AESME Framework Lot 9: Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund Monitoring

The Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund (CSFF) provides funding for individuals or organisations (e.g. a farmer or NGO/Private Company) to bring farmers, foresters and other land managers together to work cooperatively for environmental improvements at the landscape scale, within a defined area. This is an integrated cooperative approach that can cover land under existing Agri-environment and forestry/woodland agreements, common land and land not currently covered by a scheme. It builds on the principles of partnership working to deliver environmental benefits, as demonstrated by various initiatives, including farm clusters and the farmer-led Nature Improvement Area.

1) To review and test the proposed monitoring and evaluation framework and indicators developed in the draft CSFF Monitoring and Evaluation Phase 1 report.

2) To carry out a data collation exercise of all facilitation fund data, to include FF plans, applications, CS priorities, annual and quarterly reports and CS and Agri-Environment scheme agreements and options.

3) To apply the finalised monitoring and evaluation framework to carry out an analysis across of all 98 groups in receipt of CSFF funding, and the CS and Agri-environment scheme applications and agreements resulting from those groups.

4) To carry out a more detailed evaluation and analysis including spatial analysis and mapping on a selection of 26 groups as case studies. The case study selection will be agreed with NE to cover themes such as resource protection. The evaluation will also include an online survey to gather additional social and economic data.