WIREDGOV

Over the last year, we've been reviewing rural proofing. We committed to doing this in late 2007, following the publication of our latest rural proofing monitoring report . We've begun a programme of work to help government departments fulfil their responsibilities to rural proof their policy decisions.

We welcome the recent Rural Proofing discussion paper by Newcastle University's Centre for Rural Economy (CRE). It discusses the future for rural proofing within the context of the Government’s mainstreaming agenda, echoing many of our review's findings.

We've been discussing with Defra how our respective responsibilities for mainstreaming and rural proofing can be brought together, to provide the maximum support to policy-makers and delivery bodies at national, regional and local levels.

Government remains committed to ensuring the needs of rural people are addressed effectively through mainstream policy making and delivery. We've been working to identify the best ways for achieving this. As part of this, we have been reviewing the rural proofing tools and advice, and intend to re-launch this in the near future.

Find out more about our work on Rural Proofing