Reframing Rural Policy in the New Scottish Government
A new political landscape for rural Scotland
Following the Scottish National Party’s victory at the Scottish election on May 7th to serve a historic fifth term (albeit without an overall majority), John Swinney was sworn in as Scotland’s First Minister at the Court of Session on Wednesday 20th May. Later that day, he announced his team of nine Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers (down from the previous 12) and reorganised their portfolios.
The Rural Policy Centre’s Jane Atterton and Carey Doyle reflect on the possible implications of the reorganisation for rural policy.
Restructuring Government: what has changed?
Of particular relevance for the 17% of Scotland’s population that lives in rural communities and on its 89 inhabited islands, the post of Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands no longer exists, having been held by Mairi Gougeon since 2021 (with land reform added to title in 2023).
Instead Gillian Martin MSP takes on the role of Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs, while Jim Fairlie MSP retains his role as a Minister, but now as Minister for Agriculture, Marine and the Islands, instead of his previous role (since 2024) as Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity.
There are no Cabinet Secretaries or Ministers with the environment explicitly in their title. However, there is an expectation that bringing together support for rural, islands, agriculture and marine and climate action in one portfolio may help to more closely align these policy domains. This may help to more strongly demonstrate the potential of rural communities to help Scotland reach its net zero targets through peatland restoration, tree planting and renewable energy generation.
Meanwhile there has been a restructuring within the civil service, with the creation of a new Directorate for Local Government and Communities within the Scottish Government’s Directorate General for Communities & External Affairs. This new Directorate is made up of the existing Local Government Directorate and the Islands Policy, Rural Policy and Land Reform Directorate (which up until now has been in the Agriculture and Rural Economy Directorate within the Directorate General for Net Zero.)
Opportunities and risks in the new policy framework
The aim of this change is to bring together the teams working on communities, local government and place to ensure they are more central in the Scottish Government’s policy development and delivery and that they work more closely together. However, this change also has risks, perhaps most notably that rural and islands issues may be sidelined while policies and interventions are urban-focused. There is also now a separation, in organisational terms at least, between rural and island policies and land reform, and agricultural policy.
It is not yet clear how this new structure in the civil service will map onto the Cabinet Secretary and Ministerial portfolios. The Local Government portfolio – in which the new Directorate for Local Government and Communities may sit – rests with Jenny Gilruth MSP, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. Further expertise on community empowerment and community wealth building will also be provided by Minister for Public Finance Hannah Mary Goodlad. The inclusion of the rural and islands policy teams in this Directorate potentially gives rural issues a prominence in government that they have not previously had, particularly given the leadership role for the Deputy First Minister in relation to inter-governmental relations.
However, rural policy and strategy are explicitly part of Gillian Martin MSP’s portfolio alongside climate action and islands the responsibility of Jim Fairlie MSP as Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Islands who supports her. So there may be potential for some confusion here regarding responsibility for supporting rural and island communities.
What next for rural policy?
These are interesting times for rural and islands policy in Scotland. The civil service reorganisation and revised Cabinet Secretary and Ministerial portfolios provide opportunities for demonstrating how rural and island communities deliver to national goals such as net zero or community empowerment, for example. However, they also present challenges, in terms of the coherence of policy-making for rural areas when agricultural policy developments are now located in a different civil service Directorate General, and in terms of the potential for the specificities of rural communities to be lost in national community-focused interventions. The evidence base for demonstrating some of these details - such as SRUC’s 2025 Rural and Islands Insights Report - arguably becomes all the more important.
This latter concern reflects one of the main criticisms of a mainstreaming approach – that rural can be sidelined - but, more positively, the changes represent an opportunity for learning from rural and island community interventions to be shared with national community interventions and policies as part of a process of rural proofing (which Scottish Government has committed to through the use of the Rural Assessment Toolkit which was launched across government in April 2025).
The changes that have occurred are important context for the Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review which has been led by SRUC and is due to publish its final report, including recommendations, in the middle of June. They also provide the context for taking forward SNP manifesto commitments in the new Parliamentary session, including the Rural Renewal Bill and the establishment of a Last Provider Fund to keep shops and other services open when they are the only remaining providers in rural and island communities.