Two new council members appointed to Competition Commission
Competition Minister Jo Swinson said: “I’m delighted to welcome Dame Janet and Penny to the Competition Commission. They both bring invaluable…
Competition Minister Jo Swinson said:
“I’m delighted to welcome Dame Janet and Penny to the Competition Commission. They both bring invaluable experience and expertise, which will be hugely beneficial to the work of the Commission, especially during its transition phase, working towards the creation of the new Competition and Markets Authority.”
**Notes for Editors
**1. Dame Janet and Penny Boys have both been appointed for a maximum term of two years. The Competition and Markets Authority is expected to become fully operational by April 2014, which is also the date the Competition Commission will be formally abolished. These appointments will come to an end on the date of the abolition of the Commission.
-
They will be paid pro-rata, based on a daily rate of £350. The appointments carry no right of pension, gratuity or allowance on termination.
-
The appointments have been made in accordance with the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA) Code of Practice.
-
All appointments are made on merit, and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees’ political activity to be made public. Neither of the new members is politically active.
-
The Rt Hon. Dame Janet Paraskeva DBE was appointed as the first Chair of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission in November 2007 and the First Civil Service Commissioner on 1 January 2006. She worked for HM Inspector of Schools until 1988 and has served as chief executive at the Law Society and was Director for England of the National Lottery Charities Board as well serving as a magistrate and as a member of the Youth Justice Board. In 2005, she was appointed to the board of Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency as a non-executive director and in 2006 she was appointed as head of the new Olympic Lottery Distributor (OLD). In July 2010, she was appointed by the Prime Minister as one of three members of an inquiry to determine whether British intelligence officers were complicit in the torture of detainees, and was made a member of the Privy Council. In 1978, she was awarded the Robert Schuman Silver Medal for European Unity and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.
-
Penny Boys, CB, is a non-executive director of Ofwat and has been the Chief Executive of the Competition Commission, the Executive Director in the OFT, the first Deputy Director General at the office of Electricity Regulation and served as Head of Personnel at the DTI. She has also worked at the Treasury, the former Department of Energy and was seconded to the British National Oil Corporation. She is also one of Network Rail’s Member Selection Panel.
-
The Competition Commission is a statutory body set up by the Competition Act 1998 and replaced the old Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The Commission conducts in-depth inquiries into mergers, markets and the regulation of the major regulated industries. In most merger and market references the Commission is responsible for making decisions on the competition questions and for making and implementing decisions on appropriate remedies. Every inquiry is undertaken in response to a reference made to it by another authority, usually the Office of Fair Trading. The Commission has no power to conduct inquiries on its own initiative.
-
The Commission consists of a Chairman, 3 Deputy Chairmen, 2 Council Members and around 37 Panel Members. There is a Chief Executive and around 150 staff. The Council is the CC’s strategic management board; it is led by the Chairman and consists of the three Deputy Chairmen, the Chief Executive, and non-executive Council members. The Council meets at least six times a year to consider the plans and strategic direction of the CC and to review recent inquiries, high-level risks and discuss best practice across inquiry groups.
-
The Government’s economic policy objective is to achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries’. It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’ (PDF 1.7MB), published at Budget 2011:
-
To create the most competitive tax system in the G20
-
To make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
-
To encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
-
To create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.
Work is underway across Government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the Government wants the economy to travel.
- BIS’s online newsroom contains the latest press notices and speeches, as well as video and images for download. It also features an up to date list of BIS press office contacts. See http://www.bis.gov.uk/newsroom for more information.
Notes to Editors
Contact Information
Name BIS Press Office Job Title
Division Department for Business, Innovation & Skills Phone
Fax
Mobile
Email bispress.releases@bis.gsi.gov.uk
Name Nic Fearon-Low Job Title
Division Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Phone 020 7215 5078 Fax
Mobile