Government of Jersey

Countryside Enhancement Scheme and Ecology Trust Fund (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey and published on 25 August 2022.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

Please could you provide information on the names of the individuals on the board / decision making process for the:

Countryside Enhancement Scheme

Ecology Trust Fund

How does the decision-making process for these funds take place?

Please can we see what causes have received these funds for the past 3 years, and how much was received.

Response

Countryside Enhancement Scheme

All projects requesting funding from the Countryside Enhancement Scheme (CES) must submit a project proposal.

Natural Environment officers within the Infrastructure, Housing and Environment department assess and score these proposals in relation to their environmental and financial value.

The CES panel then make the final assessment and decision as to whether a project will receive CES funding.

The CES panel members are selected to reflect the applications received each year and consist of the following:

local experts, spanning a variety of subjects, to help clarify any queries and assess the merit of each application

For example, parties from the Société Botany section (Société Jersiaise), those with marine conservation experience or an agricultural background who have been involved with agri-environment schemes

officers from the Natural Environment section which includes Marine Resources and Land Resource Management teams plus any other relevant government sections based on the subject of the application.

The CES scheme has provided the following funding over the last 3 years.

Funds distributed by CES in the last 3 years
Applicant	Brief description	Funds distributed (£) (rounded up)
Individual	Seabed surveys	3,746
National Trust for Jersey	Reedbed management, winter bird crop seed purchase, wildflower crop creation, hedgerow planting, salary shortfall and conservation grazing fencing	120,337
Jersey Biodiversity Centre	Data management, education, training, research, and public events	80,066
Government of Jersey	Woodland management, carbon sequestration research and wildflower seed purchase	15,969
Sangan Conservation Ltd	Equipment purchase	17,346
Société Jersiaise	Ramsar management plan	2,940
Individual	Pond restoration	2,631
Jersey National Park	Project management and education	25,000
Jersey Royal Company	Equipment purchase and set up	12,000
Samares Manor Limited	Equipment purchase and setup wildflower education hub	12,212
Jersey Dairy	Species and habitat survey	2,500
Individual	Hedgerow creation and wildlife corridor	2,825
Individual	Meadow and pond management	900
Individual	Removal of invasive species	4,961
Jersey Trees for Life	Woodland management and purchase of hedgerow whips	4,967
Birdsong Garden	Livestock fencing purchase	1,175
Individual	Hedgerow planting	1,360
GROW Jersey	Equipment and tree purchases	6,116
The Reserve	Conservation grazing	60,000
Total		377,051

The names of the panel members and individual applicants have been withheld under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Ecology Trust Fund

The Ecology Trust Fund (ETF) consists of a Chairperson (the ‘Chair’) and four trustees who each have a voting role.

The Chair must be an elected member of the States Assembly while the four trustees apply for the role via public invitation. The trustees are selected via an interview process by the Chair and another trustee with support provided by government officers, if required.

The ETF aims to support local conservation tasks, monitoring work, biological studies and any work the trustees believe to be of ecological and/or environmental importance to Jersey.

The trustees and Chair meet quarterly to discuss and decide which applications the ETF will support and the amounts to be received by each party depending upon the amount of funds available and the number of applications received at that time.

The following table details grant payments that have been made as at 18 July 2022.

Grants distributed by the ETF for the last 3 years as at 18 July 2022
Applicant	Brief description	Date grant approved	Amount claimed (£) (rounded up)
Jersey Trees for Life	Site management	October 2019	3,000
Annyctalus Ecology	Equipment purchase	October 2019	2,128
Seedy Sunday	Event	November 2019	732
Sangan Island Conservation	Equipment purchase	January 2020	294
National Trust for Jersey	Equipment purchase	January 2020	2,678
Individual Student	Equipment purchase	January 2020	935
Birds on the Edge	Equipment purchase	January 2020	1,194
JICAS student	Equipment purchase	May 2020	87
JICAS student	Training	October 2020	1,875
Jersey Biodiversity Centre	Equipment purchase	October 2020	1,921
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust	Equipment purchase	October 2020	1,233
McGugan Family Trust (Charity)	Site management	April 2021	1,259
JICAS student	Environmental study	May 2021	155
JICAS student	Environmental study	April 2021	350
National Trust for Jersey	Site management	August 2021	875
National Trust for Jersey	Equipment purchase	November 2021	2,185
McGugan Family Trust (Charity)	Site management	April 2022	683
Total			21,584

It should be noted that the ETF does not always approve the full amount requested and can approve a partial grant.

The applicant does not need to claim the total grant approved and partial payments are sometimes issued once the grant has been approved.

The table only includes grant payments that have been made as at 18 July 2022.

The names of ETF members and individual applicants have been withheld under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Article applied

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.