The urban-rural divide in this country was highlighted in stark terms at the start of this decade, when a backbencher’s bill proposing a ban on foxhunting turned into a bitter, five-year fight which divided the nation. While the lines of battle weren’t completely black and white, one of the biggest gripes of the legislation’s opponents was that rural people were being dictated to by metropolitan MPs and their urban constituents.

While that intensity of feeling has faded somewhat, there remains an element of discord between the rural parts of the country and the metropolis where power resides. In particular, there’s a feeling that rural communities can find themselves neglected by policy makers who are prone to forget the 28 per cent of the population who don’t live in towns or cities.

There have been various attempts to insure against this tendency, most recently the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra’s) ‘rural proofing’ scheme. First introduced in 2000, this placed a mandatory requirement on all policy makers to “consider whether their policy is likely to have a different impact in [rural] areas” and to adjust policies “to meet rural needs and circumstances”. But while some departments have accepted their responsibilities to rural communities, others have not; the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), which makes an annual assessment of rural proofing by departments and government offices for the regions, has described itself as “disappointed in the overall performance of government departments”.

Stuart Burgess, chairman of the commission and the government’s ‘rural advocate’ since 2004 (he worked within the CRC’s predecessor, the Countryside Agency, until its break-up in 2006), describes the government’s performance as “patchy”. “It is important to say that some departments have responded well to rural proofing; others less well,” he says diplomatically. In fact, concern over departments’ failure to make rural proofing a part of the policy process is so severe that the CRC and Defra intend to relaunch the entire mechanism at a conference, held on May 19 and organised by Whitehall & Westminster World’s parent company Dods.

“The relaunch is saying: ‘This is where we are and we want to improve things’,” explains Burgess. “The relaunch of rural proofing is really challenging government and all the departments to remember that rural areas are really very important.” At the heart of the relaunch is a new toolkit, available on the commission’s website from May 11.

The commission’s leadership, concerned that not enough policy makers were making use of the existing guidance, hope that the new guidance will be more popular. With that in mind they have made it more comprehensive, with best practice examples from within government and contacts for further advice. Its authors hope that the toolkit will finally make rural proofing a standard part of policy making.

A sceptic might argue that policy makers who have neglected to take rural proofing seriously in the nine years since it was first launched are hardly going to be won round by jazzed-up guidance documents. But Burgess says it will form part of a wider programme, including the conference next month, that aims to raise the profile of rural proofing. Burgess and his team also intend to get out there and bring rural proofing to the policymakers who are not seeking out the guidance.

“We will go to them. We will be proactive,” he says, describing how he recently visited the Bank of England to talk to them about the value of the rural economy – estimated by the commission to be worth around £304bn a year. “Nobody had talked to them about the rural economy, and all their figures were based upon the urban economy,” Burgess says, recalling how his visit piqued their interest in what was happening outside towns and cities. “That is what we have to do: excite people and get them to take this on board,” says Burgess. “It is not just about being reactive, it is about being proactive.”

For all the enthusiasm of Burgess and the rest of the staff at the CRC – and they have plenty – they are not backed by any powers to compel departments or agencies to heed their advice. “We don’t have the powers to compel,” concedes the advocate. “But we have powers to influence and that can be quite strong. We can say: ‘The prime minister is behind us, this is government policy, take this on board’,” Burgess says. He points to the work the commission has been doing on highlighting the rural economy’s need for the high-speed broadband available in cities and town. And his arguments do seem to be getting through: days before we met, business secretary Lord Mandelson hinted in a speech that the government might contribute £1bn to fill the gaps in private sector provision.

The support of big names and the leadership they can provide is crucial, says Burgess. “It is marvellous to get a champion – either a minister or a civil servant – who takes you seriously, takes on board what you do, is excited and interested in rural affairs and believes it is important,” he says. Gordon Brown and Lord Mandelson are behind him, says Burgess, and schools minister Jim Knight is also fighting his corner – he’s off to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) immediately after our meeting.

The DCSF – particularly Knight’s schools directorate – is one public body that is “taking rural policy seriously”, says Burgess; partly because Knight used to oversee the commission’s work when he was minister for rural affairs. Indeed, Knight is such an enthusiast that he will be speaking about DCSF’s rural proofing work in the best practice slot at the commission’s conference next month. “Knight takes the rural seriously within that department,” says Burgess. “We need to encourage every department to be as good as DCSF,” he adds. “Ideally we’d have a minister in every government department who’s as excited by this and wants to be a champion.”

Realising the countryside’s potential

After the floods of 2007, the prime minister asked rural advocate Stuart Burgess to look into how rural communities could be strengthened. In June last year Burgess completed his report, detailing how the rural economy in England is worth around £304bn a year and employs 2.96 million people. While that represents a quarter of England’s enterprises and 13 per cent of employment, it is only nine per cent of England’s business revenue. That means, Burgess concluded, that the rural economy is underperforming by at least £236bn a year.

Burgess’s report described the “tragic waste of potential” that forces young people to choose between staying in their communities or leaving in order to improve their skills and get better employment. Those who stay are often faced with poorly-connected communities and housing they cannot afford. This “marginalisation against the greater economic power of the town”, said Burgess, “reinforces old divisions rather than setting out a new vision” – that of a rural renaissance.

Not all his recommendations – which included appointing regional rural champions, and that government intervene to make sure local area agreements carry out their own rural proofing – were accepted by food and rural affairs secretary Hilary Benn, but a number were adopted, including the introduction of regional summits to focus the minds of policymakers and a firmer commitment to rural proofing.