LONDON PARKS & GREENSPACES FORUM BIODIVERSITY GROUP

The Green Flag Award Scheme

Wednesday 3 December 2003 GLA 

Present
Jan Hewlett (Chair)
Andrew Bedford (LB Islington)
Paula Johnston (LB Southwark)
Peter Sibley (Consultant) 
Mark Rowe  (Islington) 
Caroline Richards (London Wildlife Trust)
Carlo Laurenzi   (London Wildlife Trust) 
John Sheaff   (LB Southwark)
Paul Highman  (LB Southwark)
Rosie Thornton LB Southwark
Moira Cash  (LB Camden)
Nigel Reeve (Royal Parks)
Richard Barnes (LB Sutton)
Sharon Clouston (LB Sutton)
Mark Perkins  (LB Newham)
Pam Smith (LB Newham)
Jane Gibbon  (LB Newham)
Gabi Howard (LB Camden)
Jane Carlsen (GLA)
Mike Fitt (Royal Parks)
Dennis Clarke (Royal Parks)
John Newton (Ecology Consultancy)
Jill Connelly (LB Brent)
Aine Ryan (LB Brent)
Deborah Fox (CABE Space)
Nicola Mathers (cabe.org.uk) 
Paul Todd (Civic Trust)

1	Introductions and Apologies. 
Apologies have been received from Joyce Bellamy and Ros Brewer. 

2	Green Flag Award Scheme 
Paul Todd gave a presentation on the Green Flag Award Scheme (please see notes attached in pp file).

3. CABESpace

Deborah Fox - of CABESpace - first explained some of her background, including ecological work for the Cleveland Wildlife Trust and a wide range of community development projects.  

She has been mandated to carry out a review of the Green Flag Award (GFA) Scheme, and is asking whether the judging criteria are robust and clear enough. 

Some of the other main areas of her work include:

•	ODPM has asked her to develop by March 2004: 
1.	A performance management tool to review the Green Flag Scheme.  
2.	Good Practice Guidance 
3.	A Green Spaces Strategic Guide.  
•	Involving young people in a Designing Out Envirocrime  Guide for publication in March.  
•	Working with 30 local authorities to help them with Green Space Strategies.
•	Identifying the skills gap

4. John Newton (Ecology Consultant) 

John has a background in nature conservation and was one of the first officers at the London Wildlife Trust. He has been involved in the Green Flag scheme since its very early days and contributed to the first manual Raising the Standard. 

John made the following points:  

•	The scheme can be used to support biodiversity and wildlife as much as possible within the context of the functions of the site
•	The scheme was developed to encourage activities in accordance with sustainability, to serve both people and the environment. For example, it can encourage ensuring that the sourcing of water or energy used on site is not having a negative impact on biodiversity elsewhere, or that sourcing of timber is not resulting in the destruction of an indigenous forest.  
•	It should also involve community and local groups.

He felt that CABE Space and ODPM’s interest in biodiversity and green space is a huge step forward.

5 Question/Answer Session and Contributions from the Floor

Q How can applicants deal with unsuccessful entries?
 (JS) When a borough fails in an application, officers think twice about applying again. Isn’t the point of a GFA entry to identify the problems in parks which have the potential for improvement and do something about them? 

A (PS)  It’s worth understanding how the judging is carried out.  When a site application is made, one set of judges do a desk study of the applicant’s management plan using a checklist.  This flags up what should be looked at during the site visit.  The checklist provides a sort of template for judging, and enables a different set of judges (sometimes) to complete the process.  

(PS) The judges do take budgets into account, due to the large range of entries, their varying scale and available financial resources. 

(JN)  For the GFA, there is no blueprint for the successful park; what counts is how well the entry meets the criteria.

(PT) stressed that an application could be resubmitted the following year with a single additional page explaining changes. Sometimes, applicants presented too much information.  

Q: How can we interest Council politicians/ officers in the GFA scheme? 

(AB) thought that getting the GFA scheme included in the Comprehensive Performance Assessment would make local politicians take it seriously. 

(DF) encouraged participants to get corporate and political buy-in for the liveability agenda.  She also mentioned that the GFA scheme includes a heritage award, which is additional to the main Green Flag Award, although there is no such scheme for biodiversity. 

Q: How can we handle the perceived nebulosity of the GFA standards?  

(DF)   On the basis of conversations with the Audit Commission, DF thought that future guidance could include visual representation of what achievements  are possible.

Q: Clarification was requested on the amount of staff time needed to prepare an application, also for producing a management plan?
(PT) has investigated this issue further since the seminar. In some cases the necessary information may already exist and merely require collation and packaging in the right form, in others where the park is starting from scratch, it could take several months.

Both Paul and Deborah emphasised a need for more judges for the scheme.