Transparency data

Minutes: 8 December 2025

Published 5 June 2026

Forestry Commission executive board 133rd meeting minutes, Monday 8 December 2025, 10:00–11:30 in person at Bristol and via MS Teams.

1. Welcome, updates and introductions

The Chair opened the meeting and welcomed Lisa Brooks, Forest Services Chief Operating Officer. No apologies had been received.

2. Minutes of the executive board, 23 September 2025 and matters arising

The minutes for the meeting of the Forestry Commission executive board of last meeting were agreed as a true and accurate record.

The board briefly discussed the update on action – exploration of Forestry Commission Energy Resource Planning solution. The board are looking forward to having a more substantive update in January 2026.

Action – summarise the number of reporting metrics to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) rolled over and action – progress Woodland Water Code is still in progress. All other actions were discharged.

3. Government Internal Audit Agency action tracker

The board received an update ahead of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee on 15 December 2025 where 62 actions were still open. The board acknowledged that some findings from the records management audit would need to be added to the corporate risk register.

Action

Members to review the Forestry Commission risk register following agreement of the draft of the Records Management audit.

4. AI working group

The board approved the terms of reference, plan for communications and checklist for uses of generative AI, for the AI working group and the forward plan for staff communications. Head of Organisational Change also noted that Defra will be publishing an article on their intranet promoting the Forestry Commission’s approach to AI – supporting responsible acceleration of its use.

5. Mandatory training

Head of Health and Safety and Technical Training presented overall completion rates of mandatory training for parts of the Forestry Commission. The team is working with Forest Research to ensure that these figures can also be recorded and tracked for them. Forest Research are migrating to same system as used in Forest Services/Forestry England which should resolve this issue.

The board briefly discussed the cadence of mandatory training modules and whether a one year or 3-year cycle was appropriate. The agreement was that most need to be topped up on a 3-year cycle, with a drumbeat of comms to cover the interim period.

Action

Head of Health and Safety to check the cadence of mandatory training period and whether it is appropriate for all staff in the Forestry Commission.

6. People board

Report update

Work is gathering pace on all projects at the people board. Head of HR suggested sponsors from executive board membership for each project, which was agreed. The board endorsed the proposed change on relocation allowance discretionary guaranteed sales price, including retaining the ability to use when needed for the needs of the Forestry Commission.

The board briefly discussed the HR dashboard, with granularity of data for fixed-term appointments (FTAs), recognising the improvement needed to align people and finance systems data in Forest Services/Forestry England. The board recommended that the people board should prioritise review of FTA policy, including alignment across the Forestry Commission.

There was a brief discussion around performance reviews. All agreed that high quality conversations are important and should be encouraged.

National Living Wage

The board endorsed the proposed salary uplift to pay band 7 to meet the National Living Wage.

Operational hours and trade union relations

The board discussed a pilot proposal for change in operational hours. Main issues with the proposal discussed were that this will be onerous to manage and will add pressure on managers to oversee the veracity of time sheets. Success will be tricky in terms of timing, negotiation and implementation, and that currently Forestry Commission recognised unions are in dispute with the Forestry Commission and other parts of government. The board recognised that reaching any agreement will be challenging without having a recognition agreement signed first and so asked to delay the decision on the pilot until this is in place.

Actions

1. Head of HR to seek advice from Defra on best approach for piloting a reduction in operational hours.
2. Richard Stanford to write to Forestry Commission trade unions to sign up to the recognition agreement.

6. Any other business

There was no other business and the meeting ended.