Minutes of The Wildlife Information Centre Board Meeting

Held on Tuesday 27 April 2015 at The Wildlife Information Centre

Present

Rob BriersDirector

David DoddsDirector

Sarah EnoDirector in the chair

Graeme WilsonCentre Manager

Ian YoungDirector

Minutes of the Meeting / Actions and Board Decisions
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
1 / The minutes of the meeting of 3 February 2015 were approved.
Appointment of Director
2 / It was agreed that David Dodds, consultant ecologist and bat specialist, was appointed as a Director. This would be registered with Companies House. / Graeme
Spring Conference
3 / The spring conference had been extremely successful with, at 59, the largest ever number of people attending. Consideration was given to holding the Autumn Borders conference in Galashiels as this would be accessible by the then re-opened Waverley railway line.
Guidelines for Consultants Requests for Records
4 / Demands from consultants for records were highly variable especially in terms of the areas requested. TWIC might provide guidelines for recommended searches as well as working towards a more standardised response. Many requests were for amounts of data far in excess of what was required. Feedback should be sought and TWIC should constantly be asking what it could do differently or better. Data requests should be dealt with quickly and with the minimum of fuss. Covering emails or letters should be couched in a personally friendly manner. At the time of the meeting Steve was supplying information to some 70 clients.
Potential Directors
5 / Discussion took place over potential Directors. / Graeme
Unpaid Invoices
6 / TWIC had operated effectively in chasing up unpaid invoices. The charge of £175 for a day's work in doing this (£50 for a consultant's default) was to be seen as an administrative charge rather than a penalty.
Budget
7 / The following budget papers had been circulated: (a) A budget for 2015/16 and (b) A note of the budget against actual expenditure for the financial year to 31 March 2015. The latter would be revised and re-circulated to accommodate certain changes but it was agreed that in principle this budget would be approved. This showed an anticipated shortfall at the end of the year of some £11,000. It was intended that this would be resolved through anticipated additional income. Fife Council have already approached TWIC about potential income generating work and NBN Trust is planning advertising for short term contract work. / Graeme
Scottish Natural Heritage Grant
8 / The Scottish Natural Heritage grant to TWIC had now been confirmed. A report was always sent to Scottish Natural Heritage on how the requirements of the grant were met. Scottish Natural Heritage was aware of TWIC's proposed expansion plans but no sum had been included at the moment in the grant for this.
Funding Update
9 / TWIC's application to the Urban Challenge Fund had not been valid as applications had had to be either 100% charity based or business led but not both. This information had only become clear somewhat late in the application process. The project for a feasibility study for the assessment of Local Biodiversity Sites related software might still be revived at a later date.
10 / Funding might be available to TWIC/SBIF from the National Biodiversity Network Trust. This could be for contract work/grants to mobilise data/contribution to SBIF post.
Final Accounts
11 / Information had been sent to Douglas Gould at the Trust's accountants N C Campbell to facilitate the preparation of the final accounts for the financial year 2014/15.
Pensions / Graeme
12 / Concern was expressed that some TWIC members of staff had no pension arrangements. As a good employer staff should again be made aware that TWIC would contribute to this. / Graeme
Redundancies in the Event of TWIC closure
13 / While TWIC was trading profitably, and would not be closed unless forced to do so, redundancy costs should be reviewed every six months. An inventory and the value of equipment had been prepared.
Carse Data Set
14 / A two drawer filing cabinet, four boxes and 3 PC towers that belonged to the Carse project, the Local Record Centre that covered Stirling, Falkirk and Clackmannanshire had been received. It was hoped that much data could be retrieved.
Centre Manager's Report 1 January to 31 March 2015
15 / The Centre Manager's report had been circulated with the agenda. In particular it was noted that the meeting with Stirling Council to discuss its Local Biodiversity Sites project had gone well and that the expansion project continued to be taken forward. From 1 April 2015 TWIC would officially cover the expanded area and planned to be fully functioning in it by 1 April 2016. A fuller report would be made to the next board meeting. There was the possibility that the additional staff needed could work remotely from the TWIC office at Vogrie, perhaps in Council offices or from home. It was noted that more GIS capability would be needed in the event of expansion. / Graeme
16 / Graeme now had some spare capacity which would be used to look at possible sources of additional funding and improvement of the service. Default arrangements were in place to cover the absence of staff.
17 / The desirability of a member of staff attending Board meeting was discussed. It was thought this would produce useful insights.
Bat Group Records
18 / A Data Sharing Agreement for receiving the Lothian Bat Group paper records was discussed. In return for receiving the records TWIC might provide an attractive website for the Bat Group.
19 / There were currently two volunteers working in the TWIC office. It would be good if this number could be increased. Some potential volunteers without access to a car would find it difficult to reach Vogrie. This might be overcome to an extent by, for example, transporting four volunteers on a Saturday by car. IT and GIS students might be interested in addition to those with an interest in biodiversity. Rob would advertise the opportunities at Napier University.
20 / Napier University had an online training system that might be helpful to TWIC staff. They could be registered as a temporary member of staff at Napier for the duration of the course. Rob to send list of courses. / Graeme/Rob
22 / The question of how Service Level Agreement fees were calculated was raised, in particular how these related to the time taken for delivery. In future negotiations it might be necessary to raise the possibilities of the fee going up or the amount of work undertaken being less.
Presentation on Local Biodiversity Sites
23 / Natalie gave an excellent introduction to the work being undertaken by her on Local Biodiversity Sites.
Date of the Next Meeting
24 / The next meeting would be held in the TWIC office at 1 pm on Monday 27 July 2015.
Ian Young 11 May 2015