Smarter Guidance and Data is an outcome of the Red Tape Challenge. It is working to make it easier, quicker and clearer to understand what environmental rules apply and simpler to report essential environmental and farming data. This will make it cheaper for businesses and others to comply with regulations and achieve strong environmental standards. More info can be found at  http://guidanceanddata.defra.gov.uk/about/

Berkshire LNP's comments:

The Berkshire Local Nature Partnership (BLNP) supports the reform of wildlife guidance to make it easier, quicker and clearer to understand.

Having read some of the available plans for future wildlife guidance we would like to suggest that links to the relevant legal documents are available on all pages, as are links to other related guidance. For example the page 'does species law apply' could include links to the pages 'will my proposed activity affect....' The current navigation is not particularly easy to follow.

We suggest developing a flow chart, an online 'quiz' with simple questions that the customer could work through for their activity, with the result being a list of potential issues and the links to find out more.

We also feel it would be a shame if all of the existing resources, particularly the TINs are lost, as the technical detail is still relevant to many.