Catalogue description Nature Conservancy Council: Meetings and Papers of the Council and the Board of Directors and Predecessors: Records

The Council Members of the Council were appointed by the Secretary of state for the Environment and represented a cross section of academics, scientists, farmers, landowners and industrialists. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1973 required the Council to appoint three Country Committees, for England, Scotland and Wales. The Council also had the power to appoint other advisory groups if necessary. The Council was the strategic policy making body for the nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and met several times a year. Normally it would consider reports from the Chairman or Director General of NCC, or from the Country or Advisory Committees. From December 1987, following legal advice, the Council also took on the role of approving the designation or changes to sites of special scientific interest.

Following the establishment of the NCC 1973, the Great Britain Board of Management was set up. In 1975 it was renamed the Great Britain Board and it became the Great Britain Management Group in 1977.

In 1981 it was changed to the Nature Conservancy Council Board of Directors which continued until the NCC was disbanded in 1991 and English Nature was created. The English Nature Board, known as the Management Board, operated from this point on.