See answers to previous information requests

1. How does the local authority access ecological expertise? Is it through:
a) in-house ecological staff within the local authority: Yes, we have two in-house ecology specialists
b) through a Service Level Agreement/shared resource with another local authority: Yes, we have a service level agreement with a local records centre that is hosted by another authority. This provides species data and specialist survey expertise for local wildlife site assessment.
c) through a Service Level Agreement with another body e.g. Wildlife Trust,
d) through other external expertise e.g. consultants: Yes, we do use consultant expertise for advising on some planning applications and planning appeals.
e) no access to ecological expertise, If it is a mixture of the above, could you please specify what the arrangements are.

I am specifically looking for how the authority accesses staff/resources for implementing, delivering, monitoring and reporting on biodiversity net gain and other natural environment functions. All three of the identified routes to ecological expertise (a, b, d) contribute to implementing, delivering, monitoring and reporting on biodiversity net gain as part of their assigned workload, the principal burden being on the in-house staff. It should be recognised that not all delivery, monitoring and reporting is undertaken by specialist ecologists (e.g. maintenance of BNG on our own sites is by the land management teams).