Chair of Natural Resources Wales resigns after timber contract failings

Wales’ auditor-general Adrian Crompton said NRW had failed to act correctly over 59 contracts for selling timber from its land.

NRW’s annual report and accounts for 2017-18 showed it received income of £2.8m in all from these.

Mr Crompton said: “Natural Resources Wales failed to demonstrate good reason for departing from its own policy of openly marketing timber.”

It also failed to adequately document the decision-making process, leading to “significant uncertainty that Natural Resources Wales acted in compliance with principles of public law” and did not refer the contracts to the Welsh Government as required for those deemed ‘novel’.

Mr Crompton said: “I therefore consider the transactions relating to these contracts to be unlawful and I have qualified my regularity opinion accordingly.”

He was also concerned that NRW might not have complied with state aid rules, by failing to consider market prices when pricing its contracts.

Wales cabinet secretary for energy planning and rural affairs Lesley Griffiths, said Ms McCrea had resigned following “concerns and criticisms from all parties in the [Welsh] Assembly”.

An interim chair will be appointed while a permanent one is recruited.

Griffiths said chief executive Clare Pillman, who took the post in February “is taking the Wales Audit Office’s concerns seriously…and implementing the changes necessary to have a delivery organisation with strong governance”.