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CHAPTER TWO METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Introduction

2.1 This chapter reviews the methodological issues behind the assessment of the impacts and outcomes of land reform based on the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods ( SRL) framework. It presents a set of guiding ideas behind the development of a set of Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for assessment of the impacts or outcomes of the land reform measures introduced in Scotland since 1997.

2.2 Adopting a livelihoods approach, supplemented by the use of criteria and indicators, is entirely consistent with the Logical Framework Approach (often referred to as the Log-frame approach) which is used in all significant Department for International Development ( DfID) projects. The Log-frame approach is also an approved form of evaluation cited in the EUMEANS report on evaluative methods, has a long history of application in complex multi-sectoral policy and project interventions in rural development situations and is seen as a useful means of exploring both social and economic outputs and outcomes. In a recent study for DEFRA, Yaron (2006) argues for an approach to policy evaluation based on so-called logic models, such as the Log-frame approach.

2.3 The key element of the Log-frame approach (see Figure 2.1) is a desire to connect the project's purpose, inputs and outputs. Alongside these highly structured approaches there are alternative approaches to project evaluation, especially that associated with LEADER and other types of 'soft' interventions to support sustainable rural development, which would point to a need to think beyond outputs to outcomes, including process-related outcomes, and to give greater attention to the social context in which the policy or project is framed. This need to look beyond outputs and explore impacts and outcomes and contextualise these in their social and institutional context informs this study.

2.4 Yaron (2006) argues forcefully for a mixed methods approach, based on both qualitative and quantitative components, noting that it is important to avoid a snap-shot, one-off evaluative approach. It is recognised that the impacts will not necessarily arise immediately after the policy intervention or legislative change. Consequently, evaluation approaches should recognise the need to revisit the field to assess for outcomes with a long gestation period.

2.5 The Log-frame approach is equally applicable at project or policy level. In the case of assessing the impacts and outcomes of the suite of land reform measures, the same approach can be used.

Figure 2.1. The Logical Framework Approach

Source: AusGUIDE, The Logical Framework Approach (2003),

http://portals.wdi.wur.nl/files/docs/ppme/ausguidelines-logical%20framework%20approach.pdf

Balancing qualitative and quantitative analyses

2.6 A mixed methods approach entailing both quantitative and qualitative components will yield a richer evidence base for the impacts and outcomes of land reform measures in Scotland than would either a quantitative or qualitative approach alone. Each provides a lens through which to examine the problem, though they tend to be associated with different spatial scales, with the qualitative approach being better for drilling down and the quantitative approach being perhaps more applicable in coarser-grained analysis.

2.7 Some practitioners of qualitative social science tend to reject positivistic approaches and invoke ones based on the study of power and its mediation, constructivist approaches, realist approaches, or other post-positivist or post-modernist methodologies and epistemologies. Qualitative social science tends to eschew what it perceives to be spurious quantification and use discourses and narratives to deepen understanding of social processes and practices. The assertion of an indicators approach might appear to run counter to this. However, there is a need for both quantitative and qualitative social data collection.

2.8 Quantitative social science implies a reducibility of the social and economic realm to something measurable. However, the measurability of particular social and economic phenomena varies enormously from fields where accurate and useful measures can be readily found, to other fields where both what needs to be measured and the accuracy of the process are both negotiated. Some of the concepts associated with land reform such as greater capacity for self determination or involvement in decision making cannot be readily quantified and may be more susceptible to narrative interpretation.

2.9 Bryden and Geisler (2007) argue explicitly for the need to understand the relationship between community and land reform in the Scottish context. They identify the Scottish model as 'community-centric, inspired in part at least by community-based natural resource management and community development visioning, bolstered by mixed models of community ownership and control' (op. cit: 30-31). Equally, Mackenzie (2004) asserts the distinctiveness of the Scottish land reform model by reference to its strongly articulated community dimension. These observations imply a necessity to grasp the cultural and the community dimensions of land reform and to recognise that the metrics through which the performance of the suite of land reform measures needs to be assessed need to accommodate more than a narrowly determined set of socio-economic variables. However, many land reform measures do not have so much a community vision as a more conventional individualistic assertion of rights, as in the proposals to remove feudal tenure. Even within the quintessentially communal domain of crofting tenure, de facto privatisation has occurred (Brown, 2007). Whether individualistic or communal land reform is the object of attention, there is still a need to consider the social and cultural context.

2.10 In practice, a combined Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework and Log-frame approach provides a bridging means between qualitative social science with its focus on process and culture and quantitative social science with its tendency to focus on socio-economic outputs and outcomes. For example, there is an argument for using both expert and lay groups to establish perceived outcomes using an indicators approach, with no implied supremacy of one indicator over the other. Indeed, in many ways, the indicator approach replaces the more conventional reductionist positivist approaches of traditional economically centred project appraisal (such as cost benefit analysis) by invoking a collectively agreed range of indicators to shed light on a wider range of social and economic outcomes which assumes no primacy of economic over other indicators. Further, the SRL approaches and Log-frame approach readily allow room for discursive and qualitative evidence alongside their more formal analyses.

2.11 The use of indicators raises significant practical challenges. Indicators are needed for several reasons: in positivistic studies to explore a relationship between an input and an output or outcome; and in studies looking at impacts on different stakeholders to identify their differing perceptions of outcome. In almost all situations, there is a need to compromise between availability and comprehensiveness. A wide-ranging study needs a broad set of indicators, but if the most desirable indicators are unavailable and too costly to obtain, compromises may be necessary.

The Sustainable Rural Livelihoods Framework

Background

2.12 The Sustainable Rural Livelihoods ( SRL) approach was developed in the early 1990s by Robert Chambers and others at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex (Chambers and Conway 1992). It was absorbed into the DfID orthodoxy in the late 1990s and then became a required component in the planning and evaluation of all DfID-supported projects. At about the same time, other international organisations, ranging from the United Nations to NGOs such as Oxfam, developed variants on the livelihoods approach. In the late 1990s, DfID summarised the state of the art in a wide-ranging publication (Carney 1998).

2.13 The principal rationale for the application of the SRL approach is that it enables a more flexible and holistic perspective on the impacts and outcomes of changes in livelihoods arising from changes in practice and policy or donor interventions than narrower mono-disciplinary, predominantly economic approaches. It is its capacity to offer a holistic means of exploring impacts and outcomes that makes it appropriate for this study.

2.14 The SRL framework is seen as a means of analysis of the multiple factors conditioning livelihoods and the consequences of undertaking livelihood enhancing interventions. The fundamentals of the SRL approach in its DfID formulation are usefully summarised in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 The DfID Sustainable Rural Livelihoods approach

Source: DfID, Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets

2.15 Although most early applications of the livelihoods approach have been within developing countries, there is nothing about the approach which invalidates it in the context of developed countries. Chambers and Conroy's (1992) definition is equally valid in developed and developing contexts:

'A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets, (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, both now and in the future, while not undermining the resource base' (quoted in Carney 1998).

2.16 The first element in the SRL model is to recognise that rural (or any) people are at different times and for different reasons subjected to trends, shocks and stresses which compromise the livelihoods of different groups and individuals. In the DfID model, seasonality is included as there can be major problems of seasonally constrained livelihoods at certain times in the year in developing countries.

2.17 The second element of the livelihoods framework comprises the livelihoods assets pentagram. The differential ability of different groups to adapt to these stresses (and the overall impact on their livelihoods) is contingent on their livelihood assets. The assets pentagram is at the heart of the SRL approach and in the DfID approach is based around the identification and measurement of five types of capital:

• Environmental capital: this is the natural capital embodied in the environment and the ecosystem goods and services that it provides.
• Human capital: this is the levels of technical and business skills of the populations, including their levels of educational attainment. It represents a stock of skills and knowledge that can be applied to livelihood enhancement.
• Social capital: this comprises the levels of trust between actors and the networks which sustain communities.
• Financial capital: this is the finance available for investment in livelihood enhancing strategies and should include the value of capital assets that provide collateral to borrow against.
• Physical capital: this is the physical infrastructure of roads buildings and other man-made structures.

2.18 These assets can be considered at a number of levels from individuals to households, to groups and communities. The centrality of the asset base to sustainable livelihoods is self-evident:

'Sustainable systems - whether livelihoods, communities or national economies - accumulate stocks of assets; they increase the capital base over time. Unsustainable systems deplete or run down capital, spending assets as if they were income, and so leaving less for future generations.'

http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html#1

2.19 A team at the University of Bath (White and Ellison 2006) has argued strongly for the inclusion of cultural/symbolic capital and offer a somewhat different framework, using the term resources rather than capital. Within a conventional livelihoods framework, this would suggest the model be based around a capitals/assets hexagon rather than a pentagram.

2.20 The third element of the livelihoods model is the appraisal of the institutional structures and policies and processes which mediate possible livelihood enhancing strategies. Typically the identification of weaknesses in this area (such as the structure of land ownership in the case of land reform) provides the basis for developing a strategic response which, in essence, becomes the fourth stage of the model.

2.21 This fourth element comprises the elaboration of the livelihood enhancing strategies. These strategies can be policy-driven or based on other actions or interventions by a range of actors and stakeholders. They are an explicit response to the juxtaposition of the identified vulnerabilities, the capital asset weaknesses and the transforming structures and processes. The livelihoods approach highlights the need for stakeholder engagement, both in identifying levels of capital assets and in delivery of livelihood enhancing strategies.

2.22 The final element of the livelihoods model is the examination of the various feedback loops, which expose whether the interventions or changed practices have altered the capital asset base and reduced vulnerabilities. It is at this stage that it is necessary to revisit the baseline indicators of the capitals or assets in order to explore the impact of the livelihood enhancing strategies.

Implementation

2.23 The implementation of the SRL approach is highly flexible. It is frequently associated with the use of indicators to assess each of the capitals/assets. The indicators are often expressed qualitatively or ordinally through web-graphs which give a visual indication of the strengths and weaknesses with respect to the different capitals, but the framework can readily accommodate more quantitative approaches.

2.24 The level of detail and the methods used to obtain data to act as indicators for each of the capitals can be undertaken in many different ways. In developing countries, many users recommend highly participatory methods, not least because such approaches are often deemed more effective at measuring the variables that matter most to local people. In highly participatory applications of the method in developing countries, quantification is often eschewed, but in more developed country contexts, or where better data are available, greater quantification may be both possible and desirable.

2.25 A cluster of indicators is normally identified in order to assess levels of capital in one of the fields. In the context of this study, we use available statistics from published sources and then go on to use expert knowledge from key informants and further evidence gleaned from published work to identify key variables with respect to the six capitals as they are affected by land reform measures. There is almost always a need to balance the desirability of using appropriate indicators with the cost of obtaining them.

Applications

2.26 In almost all its applications, the SRL approach places particular attention on the remediation of poverty and the improvement of the livelihoods and well-being of disadvantaged and socially excluded groups. It is equally applicable at examining changes in the well-being of more affluent groups but, since its widespread application, the general thrust of DfID policies has been pro-poor and NGO users have adopted similar approaches, whether in the UK or in developing countries.

2.27 Although evolving in a developing country context, livelihoods analysis was transferred from its original context into the economies in transition in Eastern Europe from the mod-1990s (Slee 2001). DfID was active throughout the former parts of the Soviet Union and its associated satellite states from Bulgaria in the south, to Estonia in the north. In all DfID-supported interventions, the SRL approach was used. Livelihoods analysis found a new locus of application, and was generally found to be a positive contribution in exploring the opportunities for sustainable development in rural areas, which were often undergoing very significant land reform, usually associated with privatisation.

2.28 Considerable interest has been expressed in applying the livelihoods approach in rural development in more developed countries. A scoping exercise was undertaken in Scotland in 2002 by the University of Glasgow and a 2003 special issue of the Community Development Journal was devoted to the subject. A Rural Net conference in England recently argued the case for a livelihoods approach based on the capitals model ( http://ruralnet.typepad.com/conference/2006/07/ruralnet2006_ex.html). The closest parallel application of the method to the assessment of impacts of land reform can be seen in IMPACT, an EUFAIR project (O'Connor et al, 2006). They use the term livelihoods assets to describe the five capitals and note that:

"the sustainable livelihoods approach is intended as an analytical structure for coming to grips with the reality of people's livelihoods. The assumption is that people pursue a range of livelihood outcomes such as adequate income, material well-being, quality of life, quality of environment, reduced vulnerability - by drawing on the pool of available assets to pursue a range of activities." (13)

2.29 They go on to assert that livelihood strategies are a function of person choices, available possibilities and note that 'these factors in turn are greatly influenced by the policy and institutional environment and the processes created by the state and the private sector, (ibid.). The focus in the IMPACT study is on how new types of organisation and enterprise have deepened, broadened and regrounded the asset base of the farming community.

2.30 Since that time, there has been a proliferation in the use of the approach and the methods are widely described on a number of websites for use by practitioners. Although the bulk of applications relating to SRL still relate to developing countries, there is evidence that it may be particularly appropriate as a lens through which to explore complex resource management and rural development in developed countries too. In Australia, the SRL provides a significant research theme in CSIRO's (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) work where they seek to research how 'prosperous and sustainable rural enterprises driven by innovative management attuned to the Australian environment and adapted to global change' can be created. In the Cairngorms National Park, Forster advocates a modified SRL approach to addressing to addressing the complex policy challenge of rural housing.

2.31 It has also been suggested that the SRL approach has salience in exploring the adjustment challenge in relation to Scottish fisheries policy. The livelihoods approach merits attention by:

• "Putting people's social and economic activities at the centre of the analysis
• Taking a view of the options for management and development intervention that transcends traditional sectoral boundaries such as fisheries, agriculture and tourism and that incorporates over-arching issues that affect all people, irrespective of occupation, such as access to social services ( e.g. health, education, social security, legal and judicial services).
• Making links between local issues and wider concerns such as national policy and economic or social change.
• Being responsive and participatory in addressing management priorities. This normally involves working in partnership with fishers and other stakeholders in the public and private sectors and promotes a dynamic, adaptive approach to management.
• Taking a wide view of sustainability: there are four key dimensions to sustainability - economic, institutional, social and environmental sustainability. All are important, and a livelihoods approach seeks a balance between them, which will often mean compromises and trade-offs will need to be made."

(Allison, 2003)

Summary

2.32 The SRL approach is a highly suitable technique for exploring livelihood changes arising from policy and other interventions. From its beginnings in a developing country context, it has been increasingly applied within the UK or more widely in European evaluative studies of rural development. It is highly non-prescriptive and flexible and thus requires careful application. It is more constructivist than positivist in its theoretical underpinnings, as it usually depends on significant stakeholder engagement, but it is sufficiently flexible to allow quasi-positivist analysis of selected variables and indicators.

Issues arising from the application of the SRL framework

2.33 Our approach in this study, which uses a livelihoods/indicators and mixed qualitative/quantitative methods has many similarities to and draws on an ongoing study of Livelihoods after Land Reform being undertaken in South Africa Namibia and Zimbabwe. In southern Africa, the principal concern has been the effectiveness of land reform in poverty reduction. In South Africa, the programme of reform, like that in Scotland, has been multifaceted. The study team argue for both household level analysis and meso-level analysis. Interim observations suggest a reform programme that has not delivered the expected outcomes and a number of reasons are offered. In particular, it is recognised that the capacity of those acquiring land to develop new forms of enterprise may be limited and that, over and above access to land, there are other factors relating to economic, human and social capital which underpin sustainable livelihood enhancement.

2.34 The elaboration of the asset base and the measurement of the levels of capital of different groups depend on the identification of appropriate indicators. The Log-frame approach, rooted as it is in specifying a relationship between policy or project action and objective verifiable indicator, dovetails into the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, providing the substantive information to assess the extent of change in a livelihood-creating asset.

2.35 Within the Log-frame approach, indicators occupy a critical position in the evaluative process, whether ex ante, when the selection of appropriate indicators to map what the project or policy is setting out to achieve, is a crucial step, or ex post, when the measurement of change from a known baseline is a critical issue in assessing impacts. Indicators are widely used in policy evaluation to determine the success or otherwise of policy and are widely used by government as a means of assessment of whether Public Service Agreement targets have been met.

2.36 The degree of sophistication of indicator sets varies enormously between different types of evaluation. The forest sector has perhaps the most coherently elaborated approach based on the identification of criteria and indicators approaches in the evaluation of sustainable forest management. This situation arose because of recognition at the Rio Earth Summit of the need to address sustainable forestry and of the emergence of three major international groupings to develop criteria and indicators approaches to determine progress towards sustainable forest management. Although the early approaches in Europe were strongly dominated by bio-physical criteria, the criteria and indicators approach has evolved to give greater recognition to social and economic criteria.

2.37 Behind the use of C&I approaches is the critical distinction between criteria and indicators, which separates out the arena of measurement (the criterion) and the measure (the indicator). Behind the use of indicators in policy evaluation lies the need to elaborate the criteria to be explored. In this investigation, we seek to unpack the underlying policy agenda and, in collaboration with key informants and stakeholders, tease out appropriate criteria and then match these with indicators that are either available or potentially gatherable. Given the messiness (spatial resolution, incompleteness, etc) of datasets, the matching of criteria with appropriate indicators is no easy task and is beset with the need to compromise.

2.38 For an example of this, and using a discursive approach in which stakeholders were given significant opportunities to comment, the Forestry Commission's approach to establishing Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management illustrates the need to compromise between what might be desired and what is available as an indicator, especially in relation to social and economic indicators. The principal constraint on obtaining effective indicators is either the absence of data or the high cost of obtaining them.

2.39 The Scottish Rural Development Plan ( SRDP) is underpinned by a set of procedures which require the specification and measurement of a broad set of criteria and indicators. Five main types of indicator are identified. These comprise:

• Baseline indicators
• Input indicators
• Output indicators
• Result indicators
• Impact indicators

2.40 In the case of the SRDP, the development of indicators is built into the project planning process ex ante, rather than the ex-post approach was necessary in this study. The SRDP approach reflects current practice and the extent to which assessment of impacts and outcomes has moved in the last few years. As far as possible, and recognising the constraints imposed by the challenge of back-casting, this project sought to adopt a similarly robust approach for the suite of land reform measures.

2.41 Indicators are also used in the evaluative framework favoured by the European Environment Agency and the OECD based on the DPSIR model, namely an examination of drivers, pressures, states, impacts and responses. Blackstock et al. (2006) have used this approach (without examining drivers) to explore the development of indicators for sustainable tourism in the Cairngorms National Park. Despite the contextual differences, the study exposes a need to consider whether the indicators relate to driver, pressure, state, impact or response.

2.42 In many ways, policy evaluators are most interested in policy outcomes, which might be seen to imply a focus on impact and response indicators. However, in the case of land reform in Scotland there is also a clear interest in processes. New processes have been devised within the policy structures to ensure equity and participation by the affected communities and stakeholders.

2.43 One particular facet of the evaluation of the impacts of the suite of land reform measures is the extent to which the existence of the legislative measures empowering Community Right to Buy generates an all-embracing positive influence on rural development, especially in the crofting areas, where a right to buy is not contingent on the owner's willingness to sell. It seems plausible that the new legislation might have generated more positive behaviour towards crofting tenants or to other community-based rural development initiatives by landowners than might have occurred in the past when no back-stop measures could be employed to address the recalcitrant laird (or other landowner) predisposed to deny development opportunities through his or her control over the land resource. However, interposed leases present a significant issue that has the capacity to reduce crofter power. It is likely that such a positive impact would be most keenly felt in crofting areas, but it is possible that a similar effect has operated more widely among the landowning community. Where legislation and other measures have been enacted because of perceived adverse effects of land ownership on sustainable rural development, it might be expected that those whom the LRPG had seen as barriers to sustainable rural development, might try to prove otherwise by their actions.

2.44 A further issue concerns the time path of outcomes and impacts. The suite of measures put in place may not engender immediate impacts. A snapshot at a point in time may find no discernible outcome, but at some later point an impact or outcome might arise, which is directly contingent on the legislative or other changes. The commitment of the previous Scottish Executive to undertake regular monitoring should pick up this issue, as long as there is a consistent basis for monitoring. Separate to variation measures may generate different time paths of response, not least because of differences in the capacity of individual communities to undertake voluntaristic measures. Further, there may be implicit recognition that a demonstration effect should work in the positive sense in that communities would become aware of how land reform had made a difference to sustainable rural development outcomes in some communities. However, it is also conceivable that a negative demonstration effect could occur, if for example, any Community Right to Buy ( CRtB) cases became mired in controversy.

2.45 Any study of indicators in relation to complex multi-facetted policy change such as land reform is fraught with difficulty. The indicators of pressure are rarely quantified at the outset, although can sometimes be elaborated by back-casting where suitable datasets exist. In the case of land reform in Scotland, the underlying structure of land ownership was seen to exert a negative impact on sustainable rural development. Some data on the structure of land ownership are available (see for example Wightman 1996), but the diversity of land ownership can only be loosely elicited from official data such as annual farm census data.

2.46 The retro-application of an indicators approach is bound to be problematic (as has been encountered widely in ex-post appraisals of LEADER), in that the best available indicator for the baseline may represent very much a second best variable associated with a particular criterion. Thus, the design of indicators ex-post (in contrast to the approach now being developed ex-ante for the SRDP) creates a problem of often having no benchmark against which to level change, but nonetheless, once established, provides a suite of measures that could be used to measure subsequent change.

2.47 Key elements of the reform measures introduced since 1997 were the pursuit of greater diversity in land ownership and the pursuit of a greater degree of community involvement in relation to rural land use. It is, of course, possible to argue that these two specified components are ends in themselves. However, more probably, they are means to an unspecified but nonetheless sought-after end of more sustainable rural communities and land use, more sustainable rural development and, generally, more sustainable livelihoods. The recognition of means (diversity and participation) and ends (sustainable livelihoods, development) is important if we are to provide a framework for a detailed investigation of land reform impacts and outcomes. It is imperative to take in community engagement and diversity issues but equally important to embrace the wider issues of sustainable rural communities and development.

2.48 As intimated above, any approach based on criteria and indicators approaches depends on recognition of relevant criteria, and appropriate indicators. The selection of indicators is nearly always a compromise between the cost of obtaining the indicator and its effectiveness in measuring change in relation to the criterion under scrutiny. It may be better to have no indicator than a bad indicator.

2.49 In this study land reform is seen as contributing to a wider sustainable rural development (and possibly distributive justice and other agendas, from health to education) rather than simply using clusters of indicators around the diversity or participation fields. This approach is justified by the LRPG's clear identification of more sustainable rural development as the desired outcome and greater diversity and community participation as means of achieving this.

2.50 With a broad suite of policy measures, which often depend on the voluntary uptake of measures 'offered' by the legislation (particularly with right-to-buy components), it is extremely unlikely that available indicators will exist at an appropriate spatial scale. Equally, it is questionable whether an indicator can fully expose the underlying social processes that effect positive change in rural communities as a result of one or more components of the land reform suite being implemented. The very terminology 'suite of policies' implies a degree of interconnectedness which may or may not be apparent through an exploration of outcome or impact indicators.

Core elements of the approach

2.51 The overall approach to identifying both an analysis of impacts and outcomes to date and proposals for a deeper evaluation of the impacts of land reform are based on a mixed methods approach using a modified sustainable livelihoods framework, supported (in the proposals for deeper evaluation) by qualitative analysis.

2.52 The approach was triangulated in a workshop, which enabled a range of stakeholders to establish ex-ante what they would seek as indicators of success of the suite of land reform measures. Subsequently, subgroups of stakeholders were offered opportunities to comment in detail on the draft set of indicators in each arena of reform.

2.53 In summary, the core elements of the approach comprise.

• Use of the SRL framework as the basis for our analysis of both the achievements to date and the deepened analysis of outcomes and impacts of the suite of land reform measures.
• Use of the whole of the SRL framework as the basis for indicator identification and deepening it where appropriate with qualitative information. We will focus on the identification of impact indicators and how these shape changing levels of the capital assets. We also identify context indicators to help set the scene. We also recognise the need to identify process indicators, in view of the explicit concern of the LRPG to increase community engagement in decisions about land.
• Operation of a standardised approach for all six arenas of reform, recognising that the arenas of reform are significantly different.
• Use of key informants to assist in the development of ideas for the scoping report. In all six arenas of reform, key informants were identified and efforts made to contact as many relevant respondents as possible, in order to draw on their understanding of the situation.
• Triangulation of the findings of the scoping study in a workshop attended by a wide range of expert stakeholders. Here the term 'triangulation' is used to allow different stakeholders to present their views on a topic, rather than assuming a unitary view.
• Summary of the findings for each arena of reform in a standardised table, to identify context variables, asset/capitals variables and structure/process variables and, in moving from criteria to indicators, to explore.

2.54 In the standardised table (Appendix 1), Section 1 specifies the context variables these are the socio-economic variables that characterise rural Scotland and which will be subject to change from many forces, including policy and endogenous social and economic change. These provide a benchmark against which the effects of any new policy can be levelled. While attribution between policy cause and socio-economic effect remains difficult to establish, these high level indicators of sustainable rural development frame the analysis and are likely to connect with those in the SRDP. At aggregate level they are widely available but are also likely to be influenced by other factors.

2.55 Section 2 includes six capitals extending the standard DfIDSRL Framework, with the addition ofultural/symbolic capital, as there are some dimensions of land policy which transcend the categories normally used in the livelihoods framework, but might be profoundly important to Scottish rural communities.

2.56 Section 3 identifies a need to explore the transforming structures and processes 'box' in the SRL which considers the existing institutional base and the extent to which it and the associated social and economic processes are altered by (in this case) land reform measures. Using a similar framework to that used with respect to the types of capital, it is possible to identify a number of specific criteria and indicators, which essentially comprise the measures and processes set in train by SRL for each arena of reform (access, nature conservation, crofting, community right-to-buy, farm tenancy, community planning). However, here the focus is on the numerical elaboration of the measures, rather than on the outcomes. This helps expose any gap between measure implemented and the social and economic impacts and outcomes sought, which is explored more fully through an analysis in the state of the system via the six capitals.

Structure of the report

2.57 Each of the arenas of reform is presented as a separate chapter. The final chapter summarises our evidence on the impacts and outcomes that can be assessed from extant data and draws together the findings from the separate chapters to derive a common methodology for a deeper appraisal of the socio-economic impact and outcomes of land reform.

2.58 Alongside the use of the SRL approach as a lens through which to explore the impacts and outcomes of the suite of land reform measures, a complementary more discursive, narrative mode of inquiry is suggested from synthesis of findings which is especially important for particular arenas of reform such as Community Right to Buy or in relation to access, where definitive economic outcomes may be lagged but communities or individuals may nonetheless feel more empowered to act. This enables a drilling down to local level, which is likely to be of fundamental importance in understanding the impacts and outcomes of the voluntaristic land reform measures, with which a relatively small number of communities have engaged to date.

2.59 Central to the approach adopted was a response to key questions raised in the specification for this project:

What do we know from currently available data sources about the impacts of land reform measures?

What methods might be adopted to allow for a deeper and more thorough analysis of the impacts of the suite of land reform measures?

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