Future Farming (2020-present)
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The Future Farming and Countryside programme was set up to replace the EU-funded Basic Payments Scheme to farmers, due to close for good in 2024. The programme is responsible for delivering the most significant changes in agriculture since the 1940s, designing and implementing a new set of domestic arrangements for land use across the country.
Like UC, a lot of the public debate around the Future Farming programme is likely to focus on the political decisions, such as the amounts of money awarded to farmers who deliver certain outcomes. And like UC, the level of success in achieving those outcomes depends significantly on economics. Good communications and service design cannot substitute for adequate investment. But these things done poorly can create insurmountable barriers to the effective use of public funds, regardless of how much is spent.
Like UC post-reset, the Future Farming programme used ways of working designed to effectively direct public money towards delivering outcomes and make it apparent more quickly if that wasn’t happening. The team used the same “test and learn” approach, iterating both the delivery mechanisms and the policy simultaneously, as they steadily expanded the rollout to ever-larger groups of eligible farmers, landowners, and land managers. That’s the main difference between this and most other government programmes: usually, policy is written early and locked down before implementation and delivery even begin. In Future Farming, the policy responds as the team learns.
The farming industry has noticed the difference. Seeing the positive headline “Defra responds to farmers’ feedback” on the front page of an industry newspaper not only reveals how important this iterative approach is to stakeholders, but also how unexpected. That a government programme should be seen to listen and consequently make changes—in response to informed feedback—to one of the most important interventions in land use policy for several decades should not be news. Yet it is.
The programme communication doesn’t focus on handling and spinning, but on listening.
The Future Farming programme has deliberately taken a very different approach to communicating, placing more emphasis on working in the open and actively canvassing for feedback and criticism, rather than adopting a reactive, defensive posture. The senior official responsible for the programme has used social media from the outset to communicate directly with farmers and others affected, as well as spending a substantial amount of her time meeting farmers and other potential service users in person. Giving the programme a human face—and showing that feedback has been translated into changes—has generally led to more constructive engagement, and a better-designed service. That doesn’t mean the team has to agree with or adopt all the feedback it receives, but it is at least given a genuine hearing and response.
The farming industry has noticed the difference. Seeing the positive headline “Defra responds to farmers’ feedback” on the front page of an industry newspaper not only reveals how important this iterative approach is to stakeholders, but also how unexpected. That a government programme should be seen to listen and consequently make changes—in response to informed feedback—to one of the most important interventions in land use policy for several decades should not be news. Yet it is.
The programme communication doesn’t focus on handling and spinning, but on listening.
The Future Farming programme has deliberately taken a very different approach to communicating, placing more emphasis on working in the open and actively canvassing for feedback and criticism, rather than adopting a reactive, defensive posture. The senior official responsible for the programme has used social media from the outset to communicate directly with farmers and others affected, as well as spending a substantial amount of her time meeting farmers and other potential service users in person. Giving the programme a human face—and showing that feedback has been translated into changes—has generally led to more constructive engagement, and a better-designed service. That doesn’t mean the team has to agree with or adopt all the feedback it receives, but it is at least given a genuine hearing and response.