Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

Our legal obligations

Forest Research as part of the Forestry Commission is a public body with responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010.

The Act requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010;
• advance equality of opportunity between people from different groups; and
• foster good relations between people from different groups.

Our annual Monitoring Reports and our Equality Objectives show how we fulfil, and intend to fulfil, our legal obligations.

• FR and CFS Equality Monitoring Report 2017-2018
• FR and CFS Equality Monitoring Report 2016 – 2017 
• Monitoring Report 2015 – 2016
• Equality Objectives 2016 – 2020

The Act also requires us to publish an annual gender pay gap report.  The Forestry Commission has published our Gender Pay Gap report for the period 1st April 2016 – 31st March 2017 and 1st April 2017 – 31st March 2018.

These reports sets out our headline gender pay figures, the reasons why we have a gender pay gap and what we are doing to address it moving forwards. 

• Gender Pay Gap Report 2016-2017
• Gender Pay Gap Report 2017-2018

Parental leave

Government bodies are required to provide information about parental leave on their external websites. We offer maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.