Evaluation of implementation of the section 6 biodiversity duty: 2021 executive summary

Section 6 of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 introduced an enhanced biodiversity and resilience of ecosystems duty for public authorities, which required that they must seek to maintain and enhance biodiversity in exercise of their functions, and in so doing, promote the resilience of ecosystems, so far as consistent with the proper exercise of those functions.

The duty is designed to encourage public authorities to be more responsive and proactive in delivering for biodiversity and to create a greater focus on biodiversity and ecosystem resilience within a framework of corporate planning across organisations. To comply with the duty, public authorities must embed the consideration of biodiversity and ecosystems into their day-to-day activities, policies, plans, programmes, and projects.

To support this embedding, the duty introduced a new planning and reporting requirement. This requires each public authority, which is not a Minister of the Crown or government department, to prepare and publish a plan, and for all public authorities to report every three years to show what they have done to comply with the duty. The first reports from each public authority were due in 2019.

Welsh Government have published a number of guidance documents for public authorities including reporting guidance to assist them in meeting the reporting requirement of the duty. The guidance sets out that reporting against the duty should be proportionate to the size and type of organisation, that public authorities should be allowed flexibility in the form of their report and that reporting could be embedded into annual reporting or other existing reporting mechanism

Welsh Government instigated this evaluation to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the duty. The findings will be used as an evidence base to inform future policy development and also the steps that should be taken to further raise awareness of the duty and to develop additional guidance.

OB3 Research, in collaboration with BRO Partnership, was appointed by Welsh Government to undertake an evaluation of the implementation of the section 6 biodiversity duty.

The aims of the evaluation were to:

• establish the extent to which the duty has been implemented/complied with in the first three years, through the production of plans and reports, and/or through mainstreaming action across organisations
• investigate the enablers and barriers to its implementation
• establish to what extent the guidance provided has been useful, has been followed, and what further guidance and/or support could be provided

The review, undertaken between April and June 2021, included:

• an inception stage, which included a virtual inception meeting with a Welsh Government official
• preparing research instruments, including a bilingual web-based survey and a discussion guide for interviewing representatives from public authorities
• a review of relevant Welsh Government policy documents and documentation
• distributing the web-based survey to all public authorities on Welsh Government’s database and receiving a total of 52 survey responses
• accessing documentation (be that a plan and/or report, published or not published) for a total of 58 authorities and analysing plans/reports in terms of quality, comprehensiveness, adherence to the guidance and alignment with NRAP objectives
• interviewing 31 representatives from a total of 29 public authorities and receiving a written statement or information by email from three authorities (who had not contributed in any other way to the review)
• interviewing representatives from theWelsh Local Government Association (WLGA) and One Voice Wales
• facilitating three focus group discussions with the all-Wales Local Nature Partnership (LNP) Network, the Sustainable Development Coordinators Cymru Plus (SDCC+) Network and one Local Nature Partnership

The evaluation found that in terms of compliance with the duty:

• 56 per cent of public authorities (62 of the 110 who fell within the scope of the study) comply with the requirements of the duty, in that they have prepared at least one document (a plan or report). Of these 26 public authorities had prepared both a plan and report. This finding suggests that further work is required to improve compliance and implementation
• most of the plans/reports reviewed are standalone documents. Very few plans/reports are embedded into corporate documents although this is suggested as good practice by the guidance
• there is good level of awareness and involvement with the duty amongst those public authorities who engaged with the review. The profile of those who engaged with the study is skewed towards those who have made most progress
• the process for producing and approving plans and reports has varied across public authorities, with a single officer often taking this responsibility
• most of the plans and reports were found to be very or fairly comprehensive and some three-quarters of reports were found to adhere to the guidance provided
• strong plans/reports are those which are well considered, informed by clear evidence, easy to read, well laid out, highly visual, make clear reference to Nature Recovery Action Plan (NRAP) objectives and contain specific and measurable actions and achievements
• weaker plans/reports tend to be briefer and less well considered, more akin to a policy statement than an action plan, and overly focused on wider environmental actions rather than specific biodiversity actions

The evaluation found that in terms of alignment with guidance and use of the Nature Recovery Action Plan (NRAP) objectives:

• section 6 plans and reports generally align well with the requirements of the guidance and the NRAP objectives
• awareness of the guidance amongst those who had prepared a plan or report was generally high and most public authorities had used the guidance to prepare their plans and reports and had found it useful in terms of providing them with a framework and structure
• those who had yet to prepare a plan or report had not been as aware of the guidance until being contacted for the research
• public authorities would generally welcome more case studies and best practice examples within the guidance
• the Welsh Government could communicate more regularly with public authorities, particularly to raise awareness at a more senior level about the importance of complying with the duty to improve and maintain biodiversity
• many public authorities would welcome greaterfeedback from the Welsh Government on the content of their section 6 reports.

The key barriers and enablers to implementing the section 6 duty relate to three themes: a) resources, b) knowledge and information, and c) priorities and influences. The evaluation found that:

• lack of resources was identified as the main barrier, particularly by local authorities, due to austerity cuts, depleting ‘green’ teams and changes to the way biodiversity work is funded
• public authorities who do not have dedicated natural resources staff lack knowledge and information about biodiversity
• the duty has often been championed by dedicated individuals who have the appropriate ecology/environmental expertise and strong communication skills
• a key enabler for Group 3 public authorities has been the appointment of elected members as champions for biodiversity across the organisation
• smaller authorities without land have found it difficult to identify plans of action they can take
• the duty has struggled to secure a high level of prominence as other priorities have overshadowed it, including the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act and the climate change agenda
• there are several reasons why public authorities have not prepared or published a plan/report including delays to formal approval processes (often because of COVID-19), lack of awareness of the need to report, and lack of time and resources to do so
• the main reasons why community and town councils have not prepared or published a plan or report include being informed very late of the need to do so as well as a lack of knowledge resources

The evaluation found that in terms of the difference which the duty has made to public authorities’ way of working and reversing the decline of biodiversity: 

• the main impact of the duty has been to increase awareness and understanding of biodiversity across public authorities
• it has contributed positively, but to a lesser degree, to biodiversity becoming more embedded across public authorities’ decision making and service delivery
• the difference made to reversing the decline in biodiversity varies by type of organisation – many local authorities were already active in this area prior to the duty being introduced but the duty has helped to secure greater prominence and importance to the agenda
• many public authorities report that they now mow grass less frequently than previously and better manage it for pollinators and other wildlife. Other changes introduced include wellbeing wildlife gardens, bird and bat boxes, and creation of log piles when trees are removed
• public authorities without land have found it more difficult to implement actions which make a positive contribution to biodiversity and their range of actions are more limited

The report offers eight recommendations for Welsh Government to consider for the future. These cover two key themes: how to improve compliance across public authorities; and further guidance, support and training which is required:

Recommendation 1

Greater clarity needs to be established about the public authorities who fall within scope of the duty. This review found examples whereby public authorities were unclear if they needed to comply with the duty and had assumed, prior to our contact with them, that they were not within scope. The lack of response from 38 public authorities to this review means that further work is required to establish if these remaining authorities are within scope of the duty, and if so, Welsh Government should communicate this as a matter of urgency to individual organisations

Recommendation 2

Once a definitive list of the public authorities who are within scope of the duty is established, Welsh Government should set out (within the guidance) how each public authority is expected to comply with the duty’s reporting requirements. We would suggest that as a minimum public authorities should be required to submit their plans and reports to Welsh Government and that a single repository of these documents be maintained. Welsh Government may wish to consider how it could hold public authorities to greater account if they do not comply with the reporting requirements set out by the duty. This could involve setting out the steps and actions which it will take to address cases of non-compliance e.g. formal reminder to public authorities     

Recommendation 3

Welsh Government needs to improve the contact details it holds for public authorities for the purposes of communicating information about the duty to them. Many of the public authorities included on the database made available to the research team either did not have any contact details or contact details were outdated. Ideally, this database should include details for chief operating officers as well as individuals who have been actively engaged with the duty e.g., a biodiversity/environmental officer or compliance/policy officer. Updated contact details for many of the public authorities were gathered as part of the review and should be used as a starting point for this work

Recommendation 4

Welsh Government should continue to raise awareness about the duty across public authorities, ensuring that written communication is targeted at both senior level representatives within public authorities as well as operational staff who are actively involved with planning and reporting against the duty. This will be particularly important in the run up to public authorities being required to produce their second duty report, by the end of 2022. Communication to chief operating officers needs to be reinforced at Ministerial level to increase the status and prominence afforded to the duty

Recommendation 5

Welsh Government could consider hosting an event or webinar late 2021/early 2022 to promote the duty and launch any new guidance to the sector. This event could be used to set out timescales for preparing a second duty report by the end of 2022, hear from public authorities from across all three groups who have effectively complied with the duty and to help facilitate networking between public authorities in order to share experiences and good practice

Recommendation 6

Welsh Government needs to consider how it can better provide acknowledgement and feedback to public authorities who share their published reports. This work needs to be appropriately resourced so that it can help improve biodiversity planning and delivery across public authorities. Without this role being in place to monitor and review the work of public authorities, there is a danger that the duty will not be maintained as a priority by authorities

Recommendation 7

Welsh Government may wish to consider how Group 1 public authorities, as well as town and community councils, could be better supported in terms of access to expert advice and guidance given that this cohort tend not to have inhouse biodiversity expertise to help develop their biodiversity plans

Recommendation 8

There is scope to enhance the published guidance for the duty by including:

• examples of best practice such as case studies
• links to good quality plans and reports produced by other public authorities, setting out what is considered to be their strengths
• suggestions for how partnership working could help public authorities to achieve their biodiversity objectives
• advice on how the duty can better align with other priorities, including area statements, the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act and the climate emergency agenda
• specific actions and examples that Group 1 public authorities, without land, can take in relation to enhancing biodiversity

OB3 Research

Bryer, N; Bebb, H; Owen, R; and Rice, S; (2021). Evaluation of implementation of the Section 6 Biodiversity Duty. Cardiff: Welsh Government.

Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government

Mae’r ddogfen yma hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg. 

This document is also available in Welsh.

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