Advisory programme
Dynamics
The Council wishes its role to be a meaningful one and aims for far-reaching influence of its advice, both inside and outside the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). It furthermore aims to advise directly to the House of Representatives. There is also room in 2008 for the provinces to request advice from the Council. This is related to the shift in responsibilities following implementation of the ‘Wet Inrichting Landelijk Gebied’ (Rural Areas Planning Law). The work programme has a dynamic character. Intermediate requests for advice, impulses from the ‘strategic planning’ workgroup, discussion groups, workgroup meetings and field visits all have an influence on prioritizing and the scope of the recommendations. The council also offers unsolicited advice, alongside requested advice. This unsolicited advice often comes in the form of brief indicative advice in response to a current issue. The Council explicitly reserves room for this in its work programme.
Realization
The Council has formulated a number of starting points for the realization of the work programme. Central themes are the political relevance of the request and of the advice (pertinence of the advice), selectivity in the choice of topics, addressing dilemmas, being concrete and the desire to communicate clearly, both when forming recommendations and when presenting them. The Council explicitly wishes to avoid double work, both with regard to what the department can do and with reference to what other institutions (research institutions, planning agencies) can do better. The Council also wishes to take up the ‘question behind the question’ and address the aspects of power that are at play in relation to rural areas. These starting points form the basis of the following criteria used by the Council in its choice of topics:
• balanced apportionment over the themes of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (green enterprise, food safety, connection with rural areas and a healthy natural environment);
• diversity in the source of requests for advice (Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, other departments, provinces, House of Representatives and the Council itself);
• balance between current issues and strategic issues formulated for the long term;
• diversity in type of advice (plan making, conceptual, instrumental, politically strategic);
• diversity in presentation (letters of advice, debate, advice reports, articles, photographs and follow-up via the council members’ networks);
• cooperation with other advisory councils where required (integrality).
Each year the minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality decides on the work programme together with the Council and it is presented to the House of Representatives in the autumn.
What the future holds for the Council for Rural Areas
The policy paper submitted by Minister Ter Horst in 2007 on the renewal of government services (Nota Vernieuwing Rijksdienst) proposes that the current advisory councils be accommodated in five policy clusters. Hopefully, this will lead to more integrated recommendatory reports. It means that the Council for Rural Areas, the Council for Housing, Spatial Planning & the Environment and the Council for Transport & Water Management will be bundled in a new ‘Council for the Living Environment‘. This means that the three secretariats will merge. Anticipating the progress of the paper through the Upper Chamber (which took place in early 2009), the Secretaries General of the three ministries began the preparations for the merge of the three Councils.