In the United Kingdom , non-departmental public body ( NDPB ) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office , Treasury , the Scottish Government , and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process of national government but are not part of a government department. NDPBs carry out their work largely independently from ministers and are accountable to the public through Parliament ; however, ministers are responsible for the independence, effectiveness, and efficiency of non-departmental public bodies in their portfolio.
33-573: The UK Native Seed Hub ( UKNSH ) is a project of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 's Millennium Seed Bank Partnership growing and distributing seeds of UK native plant species. It is in part a response to the 2010 report Making Space for Nature by Sir John Lawton . The project, located at Wakehurst Place , in West Sussex , in the High Weald of southern England ( grid reference TQ340315 ),
66-695: A National Trust property in Sussex which is home to the internationally important Millennium Seed Bank , whose scientists work with partner organisations in more than 95 countries. Kew, jointly with the Forestry Commission , founded Bedgebury National Pinetum in Kent in 1923, specialising in growing conifers . In 1994, the Castle Howard Arboretum Trust, which runs the Yorkshire Arboretum ,
99-674: A non-ministerial government department being at a remove from both ministers and any elected assembly or parliament. Typically an NDPB would be established under statute and be accountable to Parliament rather than to His Majesty's Government . This arrangement allows more financial independence since the government is obliged to provide funding to meet statutory obligations. NDPBs are sometimes referred to as quangos . However, this term originally referred to quasi-NGOs bodies that are, at least ostensibly, non-government organisations , but nonetheless perform governmental functions. The backronym "quasi-autonomous national government organization"
132-400: A fifth category: NHS bodies . These bodies consist of boards which advise ministers on particular policy areas. They are often supported by a small secretariat from the parent department, and any expenditure is paid for by that department. These bodies usually deliver a particular public service and are overseen by a board rather than ministers. Appointments are made by ministers following
165-602: A role in plant conservation. Kew is governed by a board of trustees which comprises a chairman and eleven members. Ten members and the chairman are appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs . His Majesty the King appoints his own trustee on the recommendation of the Secretary of State. As of 2024 the Board members are: More than 470 scientists work for
198-569: Is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs . An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett . The organisation manages botanic gardens at Kew in Richmond upon Thames in south-west London, and at Wakehurst ,
231-591: Is a nomenclatural listing of all published taxonomic plant names including new species, new combinations and new names at rank of botanical family down to infraspecific. It provides data for other related projects including Tropicos and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility ( GBIF ). Information and key to flowering plants of the Neotropics (tropical South and Central America). The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP)
264-549: Is a register of accepted scientific names and synonyms of 200 selected seed plant families. WCSP is widely used, and most authoritative web resources on plants use it as their basis. The World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) includes all known vascular plant species ( flowering plants , conifers , ferns , clubmosses , and firmosses ). It is derived from the WCSP and the IPNI and therefore only includes names found in those databases. It
297-455: Is dedicated to enhancing the resilience and coherence of the UK's ecological networks by improving the quality, quantity, and diversity of UK seed species available for use in conservation, rehabilitation, and restoration projects. The UKNSH makes available to conservation and restoration projects high quality Millennium Seed Bank seed collections, some of which are of species that are not available on
330-415: Is sufficiently large. Where there is not sufficient seed numbers to make a collection available for distribution the species may be bulked up on the production beds. All seed provided is "F1" generation in that is it the offspring of plants harvested from seeds collected directly from the wild. The seed list operates in such a way that the provision of seed to conservation projects will never completely deplete
363-599: Is the taxonomic database for Plants of the World Online. Since WCSP includes only selected families, WCVP will seek to complete the process. A checklist of 40,292 species, including nine non-plant taxa (e.g. nostoc , forkweed , brown algae ), compiled from multiple pre-existing datasets. Kew also cooperated with the Missouri Botanical Garden and other international bodies in The Plant List (TPL). Unlike
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#1732858729759396-505: Is used in this usage which is normally pejorative. In March 2009 there were nearly 800 public bodies that were sponsored by the UK Government. This total included 198 executive NDPBs, 410 advisory bodies, 33 tribunals, 21 public corporations, the Bank of England , 2 public broadcasting authorities and 23 NHS bodies. However, the classification is conservative and does not include bodies that are
429-658: The Index Kewensis , a project which began in the 19th century to provide an "Index to the Names and Authorities of all known flowering plants and their countries". The Harvard University Herbaria and the Australian National Herbarium co-operate with Kew in the IPNI database, which was launched in its present form in 1999 to produce an authoritative source of information on botanical nomenclature including publication details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes . It
462-624: The Conservatives' complacency in power in the 1990s, presented much material interpreted as evidence of questionable government practices. This concern led to the formation of a Committee on Standards in Public Life (the Nolan Committee) which first reported in 1995 and recommended the creation of a "public appointments commissioner" to make sure that appropriate standards were met in the appointment of members of NDPBs. The Government accepted
495-622: The Code of Practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments . They employ their own staff and allocate their own budgets. These bodies have jurisdiction over an area of the law . They are coordinated by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service , an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice , and supervised by the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council , itself an NDPB sponsored by
528-400: The IPNI, it provides information on which names are currently accepted. The Plant List is an Internet encyclopedia project which was launched in 2010 to compile a comprehensive list of botanical nomenclature . The Plant List has 1,064,035 scientific plant names of species rank of which 350,699 are accepted species names. In addition, the list has 642 plant families and 17,020 plant genera. It
561-551: The Ministry of Justice. These bodies were formerly known as "boards of visitors" and are responsible for the state of prisons, their administration, and the treatment of prisoners. The Home Office is responsible for their costs and has to note all expenses. NDPB differ from executive agencies as they are not created to carry out ministerial orders or policy, instead they are more or less self-determining and enjoy greater independence. They are also not directly part of government like
594-652: The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The Director of Science is Alexandre Antonelli . The Deputy Directors are Elizabeth Gardner, Paul Kersey and Monique Simmonds . Kew Science staff include those of the Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre . The scientific staff at Kew maintain a variety of plant and fungal data and digital resources, including: Plants of the World Online is an online database launched in March 2017 as one of nine strategic outputs with
627-468: The UK. According to the Cabinet Office their total expenditure for the financial year 2005–06 was £167 billion. As of March 2020, there were 237 non-departmental public bodies. Critics argued that the system was open to abuse as most NDPBs had their members directly appointed by government ministers without an election or consultation with the people. The press , critical of what was perceived as
660-610: The UKNSH makes the Millennium Seed Bank's high quality, UK origin seeds available to legitimate initiatives aiming to improve the UKs ecological network. A few of these collections are supplied from the production beds at Wakehurst Place with some being made available from the suitable collections seed bank at the MSBP. Seed is only provided from appropriate collections in the MSBP when the collection
693-542: The available UKNSH collections. The Seed Hub itself is the Wakehurst Place-based production site, with a capacity of 28 beds on about a hectare of land in total, close to the Millennium Seed Bank building and the Visitor Centre (and shown on the visitor's map). The site began construction in 2011 and is maintained by Kew's horticultural staff. Seed production is focused on species that are difficult to obtain on
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#1732858729759726-443: The collection in the bank. The UKNSH also provides a range of training for seeds producers, collectors, and users. This support ensures that seed users understand the importance of high quality seed of a UK origin for UK conservation work, as well as providing them with the skills needed to use the seed. The support also ensures that appropriate species and provenance seeds are used for the projects location and habitat. Support covers
759-538: The commercial market, due to harvesting, germination, or processing difficulties. Species are often regenerated to create a large collection of seeds of a particular UK provenance, such as the South Downs ' Primula veris (cowslip), or from a particular environmental habitat. The site is also open to the public as part of a visit to Wakehurst, and provides a useful environment to observe and photograph plant pollinators . To support UK conservation and restoration projects
792-512: The commercial seed market, and some are local provenance collections of species already available. As part of the Royal Botanic Gardens, the UKNSH is a nonprofit organization which provides seeds under a license agreement, ensuring use of the seed only for projects that directly support UK biodiversity and at a charge that only recoups the financial cost of recollection to replace seeds in the bank. The provision of seed may be accompanied by technical training, advice and research that enable users of
825-497: The entire range of seed handling from harvesting, through processing, testing, and storage, to distribution, and sowing. The aim of this support is to improve best practice in UK native seed use. The UKNSH provides advice and services through consultancy to enable the continuation of the project beyond the four year funding of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
858-473: The new production beds that are on display to the public at Wakehurst Place. Production focused on regenerating grassland species such as Campanula rotundifolia (harebell) and Genista tinctoria (dyer's greenweed) from seed in the Millennium Seed Bank's collections. In May 2014 suitable seed from the Millennium Seed Bank's collections were made available by the UKNSH seed online list, making it possible for legitimate conservation projects to request seed from
891-661: The recommendation, and the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments was established in November 1995. While in opposition, the Labour Party promised to reduce the number and power of NDPBs. The use of NDPBs continued under the Labour government in office from 1997 to 2010, though the political controversy associated with NDPBs in the mid-1990s for the most part died away. In 2010
924-533: The responsibility of devolved government , various lower tier boards (including a considerable number within the NHS), and also other boards operating in the public sector (e.g. school governors and police authorities). These appointed bodies performed a large variety of tasks, for example health trusts , or the Welsh Development Agency , and by 1992 were responsible for some 25% of all government expenditure in
957-641: The seed and other commercial seed suppliers to improve the knowledge, use, and storage of native seed in the UK. In 2011 the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation gave £750,000 to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew to establish the UKNSH as part of the foundation's 50th Birthday celebrations. The funding was expected to establish the project over a period of four years. Production began at the Wakehurst place nursery in 2011. In 2012 seed production moved to
990-485: The seed bank. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew states that its mission is to apply scientific discovery and research to fully develop the information about and potential uses of plants and fungi. A conference held in 1976 by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew was important as it established a co-ordinating body in order to determine which threatened plants are in cultivation and where they are located which played
1023-474: The ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known seed-bearing plants by 2020". It links taxonomic data with images from the collection, to provide a single point of access with information on identification, distribution, traits, conservation, molecular phylogenies and uses. In addition it serves as a backbone for global resources such as World Flora Online . The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) includes information from
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1056-516: Was formed as a partnership between Kew and the Castle Howard Estate. In 2019, the organisation had 2,316,699 public visitors at Kew, and 312,813 at Wakehurst. Its 326-acre (132 ha) site at Kew has 40 historically important buildings; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The collections at Kew and Wakehurst include over 27,000 taxa of living plants, 8.3 million plant and fungal herbarium specimens, and over 40,000 species in
1089-527: Was last updated in 2013, and was superseded by World Flora Online . World Flora Online was developed as a successor to The Plant List, in 2012, aiming to include all known plants by 2020. Non-departmental public body The term includes the four types of NDPB (executive, advisory, tribunal, and independent monitoring boards) but excludes public corporations and public broadcasters ( BBC , Channel 4 , and S4C ). The UK Government classifies bodies into four main types. The Scottish Government also has
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