Reporting
How to use Mycelia to automate Biodiversity Duty Reporting.
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Under the Environment Act, Local Planning Authorities have a statutory duty to publish data on the Biodiversity Net Gain achieved in their area, and to do so for each reporting period. Fulfilling this duty means extracting and combining information from every biodiversity metric the authority has processed, potentially across thousands of individual habitats. Done by hand, this is a significant task.
Mycelia’s reporting tools automate the entire process, turning a job that can take days into one that takes minutes.
Watch the video below for a walkthrough of the reporting tools, then read on for a step-by-step guide.
Step 1: Data preparation
When you open the Reporting section, Mycelia shows a preview of the biodiversity duty report you are about to prepare. Click Continue to data preparation to check that every case you want to include has the information it needs.
The cases table has a Reporting readiness column that flags any case that is not ready. Click a flagged case to jump straight to it, where Mycelia explains what is missing. For example, if you have not yet recorded whether the biodiversity gain plan has been approved, you can set its status to Approved and add the approval date. Back in the table, the case is then marked as ready to report.
Step 2: Report configuration
Once every required case has the data it needs, continue to Report configuration. Here you see the full list of cases that will be included in the report. You can adjust the selection if you need to – for example, changing the report’s start date, or excluding cases based on their status.
Step 3: View and download your report
When you are happy with the selection, view the final report. This gives you a full preview of everything that will be included, in the exact data format specified by Defra.
Click to download, and you get a copy of the official Defra spreadsheet, pre-populated with all the relevant data for your LPA. A few fields still need to be completed by hand – for example, the total number of planning permissions granted in the reporting period, which you can take from your planning software.
Further reading
For more on the reporting duty itself, including what it covers, the deadlines, and how to prepare, read our article: Getting ready for statutory BNG reporting – advice for LPAs.