Indicators
4.3. The Management Plan review
CRoW requires that AONB Management Plans be reviewed and renewed at intervals not exceeding five years. A condition of Countryside Agency funding is that partners should produce and publish annual reviews of activity and achievements (see Appendix 2: AONB funding on page 78). The Action Plan therefore needs to be reviewed and updated annually, the AONB Plan as a whole needs to be reviewed at five yearly intervals. Both reviews should ideally be carried out as an ongoing process, integrated with plan implementation.
4.3.1. Action Plan updates
An annual review of the Action Plan is a useful way of responding to changes in resource availability and to what may be changing priorities of partner bodies. One approach which combines medium term planning with considerable flexibility is to produce a three year Action Plan on a one year rolling programme. Actions identified for years 2 and 3 are indicative only, and can be amended at the start of each year.
No timetable will suit all partners, but if a monitoring report is circulated within 2 or 3 months of the financial year end this can feed into half year reviews in September and budget and business planning cycles over the winter. The Action Plan for the next year can be
circulated in February/March, once partners have firmed up their own plans for the coming financial year.
The Forest of Bowland AONB produced an Action Plan update in the form of a widely distributed newsletter. This helps demonstrate to a wide audience that management planning is not just a bureaucratic exercise, and means that partner’s inputs are acknowledged in a public way.
If the main body of the Management Plan has been well produced, with clear policies and priorities, then Action Plan updates should be a comparatively straightforward task. A good Plan will also mean that AONB staff have a clear starting point when discussing proposed actions with partner organisations.
4.3.2. The strategic review
Where possible, the strategic review of the Plan should be a
continuation of the original planning process. Hopefully by the time of Plan review, thinking and relationships will have moved forward. The character of the AONB and its stakeholders are likely to be well known, an adopted Plan already exists, and people may have a clearer view of AONB purposes and approach. The process of Plan review enables the AONB partnership to build on the experience of developing and implementing previous Plans.
When undertaking the strategic review, it is important not to assume that things are the same as they were five years previously. It is almost certain that the AONB landscape and the issues impacting upon it will have changed to some degree, that the needs and views of its stakeholders are different, and that the wider social, economic and policy context presents new opportunities and threats. A simple update of the previous Plan is unlikely to be sufficient. Every element of a previous plan should be carefully considered, and the following fundamental questions should be asked:
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How have the AONB and the issues which affect it changed?•
Is the Vision still appropriate?•
Are the policy objectives still appropriate, and to what extent arethey being achieved?
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Are the best methods/actions being used to achieve outcomes?Much of the advice contained in Section 2 The process (on page 30) is just as relevant when reviewing the plan as it is when producing the first post-CRoW Management Plan. Effective participation and
consultation with partners and stakeholders will be just as important. Time and resources needed for the review may be comparable to the investment required for the first Plan. It is wise to begin the process of review up to two years before the end of the existing Plan’s life.
The work of reviewing the AONB Plan may be spread by making it a continuous process, closely integrated with monitoring. This offers major benefits in terms of keeping key players ‘on board’. One way of doing this is to focus on the policies section of the plan, taking each topic, or the policies relevant to different groups of partners, in turn as a rolling programme. This has the advantage that as the objectives and actions of one section of the Plan are monitored, reviewed and updated, amendments needed to other sections, including the AONB assessment and vision, are likely to emerge naturally from the process.
Another approach is to link the review to an annual implementation audit of tasks and outcomes. This is particularly appropriate where a separate Action Plan has been produced. It will be readily apparent which policies are succeeding and which failing. Necessary
amendments can be logged ready for the five-year strategic review. In practice, a variety of methods are likely to be appropriate. Review should not be a mechanical procedure. It should be an integral part of the management of the AONB, involving all the members of the partnership. Whatever review process is adopted, a new Plan should be published every five years (or more frequently) and copies lodged with the bodies stated in Section 1 Management Plans and CRoW on page 14. This provides an opportunity to reinvigorate the AONB partnership and to secure renewed commitment to the AONB and its Management Plan.
4.3.3. Reviewing the process
Towards the end of the process of Management Plan production there is an opportunity to review that process with the AONB partnership. Consider what worked well, and what should be done differently another time. Outcomes from this review can be recorded and used when planning the next planning process.