Environmental statistics in government (online)

Nov 2021 (details to be announced, soon)

Location: Remotely by invite. See Royal Statistical Society main events page .

13:15-14:30 Login

13:30-13:35 Chair of the Leeds/Bradford Group

Introductions

13:35-14:15 Madeleine May, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Environmental statistics: producing robust data and evidence to support decision making

Following the UK's exit from the EU, Government is designing and delivering new and different environmental policies, which need to be underpinned by robust data and evidence. Find out how Defra's Environmental Indicators, Statistics and Reporting team is contributing to the UK's environmental statistics, including through a new interactive dashboard, and take the opportunity to provide your own thoughts and feedback on how to further expand and develop them.

14:15-15:00 AGM

Join us for out Annual General Meeting where will elect new members of the committee, reflect on the past year, and discuss plans for the next.

This special session will also include our Annual General Meeting, wherein we will report on the year's activities and elect members of the committee for the coming year.

The committee holds up to 10 Ordinary Members (no administrative responsibilities), a Chair, a Treasurer and a Secretary.

As of 28th Sept, the nominations are below but we strongly encourage further nominations that will provide novel perspectives on the committee. If uncontested, then sole applicants will be awarded the role by default:

- Chair: Ciarán McInerney (Secretary 2019 - 2021, Treasurer 2020 - 2021)

- Secretary: Elizabeth Boggis (Yorkshire Building Society)

- Treasurer: none

- Ordinary Members: Min Hooi Yong, Susannah Cowtan, Luisa Cutillo, Peter Adamson, Céline Chauvin, Laura Cattle

Applicants should provide a short statement, as it will help the committee to understand who is applying, why they are interested in joining, any prior experience they have and what they will bring to the role. A paragraph (up to 300 words), summarising their background and why they are interested would be acceptable.

Send statements to leedsbradfordlg@rss.org.uk.

15:00-16:00: Caitlin Clark & James Foley, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Shaping the future of agri-environmental schemes in England: end to end modelling for real world impact

This talk will discuss how we are using data science to design a new approach for the agricultural industry, moving away from the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy. We’ll explain our modelling strategy for the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, which will pay farmers for actions that bring about environmental benefits.

The modelling strategy is a complete modelling toolkit dynamically modelling the scientific, economic and behavioural aspects of ELM in advance of full scheme rollout so we can optimise the outcomes of the programme. These models allow us to explore appropriate payment rates for actions, uptake at different payment levels and environmental impacts of the scheme. It will also allow users to explore how to adapt to particular scenarios, such as climate change and work towards the government’s long-term goals, such as Net Zero.