Project Board

Minutes

Present
Gavin Bloomfield RSPB
Richard Bullock WWT
James Farrell GLA (chair)
Wayne Fitzgerald London Underground (for Dave Mole)
Alister Hayes LB Bromley (representing London Boroughs Biodiversity Forum)
Anne Homyer BTCV (chair of Communications Working Group)
William Moreno London Biodiversity Project Officer
Mary Norden British Waterways (chair of Habitats, Species and Data Working Group) Nigel Reeve Royal Parks (for Mike Fitt)
Jenny Scholfield LWT (chair of Management Working Group)
Sam Willitts English nature (chair of Biodiversity Records Centre Working Group)
Jan Hewlett GLA (funding strategy item)

Apologies
Andrew Bedford (LB Islington and LBBF)
Mike Fitt Royal Parks Dave Mole London Underground
Note: Andy Tomczynski Thames Water will not attend the Partnership for the foreseeable future due to a change of priorities within the company.

Progress reports

Habitats, Species and Data

The working group will define a procedure for the review of action plans (Action MN). Concern was expressed by the Board that plans should only be changed on 3-yearly review. If additional actions/objectives are required, these should be noted by the action plan working group and copied to the Project Officer. We must monitor and report our successes and failures to meet targets, and note the reasons.

The habitats group will co-ordinate new groups to consider the purpose and value of producing new action plans for reedbed, veteran trees and built structures (Action MN).

Biodiversity Records Centre

Records Centre group to meet with business plan group to resolve issue of how the centre links with the Partnership (Action JF).

Communications

The idea of a Partnership poster should be better defined before core funds can be allocated. Anne Homyer is leaving BTCV and will step down as chair of the Communications Working Group. Thank you Anne for your help and input.

Management

Issues covered by membership discussion below.

London Boroughs Biodiversity Forum

Andrew Bedfors is the new chair; ther are a number of vice-chairs, who will attend LBP meetings. Amongs other issues, officers are concerned with the poor references made to Biodiversity in Community Plans and the need to develop biodiversity indicators that are useful at the regional and local levels.

Membership rules for the working groups

Amended rules will be produced and distributed to all chairs to append to their groups' terms of reference (Action JS).

Membership of the Project Board

The 'key sectors' proposal was agreed as the framework for Project Board membership. It was agreed that defining the exact membership is a sensitive issue, but that new members can only join if others leave the Board, or if the Board agrees a new maximum group size (currently 15). It was agreed that the way forward would be as follows. The chair to write to all Project Board members (Action JF) and ask them to:

a) reflect on their role on the Board in relation to the terms of reference;
b) consider whether their organisation still wishes to be represented on the Board, or whether they would be better placed to attend another working group;
c) inform the chair on their decision and the reason for it by a date to be decided. The options would then be:
a) If there are less than 15 bids in total (including 4 places for working group chairs and Project Officer) then the new membership would be put in place in time for the next Project Board meeting;
b) If there are more than 15 bids the next Project Board meeting will vote for which organisations should represent which key sectors;
c) or, if there are more than 15 bids the next Project Board meeting will agree to expand the core membership of the Board allowing for more representatives of the key sectors.

In this scenario there could potentially be 20 places on the board (15 key sectors plus chairs of working groups plus Project Officer) 2 free places would of course remain open to anyone who wishes to attend a meeting (through an approach to the chair).

Business plan

There will be a business plan working group that will meet to finalise the document. PM, MN, SW (and rest of Biodiversity Records Centre Group) volunteered. Doug Napier and Chris Lee ALG to be invited. JF to organise. Key decisions:
a) The marketing post should be better defined, as should the evolution of the project officer post. Tim Chapple Thames Estuary Partnership will be invited to business plan group to help with these issues.
b) There should be a clear distinction made between the biodiversity strategy and the action plan.
c) The plan should quantify the contributions expected from partners. There should be an option to quantify an in-kind contribution, which cannot include attendance at meetings.

Funding strategy

Several members of the Board wished to make comments on the draft presented, and time should be allowed for this. The document should follow the London Biodiversity Partnership design format. It should be sent to all Action Plan leads as their working document, with a list of relevant funding providers (to be provided by AH). The funding strategy working group should consider a terms of reference, to be presented at the next Project Board meeting. The position of the group in the reporting structure of the Partnership will be reconsidered, depending on the role of the group as defined by these Terms.

A.O.B
A representative of the Partnership will attend the meeting of England regions to discuss the implementation of the England Biodiversity Strategy (Action JF).

Next meeting: June 25, 2003

James Farrell 02 April 2003

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