DYNAMIC DUNESCALES/PLANTLIFE Evaluation Consultant 2023

The Dynamic Dunescapes project is big and ambitious - targeting some of the most important sand dune systems across England and Wales. We have worked with schools and local groups, volunteers and visitors of all ages and abilities to create more bare sand which will breathe life into the dunes and allow the threatened wildlife to flourish.

The Dynamic Dunescapes project is a large-scale national multi-partner project now entering its final phase. On behalf of the partnership, Plantlife are seeking an Evaluation Consultant with significant experience of evaluating complex and innovative, multi-outcome, multi-partner projects in a time-pressured environment.

The project has produced ongoing reports on its activity for the funders, including two mid-term summary reports. Evaluation has taken place for activities within the project, for example the project conference. This contract is therefore for an analysing and finalising role to bring everything together in an overall report.

The Evaluation Consultant will provide technical expertise and guidance to the project team, as well as collecting additional independent data, analysing existing and new data, and synthesizing all of this to create a robust yet useable set of evaluation outputs - including an end-of-project evaluation report. We require an Evaluation Consultant with a high-level of skill in assessing and evidencing outcomes (rather than reporting delivery and outputs) and experience of major innovative multi-partner, multi-location projects. Experience of reporting to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and LIFE are an advantage.

The contract outlined in this specification will be undertaken over a 6-month period commencing in October/November 2023 by negotiation.

TIMING: Works to be completed by April 2024

REQUIREMENTS

The Evaluation Consultant will support the project team in aspects of project evaluation including but not limited to:

1. Overall evaluation of each of the 5 main project objectives, the key evaluation questions, and National Lottery Heritage Fund objectives 2. Follow-up with sample of key audiences in order to answer evaluation questions and produce case studies 3. Cross partnership questionnaire 4. An Outcomes panel

OUTPUTS

The main output from the evaluation will be an evaluation report which can be submitted to NLHF and other funders. We plan that much of this content will be accessible via our website.

However, the partners also intend to extend the project's learning through a legacy of improved sand dune management and interpretation more widely across England and Wales and further afield to Scotland and Northern Ireland. We therefore wish to ensure the findings and lessons learnt are easily accessible.

HOW TO APPLY If you have a track record of delivering the type of work outlined in the Specification and are interested in bidding for this Contract then please download the attached information and follow the instructions.