Corporate report

Minutes: 21 November 2023

Published 24 September 2024

Applies to England

Executive Board (EB) minutes of the 123rd meeting via MS Teams and in Bristol Conference Room 21 November 2023.

Attendees

Richard Stanford (Chair)
Amanda Grist
Tristram Hilborn
Derrick Osgood
James Pendlebury
Steph Rhodes
Paula Rice
Jo Ridgway
Mike Seddon
Becky Rhodes (observer)
Andrew Stirling (observer)

Head of HR – Your Offer
Head of Health and Safety and Training – Health and safety
Julia Lovell – Minute secretary
Your Offer Project Manager – Your Offer
Head of OD – Senior leadership development programme

1. Welcome, updates and introductions

The Chair opened the meeting. No apologies had been received. The Chair provided brief updates on the following:

• a new Secretary of State a new Forestry Minister and Robbie Moore appointed in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Keen on social prescribing, access and getting out into the woods, so expectation of woodland access plan to be back as a priority
• the direction to have 60% occupancy of offices has been a challenging message. Covered later in the meeting
• Mr. Robbie Moore is visiting Alice Holt research centre on 30 November

2. Minutes of the Executive Board 7 September 2023 and matters arising

The minutes for the meeting of the Forestry Commission (FC) EB of 7 September 2023 were agreed as a true and accurate record. One action point was still outstanding.

Action 1: Head of Health and Safety and Training to confirm for next Executive Board on 23 January 2024 that the frequency and quality of mandatory training for Forestry Commission staff aligns with the rest of the civil service. All other action points were discharged.

3. Health and Safety update

One over 7 day injury has been reported in this period. A tractor operator stepped out of cab and stepped on a hollowed out tree stump, slipping and caused a grade 3 strain on the ankle. The investigation has identified a number of unfavourable conditions and we are working with the district through these.

One Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reportable incident occurred for a contractor. This was removal of old fencing posts where a rotten post snapped suddenly causing the individual to lose balance. The contractor is reporting to HSE but we are involved to ensure lessons are learned and communicated.

No significant update to work programmes. Moving to implementation stage, though many of these feed into the overarching Look Out and Look After programme.

4. Your Offer

The Board were asked whether they endorse the timeline, or can provide an alternative, to provide comment on the communications timeline, and to decide whether leavers should be entitled to the backdated pay uplift.

At the time of the meeting other Defra organisations, including the Environment Agency and Natural England had already had their cases agreed and were negotiating with trade unions on implementation. For this reason the Board insisted that whatever happened with the Cabinet Office and Treasury, the pay uplift was deliverable by March 2024.

The project team confirmed that if FC receive a decision no later than 8 January 2024, this will give trade unions four weeks to ballot. If the FC receive a decision from Treasury or the Forestry Commission Trade Union (FCTU) later than 29 February 2024, then Your Offer will not be implemented in 2023-24. Instead, the pay remit will be implemented in March.

The Board discussed whether to provide staff with all the information about Your Offer before Christmas. Good practice dictates that negotiation with trade unions should happen first to ensure that collective bargaining can be exercised, however given the tight timeline and many uncertainties within it, the Board endorsed providing an update to all staff after the business case is approved by HM Treasury, at the point when negotiations start with the Trade Unions. There is no guarantee that the FC would receive a decision from Treasury in January. It will therefore be necessary to get an agreement in principle with the FCTU before formal negotiations commence. The communication embargo can be lifted when the business case returns from HM Treasury.

The EB endorsed the communications plan and timeline, noting the challenges of not receiving an answer in time. The EB also endorsed including leavers in backdated pay uplift once a decision has been received, and at the same time as all staff.

5. GIAA Action Tracker

There has been good progress since the last update, with 58 actions still outstanding and 30 actions complete. Six audits have been taken off the tracker. New actions have also been added. Some actions have new dates, and three are overdue. There needs to be a push to complete longer actions. Two of three recent audits have an amber rating.

GIAA will come talk to each organisation early in January to agree on next year’s audit plan. Internal audit’s aim is to identify and address risk so helpful to target effort where it is needed.

The Chair thanked everyone involved in clearing outstanding actions.

6. Security review recommendations

A recent government security audit, which has changed since last year, has provided clear recommendations. One of these recommendations is to implement policies to address and mitigate risks. These policies have been in development for some time through the cross-organisation Security and Risk Management Forum.

The Board had concerns that currently the suite of policies is not workable and requested for further work to be carried out, with consultation from other staff within the FC. Otherwise the Board agreed to these in principle, once further consultation and amendments have been made.

Action 2: Board members to suggest to Security and Risk Management Forum leads who else to engage on this suite of policies so they can be implemented and actioned by the business.

Action 3: Derrick Osgood to bring back amended suite of policies to January 2024 Board for endorsement.

7. BCP framework

The Board agreed to defer decision on this item to a later date, to ensure the framework is workable, clear and concise.

Action 4: Board members to suggest to Business Continuity Planning working group who else needs to engage on the proposed BCP Framework.

Action 5: Derrick Osgood to bring back amended BCP Framework to January 2024 Board for endorsement.

8. Business, entertainment and hospitality policy

There is currently a gap in FC governance on how to make decisions around spending public money for business, entertainment and hospitality. Based on the number of requests there is little clarity in the business around what is permitted or good practice. This presents a risk and sends a mixed message in a difficult financial context. The proposed policy uses existing guidelines on food and drinks, incorporates gifts and hospitality policy and links closely to managing public money.

The Board requested that if possible, the policy is simplified, and that whilst gifts and hospitality is referenced in the document, that alignment to other policies such as this one is more clear to staff to adhere to the wider aims of policy in this area.

The Chair insisted that a workable policy was implemented by the January Executive Board, ensuring that this gap in assurance is met.

Action 6: Working with other the Forest Research (FR) and Forestry England (FE) Finance Directors, Derrick Osgood to bring back the amended policy to January 2024 Board for endorsement.

9. Corporate services

In the summer it was agreed that Forestry England was out of scope for enrolling in Defra corporate services. Since then, Defra has run a number of workshops, and it has been now confirmed that the Forestry Commission will not be in the first phase of Synergy due to the FC not using Defra’s in year management finance system (SOP). The Forestry Commission will be asked to align our systems to ensure we can join at a later phase (currently in 2028), so there is more work ahead.

Action 7: Derrick Osgood to share Synergy slide deck with EB.

Action 8: Richard Stanford to talk with FE and FR CEOs on what needs to be done to align the FC systems and processes to enrol in Synergy in 2028.

10. Senior leadership programme

The senior leadership programme is aimed at pay bands 1 and 2. The project team have asked the Board for their views on timing, vision and outcomes, and name for the programme. The Board endorsed rolling out the programme with support for financial training to be included.

Head of OD confirmed that while we are applying a similar approach as taken for the PMP, we are looking for a delivery partner that can take on the administrative cost of running the programme, to reduce impact on the business. The Board supported the name of the programme to be Senior Leadership Development programme.

11. Corporate Plan

The purpose of this item was for the Board to endorse the first version of the Corporate Plan to go to the Commissioners’ Board for sign off on 12 December 2023. This year’s plan will be used to provide a more mature version for 2024-25. The next stage is to hold workshops to design the right performance indicators for the next iteration of the plan. The ambition is that these indicators will simplify reporting while holding FC accountable for delivery of its strategy, with any issues reportable at the right level and time to address blockers.

The Board noted that some of the Forest Services performance indicators were still not ready to be signed off as their purpose, methodology, and design have not yet been fully explored. The Chair requested that the project team works with Forest Services to identify which performance indicators can remain, which can be greyed out for future consideration, and which need to be removed before sending the Corporate Plan to Commissioners’ Board for sign off.

Action 9: Head of Corporate planning to request nominations from accounting officers for the corporate plan workshops in the new year.

Action 10: Head of Corporate planning to share a script on how the workshops will be run with EB to ensure the methodology and design of indicators will be reflective of individual business and overarching business plans.

Action 11: Head of Corporate planning to work with Forest Services on amending performance indicators in the draft Corporate Plan before sending to the Commissioners’ Board for sign off.

12. Office occupancy rates

The Chair updated the Board of the current direction by this government to ensure staff spend 60% of their time in the office noting that at least 50% of FC staff are field based.

13. AOB

Completion rates for mid-year reviews

Currently 72% completion rate of mid-year reviews. The Board are encouraged to support staff to do this as we are committed to capability based appraisal.

Risk matrix update

The Chair noted that the FC will add a new risk to its matrix to escalate to Defra on not meeting net zero for tree planting and restoring habitats. Currently, Defra tracks risks to biodiversity targets but not carbon.