When David Bills became director-general of the Forestry Commission (FC), he was portrayed as a hatchet man brought in to wield the axe within the Edinburgh-based organisation. Almost eight years later, and on the eve of his departure, Mr Bills is convinced that he is leaving the organisation in better spirits and in better shape.
Mr Bills acknowledges that his arrival was controversial, not least because Tasmania’s Wilderness Society had described him as “number one among Australia’s destroyers of old-growth”. For that reason, he has been “delighted” that, since assuming the top FC post, “everyone has given me a chance”. He went on to explain: “People have told me that I have done a good job – and everybody likes to hear that – but I have had excellent clay to work with.”
Indeed, Mr Bills stresses cultural change within the Commission itself as one of the most rewarding highlights of his tenure. Surveys conducted in the mid-1990s revealed a workforce suffering from low morale but, with the help of initiatives such as Investors in People, the FC has moulded a team with “a unity of purpose”, said Mr Bills. “We have empowered people and given them real responsibility.”
Devolution
Another key development during Mr Bills’ tenure has also involved placing responsibility at a more local level. With devolution, directors for England, Wales and Scotland now work directly with their respective ministers to create “a policy more attuned to country needs”. As a result, the FC head office is no longer the “command and control” centre but rather “a provider of cross-cutting services and expertise”. The continued existence of head office depends on honing this service provision and Mr Bills recognises that some refining work remains to be done, before going on to confirm a decision to retain all services for at least two years prior to a review. At the same time, he points out that industry and NGOs “don’t want triplication” and argues that “we have not seen it yet.”
If devolution can be said to have created difficulties, Mr Bills believes these have arisen principally in the area of interface with government administrations, most notably in Westminster. “We have been knocking at the doors of the rural affairs departments to tell them we have a role to play,” he said. “We are still a GB organisation but we want to act devolved.”
Another major issue to emerge over the past eight years has been the trend towards “multi-functional” forestry. Hailing the brokering of the UK Woodland Assurance Standard as a clear sign of the FC’s own move in this direction, Mr Bills goes on to note that the public wants more from modern forestry and yet there is no reason why timber production should pay for all of these additional benefits.
Mr Bills has no trouble in identifying “rough timber prices” as the main disappointment of his period in office. He believes these have been responsible to some extent for accelerating all-important changes within the FC, although he insists: “If prices had been better, devolution would still have happened and we would still have moved along with the social dimension.”
He also suggests that, while low timber prices have been a major factor behind closures within the UK processing sector, other mills have responded with massive investments which have led to increased levels of efficiency. As a result, many of the remaining players have become well-placed to take advantage of improved prices once they materialise. “Despite all the lousy prices, it has never been a volume problem – but the margins are not there,” he said. The two main problems have been that the UK has represented “a good market for overseas timber” and has had to accommodate growing support for the use of recycled fibre.
The optimist in Mr Bills foresees an improvement in the UK’s competitive position over the medium term, not least because the accession of Baltic states into the European Union will mean convergence of their wages/conditions and a need for them to increase prices. Currency re-alignment is beginning to occur and sawn timber prices have risen in recent times, he points out.
Mr Bills is also upbeat on a number of other topics. For example, he points to the ongoing success of the UK’s wood. for good campaign which, he maintains, has been “extremely effective in promoting the use of wood and also in boosting its environmental credentials”.
In addition, he argues that emerging wood fuel technologies will allow small- to medium-sized businesses to “tap into the grid” and that, as more organisations commit to it, this form of energy will experience a renewed momentum. And he notes collaboration between the UK and Brussels aimed at developing guidance on specifying certified timber which will ultimately “load the dice in its favour”. There is an opportunity to exploit certification by developing new or niche markets while housing and construction policies are beginning to favour wood from sustainably managed forests, he contends.
On the issue of research and training, Mr Bills approves greatly of the added impetus provided by the development of the Centre for Timber Engineering within Edinburgh’s Napier University. This initiative has already helped to underline that “there are some unique selling points for Sitka spruce,” he said. In addition, he is very pleased to note that “some of our major processors are using this resource to train some of their key people”.
Conflict of interests
Mr Bills is conversely perturbed by accusations that, as an adviser to the government, manager of the state forests and industry regulator, the Forestry Commission faces a conflict of interests. While acknowledging that the potential exists to “stack the cards” in its favour, Mr Bills said: “I deny emphatically that we handle Forest Enterprise with a light touch. In many ways, indeed, we demand more from it than from the
private sector”.
Moving on to another source of concern, the outgoing director-general underlines the importance for the home-grown sector of “working up new markets that would allow us to thin”. At the same time, he notes that the planting of better seed and development of better generic stock are creating the groundwork for an improvement in quality.
On a personal note, Mr Bills insists that his imminent departure should not be interpreted as a sign of discontent with the FC or of disenchantment with the forestry industry. “I was happy to get a second term [as director-general] but it’s a question of when – not if – you leave jobs like this,” he said. As for the future, he has yet to narrow down his career options to either hemisphere or to the public or private sector. But he stresses: “I would like to find something in forestry.”
His successor, meanwhile, will inherit “a well-functioning organisation” which, through its key work in such areas as certification, “has become quite influential in Europe” and has earned itself “a more prominent seat at the policy-making table”, such that it has been better placed to derail some proposed legislative excesses.
At the same time, believes Mr Bills, FC’s new director-general will have to be “more co-ordinating and persuading” in order to run the organisation in such a way that “makes sense” in a GB context.
