Title:	OLNP Board ToR and membership
Author:	Matt Whitney
Date:	08/03/2023

Summary:

This paper presents an update version of the OLNP Board Terms of Reference.

It also proposes two new Board members to replace the outgoing landowner representative and business representative.

Further, an additional Board member is proposed, with rational provided for their membership.

The Board is asked to:

Approve the revised Terms of Reference.

Approve the inclusion of a representative of Oxfordshire’s main landscape-scale nature recovery project on the Board.

Strong and appropriate governance is vital for the effective functioning of the Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership. One element of this is ensuring that our Terms of Reference are appropriate. At the last meeting Board members agreed to review the Terms of Reference. This has been done, with strong support from Democratic Services Manager of the Strategic Partnerships team of South and Vale District Council. These Terms of Reference are appended to this paper, and the Board is asked to approve their adoption.

Key to the success of the Local Nature Partnership is that its Board and wider membership is cross-sectoral, involving individuals and organisations from across the societal and economic spectrum. Specifically, having representation from the business and landowning sectors is key.

The previous business representative, Giles Brockbank, was appointed following recommendation by OxLEP (Local Enterprise Partnership) but has never attended an LNP meeting. Therefore, the LNP Manager has been recruiting a replacement, which is still ongoing.

The previous landowner representative, Lady Jennifer Stringer, was an engaged Board member, but unfortunately had to stand back for personal reasons. Lady Stringer suggested a possible replacement and a conversation regarding this is ongoing.

As Board members will know, the natural environment sector has in the last decade moved from a position of conservation of nature-rich sites to one of wider nature recovery at the landscape scale. This approach achieves maximum increases to biodiversity and enhancement of environmental benefits. Landscape-scale projects are hard to design and deliver, requiring strong collective action from a large number of landowners and partners. It is considered useful for the LNP Board to better understand this process.

This paper proposes a further addition to the Board - one of the lead representatives from the major Landscape Recovery project in the county, the North East Cotswolds Farmer Cluster. Tim Coates’s experience combines financial and agricultural knowledge and expertise derived from being a 4th generation family farmer now managing over 2,500 acres of farming enterprises specialising in regenerative and nature-positive farming and participates in a number of natural capital markets.

Before co-founding Oxbury Bank, where he leads on strategic and product development and holds the prescribed responsibility for managing Climate-related Financial Risks, Tim was Subject Matter Expert on the Authorisation of New Banks at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), where he also worked as part of the Executive Office on strategic issues for conduct regulation and was in the team that operationalised the Payment Systems Regulator. Previously, Tim worked in consultancy, advising clients in the Financial Services, Energy and Healthcare sectors. The Board is asked to approve the appointment of Tim Coates to the Board.