2020-09-14 GC Agenda - Item 7 - Attachment 2 - Independent Scientific Review of Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

    2.4 Scope of Review
The purpose of this scope is to engage a qualified person to undertake a peer review of the plan, and
provide feedback in writing to Noosa Council, that meets the requirements of this Council resolution. The
review is to focus primarily on the Monitoring & Evaluation component only, which is pages 53-83 of the
overall Project Management Plan. The first component of the scope listed below does require an
understanding of the broader project.
The review should consist of the following components;
    1. Briefly comment on the appropriateness of the goals of the project in relation to the stated focus of
       the partnership (the first four dot points identified on p4 of the Project Management Plan),
       identifying any major gaps. There are 11 goals listed in the MER component of the plan (page 68-
       73).
    2. An assessment of the effectiveness of the proposed indicators and monitoring methods to
       effectively measure the success of the stated Goals and Objectives of the plan.
    3. Any further recommendations or suggestions for improvement to the Monitoring & Evaluation
       Plan, including any further monitoring that might support determination of achieving success in the
       project.
    4. Provide recommendations for long-term monitoring of the stated Goals and Objectives of the
       project, beyond the end of the current agreement term on 30 September 2022.



3 Review methods

A simple monitoring and reporting checklist was developed as an assessment framework. The checklist
drew on reference materials for good practice monitoring, evaluation and reporting, including:
       National standards for the practice of ecological restoration in Australia (Standards Reference
        Group SERA, 2018);
       National Natural Resource Management Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement
        Framework (Australian Government, 2009); and the
       Queensland Reef Water Quality Program Evaluation Framework (Roberts et al., 2018).
The checklist includes 20 questions that have been used to judge the adequacy and likely effectiveness of
the monitoring, evaluation and reporting plan provided by TNC.
Two documents form the primary source of evidence for the review:
       Bring Back the Fish Project Management Plan 25th July 2019 to 30th September 2022 (which includes
        the MER Plan) (The Nature Conservancy, 2020); and
       Alliance & Funding Agreement between Noosa Shire Council and The Nature Conservancy (Noosa
        Shire Council and The Nature Conservancy, 2019).

The completed checklist (Appendix A) documents the assessment process and supports the findings and
recommendations presented in the following sections.

    3.1 Limitations
This review was conducted over a period of about three days. It is heavily reliant on the key documents
provided by Noosa Council (particularly the Project Management Plan). The reviewer is independent of the
project so free from conscious or unconscious bias, but also not familiar with the project details. The review


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