Mission Invertebrate research project costs

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, The Royal Parks should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear The Royal Parks,

The Royal Parks-run "Mission Invertebrate" Project has been charitably funded to the tune of £2,000,000 by the Peoples Postcode Lottery over the last three years to promote the study of invertebrates in the Royal Parks. It is not clear even to those associated with invertebrate fieldwork in the Parks how that money has been employed.

Please can you provide a list of research projects, the individual parks they took place in, who carried out the work, the relevant dates and how much each project cost?

[This request does NOT cover the cost of project overheads (e.g. employment costs, bespoke vehicles, administration fees), 'outreach' projects aimed at schoolchildren, or 'conservation gardening' (wildflower meadows, orchards) etc. but you can provide these too if you think it would provide a helpful perspective.]

Yours faithfully,

John A W Lock

Gavin Gribbon, The Royal Parks

Dear Mr Lock,

 

Thank you for your enquiry by email dated 31 July 2019 under The Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

                                                 

Your enquiry is being dealt with and The Royal Parks will aim to reply to
your enquiry within 20 working days, commencing from 1 August 2019, the
next working day after receipt.                

 

If you have any questions pertaining to this enquiry or require further
assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. My contact details are
listed below.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Gavin Gribbon | Records Manager | 0300 061 2002 |
[1][email address]
[2]www.royalparks.org.uk | The Old Police House | Hyde Park | London | W2
2UH

The Royal Parks are: Bushy Park | The Green Park | Greenwich Park | Hyde
Park | Kensington Gardens | The Regent's Park & Primrose Hill | Richmond
Park | St James's Park
The Royal Parks is registered in England and Wales: Company Registration
No: 10016100 Registered Charity No: 1172042

Registered Offices: The Old Police House, Hyde Park, London. W2 2UH

 

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Gavin Gribbon, The Royal Parks

1 Attachment

Our reference: FOI 19/14

 

Dear Mr Lock,

 

Thank you for your email of 30 ^ July 2019 in which you asked:

 

The Royal Parks-run "Mission Invertebrate" Project has been charitably
funded to the tune of £2,000,000 by the Peoples Postcode Lottery over the
last three years to promote the study of invertebrates in the Royal Parks.
It is not clear even to those associated with invertebrate fieldwork in
the Parks how that money has been employed. 

 

Please can you provide a list of research projects, the individual parks
they took place in, who carried out the work, the relevant dates  and how
much each project cost?

 

[This request does NOT cover the cost of project overheads (e.g.
employment costs, bespoke vehicles, administration fees),  'outreach'
projects aimed at schoolchildren, or 'conservation gardening' (wildflower
meadows, orchards) etc. but you can provide these too if you think it
would provide a helpful perspective.]

 

Mission: Invertebrate funding covers several key areas – formal learning
programme (schools programme), informal learning programme (family and
adult programmes, and citizen science), specialist surveys, and park
habitat enhancement projects. On top of this, we of course have resource
and contingency costs, as well as a budget for communications, collateral
and marketing campaigns.

 

Attached is a list of the surveys to date that have been undertaken over
the last three years (including citizen science projects), including
dates, locations and surveyors contracted to do the work. All survey
records have been uploaded onto GiGL for public access (excluding ongoing
2019 surveys). We have not included the individual contract costs for each
contractor who has conducted the surveys under the qualified exemption
43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act. We consider that release of this
information may prejudice The Royal Parks’ ability to tender for services
in the competitive market and, given that many of our surveys are carried
out by individuals, revealing such costs on an individual basis may
prejudice their ability to tender in the market.

 

The surveys that we commission each year are guided by The Royal Parks
(TRP) park management and ecology teams, park records, stakeholder groups,
park strategies and management plans, as well as Mission: Invertebrate
yearly themes (2017 – grassland, 2018 – water, 2019 - trees) and links to
other projects across TRP and our external collaborators.

 

The level of funding we receive changes each year, and with it the
proportion of funds that we allocate to the specialist survey works. In
2017, 6% of the budget went to survey work. This increased in 2018 as the
project became established and new survey opportunities were identified,
and has subsequently held at around 10% of the total project budget. We
aim for 9 surveys per year (at least 1 per park, including Brompton
Cemetery) with some rolling over to ensure a full calendar year of
monitoring where appropriate.

 

I hope that this information satisfies your request. TRP are always happy
to hear of suggestions for future surveys – we get confirmation of the
next year’s funding in December each year, and, as surveyors get booked up
very quickly, we try to get all works commissioned by March the following
year. Please do get in touch if you have any ideas for surveys that you
think would benefit the parks. Our theme for next year (pending successful
funding application) will be invertebrates associated with soil.

 

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original email, quoting the reference at the top of the page and should be
addressed to:

 

FOI Officer

The Royal Parks

The Old Police House

Hyde Park

London

W2 2UH

 

Email [1][The Royal Parks request email]

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision, quoting the reference at the top of the page. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Gavin Gribbon | Records Manager | 0300 061 2002 |
[2][email address]
[3]www.royalparks.org.uk | The Old Police House | Hyde Park | London | W2
2UH

The Royal Parks are: Bushy Park | The Green Park | Greenwich Park | Hyde
Park | Kensington Gardens | The Regent's Park & Primrose Hill | Richmond
Park | St James's Park
The Royal Parks is registered in England and Wales: Company Registration
No: 10016100 Registered Charity No: 1172042

Registered Offices: The Old Police House, Hyde Park, London. W2 2UH

 

P Please consider the environment before printing this mail

 

 

Disclaimer

The information contained in this communication from the sender is
confidential. It is intended solely for use by the recipient and others
authorized to receive it. If you are not the recipient, you are hereby
notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or taking action in
relation of the contents of this information is strictly prohibited and
may be unlawful.

This email has been scanned for viruses and malware, and may have been
automatically archived by Mimecast Ltd, an innovator in Software as a
Service (SaaS) for business. Providing a safer and more useful place for
your human generated data. Specializing in; Security, archiving and
compliance. To find out more [4]Click Here.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[The Royal Parks request email]
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://bit.ly/YL2eik
4. http://www.mimecast.com/products/

Dear Gavin Gribbon,

I see this FOI request has gotten stuck since last summer. As I recall we came to some alternative arrangement whereby the information you didn't want to report by project was reported by park instead. I received this last summer but the new table still has not been posted to the whatdotheyknow.com site.

Also the various bioblitzes (e.g. Brompton Cemetery) should be incorporated in that table.. Biobiltzes are surveys in their own right and can be very useful especially when you have Natural History Museum staff in attendance! I am sure that the The Royal Parks Mission Invertebrate team would like to have the full range of their activities known.

Yours sincerely,

John Lock