Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 12 February 2019.
Diolch, Llywydd. Natural Resources Wales directly manages 80 per cent of Wales's forests and regulates the remaining 20 per cent. As a body itself, it produces 800,000 tonnes of timber each year. Yet, astonishingly, as we heard yesterday from the chief executive of NRW, no-one on the current board has either knowledge or experience in timber or forestry. In their report into the problems at NRW's forestry division, the auditors Grant Thornton referred to a merged entity without a single organisational culture and an isolated forestry function beset by serious failings including poor governance, poor people management, poor budgeting and an audit culture that was not so much dilatory as entirely non existent. The board of NRW must accept their share of the responsibility for this grim state of affairs, and indeed the former chair resigned. But, since it was your Government that appointed them, do you also accept your share of the blame in creating a board that so patently was simply not up to the task?