TERRESTRIAL NATURAL CAPITAL ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT

Government Transformation and Service Delivery

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: £325.7m
Published schedule: 01/04/2021 – 31/03/2029
NISTA delivery confidence: Not disclosed
Senior responsible owner: David Jones

What the project is for

Defra is developing a collaborative programme to enhance national and local insight into biodiversity, ecosystems, and natural capital assets. This initiative aims to support key environmental policies, including the Environmental Improvement Plan Targets, Environmental Land Management Schemes, and Biodiversity Net Gain. By addressing gaps in existing data and integrating a more comprehensive understanding of ecosystem conditions, the programme will ensure natural capital is fully considered in future decision-making. It aligns with the government's ambitious commitments to environmental protection, both internationally through the Convention on Biodiversity and domestically via the 25 Year Environment Plan.

Departmental delivery commentary

Compared to financial year 24/25 Q4, the SRO Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) rating at 25/26 Q4 remained at Amber. This is primarily due to the following factors‚ confidence has strengthened following the successful publication of the first Analysis Ready Datasets (ARD) in December 2025, demonstrating the programme’s ability to deliver against commitments. This further stems from Defra’s Investment Committee approving the Full Business Case, confirming spend to deliver the NCEA programme through to closure at end 2028/29.However, overall confidence is driven by two key risks: (1) availability of prepared/processed data at the required cadence, and (2) consistency of data quality and assurance across partners. This quarter the programme has been focused on embedding lessons from the first ARD batch to improve predictability. Planning for FY 2026/27 is progressing, including agreement of a quarterly batching plan to provide earliest possible access for internal and external users.

Schedule

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's end-date at 25/26-Q4 remained the same as last year's published end-date for March 2029. This is primarily due to the following factors, the NCEA programme was designed around a 5-year strategic sample to measure environmental condition at a national and regional scale for England’s terrestrial and freshwater landscape. To deliver this the programme needs to run for seven years, the first year focused on setting up the environmental monitoring capability, five years to the field surveys that contribute to the strategic sample and a final year to complete the analysis and publication of the data, produce the Baseline Assessment of Natural Capital and Ecosystems and to undertake programme closure activity.

Cost

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the projects departmentally agreed Whole Life Cost at 25/26-Q4 (measured in £m) decreased from £331m to £328m. The decrease to the departmentally agreed WLC is as a result of certainty around our future year budgets following spending review and business planning exercises in FY25/26. The Programmes final business case covering spend from FY26/27 to FY28/29 was approved by Defra Investment Committee in March 2026 which covers the final two years of our fieldwork and the programmes final year. FY28/29 is needed to complete the lab analyses of the samples, quality assurance and publication of all of the data collected by the programme via Open Government Licence, and publication of the Baseline Assessment of Natural Capital and Ecoystems, that will bring together all the knowledge and information generated by the programme in an overall assessment for England.

Benefits

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the project's departmentally agreed Benefits at 25/26-Q4 remained at 0. This is primarily due to the following factors‚ NCEA programme produces long-term and wide reaching benefits which extend beyond the reach and lifetime of the programme, making accurate measurement and reporting of monetary benefits unrealistic. The programme will report on non-monetary benefits annually at minimum. The Full Programme Business Case approved by Investment Committee in March 2026, confirms the Programme does not deliver any monetised benefits.