Uses of our statistics

The statistics that we produce are used by the public sector, businesses, trade associations, academics, members of the public and others for a variety of purposes, including:

• providing information on the economy/society/environment;
• informing policy and programme development;
• for policy/programme evaluation and monitoring;
• promoting the benefits of forestry;
• informing marketing campaigns;
• assessing the performance of government/ public bodies;
• facilitating academic research;
• informing investment decisions; and
• allocating resources.

Your views

In order to improve the statistics that we produce and to ensure that they remain relevant, we are interested in hearing from people who use our statistics.

We use a variety of methods to obtain the views of our users, including formal groups (e.g. the Expert Group on Timber and Trade Statistics), consultation with key users and more informal routes (e.g. comments received from users).

We also run a more in-depth user engagement survey approximately every three years, in order to seek more detailed feedback from a wider range of users. The most recent survey was undertaken as part of a broader review of our “Forestry Statistics” release; information on this review will be added shortly.

If you wish to provide comments on any aspect of our statistics (including the uses made of our statistics), please contact us at any time:

By e-mail – statistics@forestresearch.gov.uk

By telephone – 0300 067 5238

Alternatively, if you would like to be consulted when we are reviewing our statistics, please register your interest by e-mailing us at statistics@forestresearch.gov.uk, noting which of the following topics you are interested in:

1. Woodland Area and Planting
2. UK Grown Timber
3. Trade
4. Carbon
5. Environment
6. Social
7. Employment & Businesses
8. Finance & Prices
9. International Forestry

Customer Service: Service Standards

If you get in touch with us, you can expect us to be polite, approachable and helpful, and to readily identify ourselves. We will make every reasonable effort to ensure that you are provided with information that is timely, relevant and accurate, and we will endeavour to meet the following targets:

• We will endeavour to respond to customer correspondence, whether in paper or electronic form, within 5 working days commencing from the date when we receive your correspondence.
• Our response will either be an answer to the issue you have raised, or a notification that the correspondence is being dealt with, but noting that the reply may take longer than the initial 5 day period.
• Our holding reply will either contain a date by which we intend to provide a full response, or a date by which we will contact you with a progress update.
• We will return customers' calls within 1 working day.

Sometimes, our service delivery standards will be affected by circumstances beyond our control and occasionally we make mistakes. When this happens we will apologise and do everything we can to put things right. If you have a concern about the quality of our service, or the treatment you have received from us, and you cannot resolve the problem with the person you have been dealing with, please contact:

Sheila Ward, Lead Statistician, Forest Research,

231 Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh, EH12 7AT

E-mail: statistics@forestresearch.gov.uk

Tel: 0300 067 5236