Contrary to what some people may believe, delivering good outcomes for communities and the economy – while also protecting our valuable natural environment – can produce win-win results.
I feel passionate that people, our economy and our environment can thrive alongside each other. This view was formed from my childhood growing up in Teesside, an area of heavy industry, but also an area with vibrant wildlife and wonderful landscapes.
I joined Natural England because I believe the work we do is important. Our country’s environment and landscapes are a precious resource, which is the foundation of much of our economy, culture and wellbeing. We should look after it carefully, both for now and for the future. These convictions are at the heart of the changes that we are now making at Natural England.
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Over the past year, Natural England has been working hard to show it is a fully efficient government body which does the right thing for our environment as well as contributing to the growth agenda. We have introduced some fairly bold and far-reaching changes to the way we operate to move us away from being seen as regulators and more towards enablers.
We have been stripping away bureaucracy and tick-box conservation to replace it with real world outcomes and make it far easier to work with us. That means closer working with business to help them achieve their goals while also helping the environment.
There are three key actions we are making to help bring about change: adopting an "outcomes approach" to improve our work with partners and stakeholders; increasing our income and cutting red tape; and introducing greater transparency and access to data.
The "outcomes approach" is at the heart of our changes. This means working with others on what we want to achieve in the real world rather than focussing on rules and processes. It is about listening more and agreeing common objectives while explaining our working. While our advice will always be based on government policy, the law and evidence, we will strive to work with the grain where possible, rather than against it.
The principles of this outcomes approach are:
- Engaging early to listen to what people want and to help them achieve their aims in a way that benefits the environment.
- Building a common understanding of what we are trying to achieve on the ground. Be it in an upland moor, a port development or a local nature reserve, we and will always seek the best outcomes for everybody, at the right pace.
- Being completely transparent and answering questions in a way people can understand.
- Providing clear and objective advice based on an even-handed view of the best available evidence.
We are cutting out internal process to reduce red tape so that we can save business and land managers time and money and direct more of our own resources towards helping others to protect the environment.
One example is our pilot of a new strategic approach to great crested newt licencing. This project will mean better and more intelligent use of data and improved strategic decision-making around impacts to significantly reduce the licencing and mitigation costs to business and provide much better protection for the newts.
Elsewhere we are building up our enhanced chargeable advice service so that we can meet strong market demand from business for our assistance in helping them progress their projects in an environmentally friendly way. We will also be launching our modern apprenticeships scheme, to provide jobs and build skills and expertise in the in the rural economy and environment sector.
We are expanding open access to our environmental data to help open up new market opportunities for business and rural communities, and developing our approach to conservation and designations as part of the overarching strategy of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. These will clearly set out our focus and show where we will direct our efforts to maximise our contribution as an organisation. The designation strategy will show which sites we are progressing for protection and why, so that stakeholders and interested parties for the first time will have complete transparency around the process.
This is a huge step for our organisation. One year on, working with our chairman Andrew Sells, a new executive board and a new leadership team, we have made good progress – but this is really just the start.
Natural England’s committed and expert workforce is responding to the challenges of the future, tackling the big issues and challenging the status quo where necessary. We can’t rely on the old ways of doing things if we are to achieve our desired outcome to secure a healthy environment, economy and society.