The Biodiversity Action Reporting System (BARS) is a web-based information system that supports the planning, monitoring and reporting requirements of national and local Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs).

BARS enables everyone involved in BAP implementation, including LBAP partnerships and Lead Partner organisations, to enter action plans and record progress towards targets and actions. BARS uses drop-down lists and quantitative fields to provide a standardised structure so that BAP information can be integrated across users. This information can be searched by members of the public to learn about BAP activities underway. A range of sophisticated reports is available to BAP users enabling them to generate summaries from their data and to set their work in the wider context.

BARS is available free of charge to all members of the wider BAP partnership.

The UK BAP  is being delivered by over 1500 organisations working on 436 priority species and habitat action plans at UK level, four country biodiversity strategies and programmes, and about 150 local BAPs. While this success in engaging partners into biodiversity conservation is a cause for celebration, it makes it difficult to assess both what is and is not being achieved at UK, country and local levels.

In 2001, it was recognised that this problem would be best addressed through a national system that met both the internal and external reporting needs of organisations.

At the heart of BARS is a database hosted on a web server. The BARS database stores the BAP planning and reporting information for all BARS users, who enter their data using a secure browser-based application (i.e. a fully web-based programme). To enter information into the database, users have to be registered. This registration process determines the level of access the user has, ensuring that only relevant data is added to the system and that unauthorised changes are not made.

Via the BARS website users and members of the public are able to search the BARS database for information about BAP implementation, for example to find out about activities underway in their local area. On the website you can also access information on species / habitat targets, status, trends, losses, and causes of decline both at national and local levels. Security features ensure that confidential information (e.g. of the precise location of sites) is not available to unauthorised users or members of the public.

The BARS website also allows registered BARS users to generate a range of sophisticated reports specific to their organisation or LBAP partnership.

Staffordshire

Many of the actions and targets contained within the Staffordshire Biodiversity Action Plan are already entered onto BARS and more and more partners are coming on board to report the work and achievements of their organisation. This allows the partnership to quantify the collective action and assess our progress in achieving the targets set out in the SBAP. Without this it is very difficult for us to measure our successes and target our priorities for future action.

Several partners are now set up to report against actions relevant to them, including Forest Enterprise, Lichfield District Council , Stoke-on-Trent City Council , British Waterways  and Staffordshire Wildlife Trust . Several partners are already actively reporting, so thanks to Staffordshire Wildlife Trust Reserves Department, Staffordshire Barn Owl Action Group, the Countdown 2010 project "Enhancing Biodiversity in NE Staffordshire", Butterfly Conservation  and the Defra funded project "Farming Floodplains for the Future".

What ever you have heard about BARS, rest assured it is designed for summary reporting only. Partners responsibility is to report against actions specifically agreed with the SBAP Co-ordinator, therefore focussing on partner priorities. Reporting against a single action takes seconds, not minutes! The benefits in terms of demonstrating achievements, identifying priorities and areas of slow progress and collating information for future funding could be enormous.