Urban Green Space: Baselining and Diagnostics Tool

Natural England, National Trust and National Lottery Heritage Fund are collaborating on a new initiative to inspire, incentivise and support UK towns and cities to take ambitious action to improve urban green space.

We believe access to high quality, nature-rich, connected green and natural infrastructure will drive significant benefits for people, place and climate. We want more urban areas to use nature recovery and nature-based solutions to tackle health inequalities and climate change, and to put nature at the heart of communities to grow their prosperity, connection and resilience.

It is likely to be a 10-year initiative, delivered in three-year phases. The primary audience for the first three-year phase is Local Authorities and their partners. It comprises five inter-related core elements:​  1. An inclusive network to help local authorities and communities design, develop and implement change by providing access to knowledge; demonstrating the art of the possible and facilitating great collaboration.​  2. A grant to provide much needed capacity​.  3. Wrap around support and learning resources to help partnerships and organisations make progress quickly​.  4. An accreditation scheme to benchmark progress and provide assurance to funders and investors​.  5. An incentives package to enable ambitious delivery on the ground​.

The purpose of this commission:

In order to help Local Authorities and their partners understand their strengths and weaknesses or identify where to start when it comes to making improvements, plus what support and advice might be most useful we want to commission a diagnostic or baseline assessment tool.

Our local authority co-design group have broadly validated the need for some form of baseline assessment as an entry point into the scheme. However further research is needed to fully scope out the need and design for this, looking at best practice in different sectors.

The tool will be the main entry point for many local authorities and be used by participants at the start of their journey to identify where they are doing well in relation to the quality, connectivity and accessibility of urban natural infrastructure, and where they should focus their efforts for improvement. It should complement the proposed accreditation as well as other core elements such as learning resources, peer network and specialist support. The tool must add value to the participant and avoid being unnecessarily bureaucratic.

Submission Process:

Please email your tender response (max 8 pages) to the address below. It should outline the following: Your understanding of the brief Approach to the commission including any method statement or similar Budget and timeline Suitability to deliver the contract, including experience and skills Abridged CVs of the main members of the team

If you have any questions on this brief, please contact: [email protected] and she will direct your enquiry to the most suitable person.