Minutes: Forest Services board meeting 4 October 2022

Question 1

惭颈苍耻迟别蝉听

Accepted Answer

Gemma Thomas聽

1. Welcome and Apologies聽

Sir William Worsley welcomed attendees to the meeting.聽 He gave the Forest Services (FS) Board an update on recent activities across the Forestry Commission (FC).聽

Since the last FS Board the very sad news about the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had been received.聽 The FC response during the mourning period went smoothly and was in line with business continuity planning.聽聽聽聽

The appointment of Ranil Jayawardena as the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had been announced. At the time of the Board, formal confirmation of the appointment of Trudy Harrison as Environment Minister was expected.聽聽 Lord Benyon had been confirmed as the Defra Minister responsible for ALB reform.聽聽聽聽

There had been senior level engagement with Natural England and the Environment Agency at a regular Chairs and CEO ALB update meeting, and there had been ongoing, positive engagement with Defra Forestry Policy to further develop refreshed duties and powers for Forestry England.聽 Sir William and Richard Stanford had had successful meetings with David Hill and Tamara Finkelstein, and Richard also attended the Quarterly Performance Review with Edward Barker on 3 October.聽 On 30 August Richard and Tristram Hilborn (Forestry England Chief Operating Officer) attended the Confor Board dinner where Richard spoke about tree planting targets and productive forestry in England.聽

Forest Research published a new UK Forestry Standard guide entitled 鈥楢dapting forest and woodland management to the changing climate鈥�. The guide provided advice to woodland owners, managers, planners and policymakers on how to adapt their management and plan for the changing climate.鈥€燶u003c/p>

On 20 October, the Senior Managers from across the FC would be meeting to discuss strategic priorities, challenges and opportunities and how all parts of the FC can best work together.鈥€疶hat would be followed by a meeting of the FWAC Chairs and Commissioners, which would be a useful way to develop the conversations between the committees and the FC.聽

Edward Barker gave the FS Board some further updates on the ministerial changes, including Scott Mann having been appointed as Economic Growth Minister.聽 He the noted that whilst ALB Reform work might not move quickly, there was a strong interest in efficiency and regulatory reform which would affect all departments.聽聽 The Board discussed ELM, and the feeling from Defra that the transition may be slowed, but that the direction of travel was still in place.聽聽

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Steph Rhodes to liaise with Lucy Wyatt and Bianca Ambrose-Oji鈥痶o write a paper for a future FS Board on how to encourage landowners and managers to plant more trees.聽

Question 2

2.  Minutes of the last meeting and Declarations of Interest聽

Accepted Answer

The minutes of the meeting on 12 July were agreed as a true record.聽聽聽聽聽

All actions were noted as discharged or in train.聽聽聽

Sir William Worsley enquired whether there were any new Declarations of Interest.聽 There were none.聽聽聽

Question 3

3.  Key Management and Financial Information聽聽

Accepted Answer

3.1 Directors鈥� Update聽聽

Anna Brown introduced the FS Director鈥檚 Report.聽 She noted that whilst recruitment remained challenging, staff retention had got a little better.聽 She praised teams across FS who worked at pace to respond to the impact of prolonged drought.聽 The Biodiversity Net Gain consultation closed on 27 September, and the Deer consultation was taking responses.聽 Steph Rhodes update the Board that whilst higher rates of EWCO agreements had been returned by Area teams, various challenges meant that it was unlikely that 1,400ha of聽 woodland creation would be delivered this winter.聽 There was a limited number of agents that FS dealt with for the majority of woodland creation cases, so it made sense to focus on them, and in mid-October there would be an event to speak to land agents and other stakeholders.聽 The team were also looking into the impact of the breeding waders policy.聽

聽The Board discussed Higher Tier schemes, and Richard Stanford noted that they generate a lot of work for teams, so EWCO cases would be less of a priority.聽 Anna Brown informed the Board of the reprioritisation work over the summer, focussing on EWCO during the summer months with EWCO picked up later in the year.聽聽聽

The Board discussed the value of Applicant Focus Groups and how they could be strengthened.聽 It was noted that it would be useful for Sir William and Richard Stanford to attend on occasion.聽聽 The Forest Canopy Foundation was also noted as a useful network to engage with the sector.聽聽聽 The Board discussed land owned by the MoD, and the possibility of connecting with Network Rail.聽 Edward Barker noted the importance of communicating with stakeholders in a variety of ways.聽聽聽

The Board discussed staffing issues.聽 Anna Brown noted that FS was getting better at advertising the overall benefits package.聽 Your Offer was still in progress, but benefits such as flexible working could be promoted.聽聽聽 Some roles could have 2 applicants, some could have 70.聽 Forestry expertise was hard to access, but hiring managers needed be certain that forestry expertise was actually a requirement, as it might be putting off applicants for roles for which it would be desirable but not required.聽 Richard Stanford noted the success of the DWO programme, with unsuccessful candidates being encouraged to apply again the following year, and FS was also investigating whether their details could be passed on into the sector.聽聽聽

3.2. Risk, Issue and Opportunity Register, and FS Dashboard聽聽

The Board requested more detail of the statistics available for managed woodland, including broadleaves in private sector management.聽 Broadleaves not in management was likely to be very high.聽 The Board asked for international firewood figures for Lord Benyon as it was an issue of concern, and Anna Brown noted that he had received those figures.聽聽聽聽

John Lockhart noted the information on Woodland Management Plans in Annex 1, and requested data or a visual to show the status one year ago to date, in order to compare with the current data.聽聽聽

The Board discussed the customer satisfaction survey, noting that levels had fallen.聽 Anna Brown noted that work was being done on that.聽 There were good results before this set of responses.聽 It was also a small sample of respondents.聽

Hilary Allison enquired about both the Covid-driven鈥� use of woods during lockdown and immediately after, and about the reported drop in access to woodlands.聽 Anna Brown noted she would ask Helen Townsend to respond in more detail.聽聽聽

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Anna Brown to request more Woodland Management Plans data, over a year, for comparison.聽聽聽

Helen Townsend to provide answers to Hilary Allison鈥檚 questions on the 鈥楥ovid effect鈥� and the reported drop in access to woodlands.聽

3.3. Finance Update, and Business Plan Update聽

Derrick Osgood introduced his paper.聽 He informed the Board that 拢15.5m RDPE grants accounted for by the RPA had been formally delegated to the Forestry Commission.聽 Due to the level of throughput the forecast had been set at 拢10m, and there was no other anticipated funding to be transferred in-year.聽 There was a total Net DEL underspend of 拢15.976M anticipated against budget, which was largely as a result of non-delivery of NCF CDEL grant targets and the unwinding of contingency.聽 He noted the recruitment challenge across FS Core and NCF. Ignoring contingency there remained a vacancy gap of 31%.聽 Efforts to review this forecast to illustrate a realistic outturn was advised.聽 The Q2 Reprioritisation exercise had completed, and 拢14m would need to be returned to Defra, and agreement had been reached with Defra to cover the impacts of the drought.聽

Other projects as well as woodland creation needed to be looked at, and recruitment remained key.聽聽聽聽

Derrick Osgood discussed commodities, noting work being done with the business management team and his focus on more proactivity.聽 Sandy Storrie enquired about contingency in business planning and noted that returning monies to the NCF was regrettable.聽聽聽 Steph Rhodes noted the need to increase the uptake of grants.聽聽 She acknowledged the need to simplify and speed up processes, and to ensure a presumption to plant.聽 The Board discussed ecosystems services and the future of carbon trading.聽聽聽

Anna Brown introduced the Business Plan dashboard, highlighting activities to date.聽 The prioritisation was given as delivery of core regulatory duties and legacy/current/future grants; efficiency, policy and partnering and other enabling activities; and other activities which had a lower priority.聽聽 The dashboard showed lots of progress in core activities, but reflected challenges including around meeting planting targets and charter times (for regulatory activity).聽 It showed the work underway to address that including sequencing and prioritisation work within operational delivery, outputs from the felling licence taskforce, work to make some of our NCF grants more attractive, and continuing recruitment.聽 There was good progress in many enabling activities 鈥� including delivery of policy commitments from ETAP. There were challenges around IT development (recruitment issues and scale of work now required to pass through Government Digital Service assessments), agreeing how to publish some of the new guidance and lack of current legislative vehicles for issues such as聽 reforming the felling licence regime.聽 Delays to recruitment, and retention issues in some key areas, was shown to be impacting delivery of core and enabling work.聽聽

Anna Brown noted she would be working closely with Derrick Osgood to link the finance papers to the Business Plan even more strongly.聽

The Board gave their approval to the new Dashboard and the RAG rating used.聽聽聽

Question 4

4.  Items for Discussion聽聽

Accepted Answer

4.1 FC Regulatory Reform聽

The Board welcomed Katy Moseley to the meeting, noting that Joe Watts was unable to attend due to having Covid.聽聽聽

Katy Moseley introduced her paper.聽 Defra and the FC had previously agreed that there were six key areas for regulatory reform:鈥� Consultation Direction; 鈥婼trategic EIA鈥�;聽 EIA reform; 鈥� Felling Licence reform; 鈥婸ermanency; and 鈥€婰esser-known tree species.聽 The paper focussed on the top two agreed priorities for FS: to review and reform the FC鈥檚 consultation arrangements鈥痺ith statutory consultees, and the ministerial directions to notify the public鈥痮f forestry projects, to remove duplication of process, and to streamline鈥痚vidence gathering and stakeholder engagement; and to consider measures to allow the Forestry Commission to鈥痷ndertake or adopt a strategic EIA, to identify and 鈥榞reen-light鈥� for 鈥渧ery鈥濃€痩ow risk areas for afforestation.鈥€� Katy Moseley highlighted the framework for presumption to plant, and a process in which consultation was needed only once.聽聽聽

The Board discussed risk appetite and aversion, and quantifying risk.聽 The Board noted the risk of consultation change, and asked what constituted a change.聽 Katy Moseley noted that a threshold would need to be identified and agreed with statutory bodies.聽聽 The Board asked about statutory consultees, and Katy Moseley noted that a list was being pulled together.聽聽 Steph Rhodes noted that depending on each case, the statutory consultees would be different, and therefore engagement would need to be tailored.聽 The Board discussed the link to UKFS in relation to location and species, with a preference that UKFS was used over introducing additional thresholds and criteria for decision making.聽聽聽

The Board discussed the Woodland Creation Planning Grant, and any efforts to strengthen this would be welcomed.聽 Katy Moseley noted the close working with the WCPG team.聽 The Board noted that whilst the idea to consult once was a sound one, there would be times when there would be a need to consult more than once.聽 Consultees must not feel unable to give input.聽聽聽

Sir William Worsley asked the Board if they recognised the prioritisation decisions that had taken place with the FC and Defra on the six key regulatory reform proposals and the Board gave their assent.聽聽聽

4.2 Biodiversity Net Gain聽

The Board welcomed Andrew Canning-Trigg to the meeting, who introduced his paper.聽聽 The Board noted their concern that the permanency of woodland wasn鈥檛 fully understood in terms of the BNG guidance and comparison of payments, provided within the briefing paper.鈥犅燶u003c/p>

The Board asked whether it was worth the FC spending resources furthering understanding if the amount of woodland creation would be quite low in comparison with other schemes.聽 The Board agreed that the FC should engage with stakeholders to address misconceptions around BNG and identify that it was only a small part of the overall solution to more woodland creation (as this would impact on grant uptake).鈥� This engagement should be given further consideration and would require a more developed position.聽 John Lockhart talked through the case study that he has been involved with and stated that he nearly had clearance to share all figures/assessments.鈥� The key issue was that creating woodland as compensatory habitat, for the loss of medium distinctiveness poor condition woodland/grassland was聽 working out to be much more expensive for woodland than grassland, despite having similar BU values. John Lockhart noted the ongoing costs for maintaining woodland was not reflected within the payments for BNG, beyond the 30year agreement.鈥� This was considered as a specific issue for woodland as it is a permanent land use.聽 Steph Rhodes requested that the approach to low distinctiveness habitat be discussed with the Green Finance Team and the implications for blended finance to be understood for wider woodland creation.聽 The Board noted that they would welcome further clarification on the application of the discount rate, concerned that it was inappropriate to apply the discount rate to grassland that had a time to target condition of maybe 8 years, with woodland where it would be over 30.聽 John Lockhart felt that the metric calculations for time to target condition were not being used consistently across habitats.聽 The Board discussed stackability, and requested that more detail could be provided to stakeholders on when and where there would be potential to stack payments.聽

Question 5

础肠迟颈辞苍蝉听

Accepted Answer

John Lockhart to provide written comments on the briefing paper, to which Andrew Canning-Trigg will provide a written response.聽

Andrew Canning-Trigg to return to the FS Board at a future meeting to give an update on issues raised including identifying future planned engagement with the Defra Green Finance team and any briefing required, and any follow up with Defra/NE to get a full explanation on the application of the discount rate.聽聽聽

4.3 Arms鈥� Length Body Reform Update聽聽

Richard Stanford updated the Board on recent discussions.聽 Sir William Worsley encouraged close working with other ALBs.聽

Question 6

5.  Any Other Business聽

Accepted Answer

John Lockhart raised the issue of delays to reference committees.聽 The appeal that he had highlighted had been running for 2.5 years, which was having a significant impact.聽 Anna Brown was aware of this.聽

John Lockhart updated the Board on the Vacant and Derelict Land Project, working with Defra.聽 The initial work done highlighted the scale of the opportunity.聽 There was a procurement process with Nicholsons Lockhart Garratt.聽聽 There was a lot of potential.聽聽聽

Sir William Worsley thanked the Board members and closed the meeting.聽

Question 7

6.  Date of Next Meeting聽

Accepted Answer

The next scheduled Board meeting would be held on 13 December, and will be via MS Teams.聽聽聽

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