RSPCA future

Last year, Beccy Speight was appointed chief executive of the RSPB, succeeding Mike Clarke. John Miles caught up with her to chat about what’s next for the charity…

We talk to the organisation’s new head, Beccy Speight

My step-sister worked at Stourhead (in Wiltshire), so I have visited it several times. Did you enjoy your experience there with the National Trust?

Managing Stourhead was my first job in the wider conservation sector, and I felt so lucky that someone was prepared to take a punt on me! Up until then I had been working as a management consultant, often on big corporate mergers.

I had loved the buzz of that, but felt I wanted to contribute to something beyond building shareholder value. So I knew nothing directly relevant, but I did have some useful skills I had picked up along the way. I absolutely loved my five years there. It is an amazing house, garden and estate and still has part of my heart.

I worked with some superb people and learned a lot pretty fast! I still go back to visit when I am down that way and have a lot of friends from those days still based around there. Good times.

How different was the step across to the Woodland Trust?

By the time I moved from the National

Trust I had become their Director for the Midlands. But the move to being CEO of an organisation, despite the scale and financial responsibilities being similar to that role, is not to be underestimated.

The buck really does stop with you and there is no peer network for you in the organisation. I was lucky to be able to part inherit and part build a wonderful leadership team; there was a great Board of Trustees and the organisation was ready to be ambitious for its cause.

It was a joy to be more firmly in the nature conservation world and to be able to move fast in a smaller, more nimble organisation and develop and ride the wave that was the growing enthusiasm for trees.

Were you approached to take the job with the RSPB?

I was, because a recruitment consultancy was used – which is normal for this type of role. But they approach a lot of people. So, you are still in a competitive situation and have to be put through your paces to land the job. It’s quite a long process!

I know the RSPB has a history of taking on staff with bird names, but this one may have slipped through unnoticed (‘speight’ is an old dialect name for the Green Woodpecker)?

I know – isn’t it hilarious?! Some bright spark picked it up on social media when my appointment was announced. I think it’s Middle English as a word, but it still means ‘woodpecker’ in modern day German, too. It felt quite a good match at the Woodland Trust, but it’s perfect for the RSPB!

When this country gets back to normal, how will you stimulate membership? Is two million possible?

Well that’s a question we’re wrestling with right now. Our online recruitment for members is going really well at the moment, thank goodness – but of course our face-to-face recruitment teams, who work on reserves and out at events and other venues, are currently furloughed. They simply can’t do their work right now.

Reserves are just starting to open to visitors as I write this, so we envisage we will be able to bring some of that team back to work very soon. And we will probably want to invest more longer term in our digital abilities to grow membership.

I’m not sure about two million and I’m not sure that ‘membership’ will be our only way of growing support going forwards, but I am really clear that we need to continue to build a mass movement of people who are interested in birds and passionate about safeguarding and restoring the wider natural world and that membership of an organisation like ours remains a great way to be a part of and offer support to that movement.

I have been so impressed by the way in which our members and supporters have stuck with us during these challenging months and I know that has given the staff and volunteer team a huge feeling of family and shared mission.

The game bird industry – will the RSPB finally get off the fence one direction or the other?

Well, I wouldn’t say we’re on the fence now. We’ve been calling for licensing of grouse shoots for a long time. As you probably know, we’re in the midst of our shooting review, which we announced at our last AGM.

That review was prompted by our concerns about the potential ecological impacts caused by intensive forms of shooting, particularly grouse shooting and mass Pheasant and partridge release. Both these have intensified significantly over the past decade or so.

I can’t pre-empt the outcomes of that review (which we will announce at this year’s AGM) but there are such strong views held by all the different stakeholders concerned – many of whom have contributed to our review – that I can predict we won’t satisfy everyone!

What I can say is that on the basis of wide consultation and a thorough evidence review, we are going to develop a set of clear conservation principles which we will then apply to our own position.

We have seen a reduction in staff recently, with volunteers filling the gap – will this continue?

A review of the RSPB’s structure took place last year and was completed by the time I joined the organisation. This was prompted by the need to