In February this year Natural England announced withdrawal of funding to Local Environmental Records Centres (LERCs).
At the time of this announcement, and since then, the NBN Secretariat has offered support and advice to the ALERC Directors to try to answer any queries LERCs may have, individually or collectively.
We sent the following letter to all LERC managers after the announcement was made:
The reason for this letter is to show our support to you in light of the communication from Natural England relating to its investment in LERCs from April 2016 onwards. We can confirm that we were not involved in any of the discussions which led to this decision and we are keen to work closely with all affected LERCs through ALERC to offer advice and support.
The NBN has always valued the role of Local Environmental Record Centres as the local nodes of the NBN and this remains true today. Indeed, LERCs feature strongly in the new NBN Strategy and their support in implementing the strategic aims and action plan are as important as ever. As we work together on this we will improve the provision, display and interpretation of biodiversity data to the benefit of the Network, including LERCs.
With these changes to the funding base, the NBN Secretariat believes that advice in the following areas will help ALERC in supporting LERCs:
- Availability of potential funding from other sources
- Support in moving business models towards maximising the benefits of open data. The NBN Secretariat is already investigating benefits of joining the Open Data Institute
- Development of business models which focus on services rather than the provision of data
The Secretariat will work with the ALERC Directors to try to answer any queries you may have and will develop our channels of support and advice in relation to your business over the coming months.
You will be aware of changes that the NBN is making to its data infrastructure through the creation of the country Atlases. This is a critical part of our Strategy. Equally important is the flow of data through the Network and the NBN Secretariat recognises that LERCs are a key link between recorders and the national aggregation of data through NBN systems. We will continue to work closely with you via ALERC to ensure that these links are maintained and supported.
We recognise that this is going to be a difficult time for you and we want to reassure you that the NBN Secretariat will offer its ongoing support as best it can.
We will continue to develop our channels of support and advice over the coming months, but if you feel we can help you in a specific way now, please let us know.
What’s being said?
As you would imagine there have been a number of discussions relating to this issue and you can read some of these at the links below:
ALERC response – http://www.alerc.org.uk/news
Nature Post – http://naturedata.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/nature-conservationists-should-care.html
Syrphing time blog – http://stamfordsyrpher.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/open-access-data-are-we-missing.html
Feel free to leave your own comment in the discussion area below.