different stakeholders in the rural economy to collaborate and share knowledge. As a result of the SAPRS, individuals representing a variety of organisations have been brought together in new ways.
• It has helped to raise the profile of the skills needs in rural areas. As rural businesses are typically more remote, their needs risk 'flying under the radar'. In this way, the SAPRS has helped to promote the issues faced by the rural economy.
• It has helped raise the visibility of learner journeys and pathways in rural areas.

The model is flexible to enable stakeholders to better respond to evolving skills challenges, such as those prompted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and the climate emergency.

The vast majority of the stakeholders who took part in interviews would like to see the SAPRS continue, with several offering suggestions in terms of how the SAPRS could be strengthened going forward. Embedding a flexible approach to any future iteration of the SAPRS, so it could continue to respond to emerging and changing needs, was seen as critical. A smaller number of stakeholders would like more clarity on how the SAPRS aligns with other policies. Others would like to see an increased focus on the emerging, cross-cutting skills needs in digital and the environment.