1030 - Registration and Coffee.
1100 - Chairman's welcome and introduction.
1110 - Background to the White Paper.
1130 - The issues for rural Scotland.
1200 - Workshop Session 1 - Future Vision.
1250 - Lunch
1400 - Workshop Session 2 - Current Realities
1450 - Workshop Session 3 - Removing the Barriers between Current Realities and the Vision.
1545 - Report Back.
1605 - Chairman's concluding remarks

2. The purpose of the seminars is to identify at a fairly detailed level the issues that need to be addressed in the White Paper and the measures that could be included to address these effectively. Although there needs to be realism, radical ideas are to be encouraged even if they are not thought to be entirely realistic in the current political climate.

3. An official from The Scottish Office will present the background to the White Paper including the terms of reference and the timetable. Twenty minutes has been allowed for this with a few minutes at the end for questions on information.

4. The second presentation will be on the issues for rural Scotland and will be presented by Stuart Black (Inverness), Dermot Grimson (Perth), Mark Shucksmith (Inverurie) and Allan Watt (Lockerbie). The purpose of this session is to provide participants with some ideas that have emerged from the work into rural disadvantage and the questionnaire on the Rural White Paper. A twenty minute presentation followed by some general discussion is allowed for in advance of moving into the workshop sessions.

5. The purpose of the workshops is to identify some of the measures that could be included in the White Paper by first identifying a vision for rural Scotland then the current realities and finally the barriers between the two and how best these barriers might be overcome through the White Paper. One of the dangers is that the workshop sessions focus on particular sectors such as housing or agriculture or the environment. The intention is to focus on rural issues in a more holistic way. One way of emphasising this approach is to identify integrating themes. Four such themes could include:

• Rural disadvantage and access to social, economic and cultural opportunities.
• Sustainable Development.

• Community Involvement and Empowerment.

• Mechanisms to achieve a more integrated approach to rural development.

6. Session 1 should develop a vision for rural Scotland two years after the publication of the White Paper as the participants would like to see it from their different perspectives. There should be scope to develop a range of visions including both the realistic and the idealistic. The output should be a series of ten short statements that make up the vision. Examples of the type of statements that might be envisaged include:

• A place where there are thriving communities with a broad age and social economic profile.
• Rural communities that are more self contained.
• Rural communities that are better connected to adjacent rural and urban communities.
• A place where there is a practical understanding of the relationship between economic needs and effective husbandry of resources.

7. The output from the first session should be ten short statements that make up a vision. The statements need not necessarily be consistent but should reflect the varying points of view in the group. This session will last 50 minutes.

8. The purpose of the session 2 is to identify the key features of the situation in rural Scotland as it is at present. To some extent it should be possible to draw from the morning presentation and examples might include:

• The loss of indigenous young people and the break-up of the community structure.
• Lack of access to quality employment opportunities on the part of women and highly qualified young people in particular.
• The difficulty that young people have in obtaining a house they can afford so that they can take up local employment opportunities and bring up their families in the area.
• Environmental damage arising from inappropriate forestry and agriculture grants and incentive regimes.

9. This session runs on to session 3 but about 50 minutes should be allowed (less if this is adequate). The output from session 2 should be a list of the ten key features that describe the reality of rural Scotland today.

10. The purpose of the third session is two fold. Firstly, to identify the barriers between the present realities identified in session 2 and the vision identified in session 1. These should be listed and could include issues such as the following:

• Lack of an integrated approach between different statutory bodies in terms of rural development policies and programmes.
• Lack of resources or difficulties in targeting effectively the resources that are available.
• The pattern of landownership and the difficulties of obtaining land for housing or economic development.

11. The final session will be to consider in detail ways in which some of the barriers might be overcome having particular regard to measures that could be included in the Rural White Paper. The group should aim to devise as many measures as possible but take time at the end to identify what they consider to be the three key measures for inclusion in the Rural White Paper. This could include the following:

• The establishment of a rural development agency within or outwith existing structures. (e.g. outwith could include something along the lines of the Rural Development Commission in England which is an entirely separate agency working directly to the Department of Environment. Examples within existing structures could include a rural enterprise company coming under Scottish Enterprise/Highlands and Islands Enterprise or a partnership grouping along the lines of the Cairngorms Partnership but covering rural Scotland).
• A rural aid fund along the lines of the urban aid fund but targeted through a mix of geographical areas and client groups. This could also be achieved through a rural challenge based on priority areas/client groups along the lines of that already established in Strathclyde Region and operated by the Rural Development Commission in England. Another model is a rural premium based on standard spending assessments and delivered through main stream budgets operated by local authorities and government agencies.
• Scrapping of the right to buy in rural areas where public rented housing is less than a certain percentage of the total stock.
• Establishing local land trusts to fund the acquisition of land needed for development with compulsory powers if necessary.
• A programme to facilitate, stimulate and support community involvement through the appointment of local animateurs and or funding to remove the barriers to key individuals becoming involved at the local level.

12. Flip charts will be available in each of the workshops and the facilitators should ensure that these are written up and handed over to Rural Forum's co-ordinator for each of the meetings. These will be as follows:

Inverness - Di Alexander
Perth - Morag MacNicol
Inverurie - Sue Sadler
Lockerbie - David Rothe