Richard Cornish

Biography
Richard Cornish was appointed Chief Operating Officer at Natural England in June 2019. Richard has spent most of his career in central government, mainly in large-scale delivery roles. He has also lead policy, strategy and major change programmes. His most recent roles include:
- Director of Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
- Devolution Director, DWP
- Joint head of Policy and Analysis at the Smith Commission
- Director for Scotland, Jobcentre Plus
Richard is also a non-executive director on the Ofgem E-Serve board.
Chief Operating Officer
The COO is responsible for leadership of the:
- 14 area teams that deliver Natural England’s outcomes across the breadth of its remit
- national teams that support outcome delivery and enable innovation and strategic change
Responsibilities include:
- delivering Natural England’s Conservation Strategy (Conservation 21) in places as a local convenor and environmental leader (on land, coast and at sea)
- bringing alive Defra’s strategy and joint working across the Defra Group at a local level
- managing Natural England’s reputation and profile at a local level
- gathering intelligence to inform policy development and strategy development
- developing better ways of doing things
- delivering cultural change associated with organisational reforms