See the main Countryside Stewardship page for information about the scheme.

This document provides guidance for further education institutions (FEIs) seeking to apply for foundation degree awarding powers (FDAPs) up until 31 March 2018.

This guidance will continue to apply up to 31 July 2019 for any issues arising post-award, including changes of circumstances.

It applies to providers in England only.

FEIs seeking to apply for FDAPs from 1 April 2018 should refer to the Office for Students’ new guidance.

These indicators on butterflies in the United Kingdom contribute to a suite of indicators due to be updated later this year (the UK Biodiversity Indicators); earlier data availability allows their release ahead of that publication. Two measures of annual butterfly population abundance are presented: the first for specialist butterflies (species strongly associated with semi-natural habitats such as unimproved grassland) and the second for butterflies found in both semi-natural habitats and the wider countryside. The measures are multi-species indices compiled by Butterfly Conservation (BC), the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) from data collated through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UK BMS) and the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS).
The indicators use data from butterfly transect sites on farmland and in woodland from the UK BMS and additionally randomly selected farmland plots from the WCBS. Further details of the methods used to compile the indicators and assess change can be found on the UK BMS website. More information about this indicator is available on the JNCC website.