Monitoring Progress

•		Encouragement will be given to organisations and individuals to highlight action they are taking by submitting emails through the website,
•		The Steering Group will review progress at six-monthly intervals
•		An annual report will be prepared early each year, summarising achievements of the past year, and published on the website.
•		The UK database, BARS (Biodiversity Action Reporting System), will be used to record action.

Anyone can visit the BARS website to check how biodiversity action plans are doing right across the UK. Visit www.ukbap-reporting.org.uk

BARS was launched nationally in March 2005. It is a monitoring tool that will help assess the delivery of local, regional and UK biodiversity action. It has been established with the intention of becoming 'the future' for monitoring progress, enabling an overview of the situation across the country to be gained with ease. The system includes information on habitat/species targets, actions and outcomes, and includes locally held information on status and trends.

Population of the database by various organisations across the country is optional.

Other aspects:

•		The database incorporates drop down menus and tick boxes; free text options are limited
•		Population of baseline data is time-consuming; updates on action less so.
•		Compulsory and optional extras (eg. trends) are incorporated
•		Space is given primarily to actions themselves rather than to background information; targets/actions need to be clearly distinguished
•		Some information may be reserved as confidential (eg. financial, time).
•		Specific actions and annual work programme for individuals and organisations contributing to a particular biodiversity action plan may be drawn up; this is supplemented by ‘added extras' such as ‘reminder' mail-outs
•		The database can accommodate generic actions (eg. communications)
•		There is opportunity to set up various ‘inputters' with a variety of rights of access
•		The system enables anyone in the UK to search for the BBAP and for comparative targets towards species or habitats and vice versa
•		Database searches are diverse (eg. according to local sites where action is specifically taken)
•		Summary reports may be generated from the system
•		There is flexibility in the system in that data may be inputted/outputted at any time
•		At present, no links exist with biological recording (ie. Recorder, GIGL, NBN) or management recording systems

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