Decision

Advice Letter: Amanda Milling, Member of the Independent Advisory Board, TVCA

Updated 12 August 2025

1. BUSINESS APPOINTMENT APPLICATION: Dame Amanda Milling, former Lord Commissioner of the Treasury. Paid appointment with the Tees Valley Combined Authority.

You approached the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (the Committee) under the government’s Business Appointment Rules for Former Ministers (the Rules) seeking advice on taking up a paid role as a Member of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (the Combined Authority) Independent Advisory Board.

The purpose of the Rules is to protect the integrity of the government. The Committee has considered the risks associated with the actions and decisions taken during your time in office, alongside the information and influence you may offer the Combined Authority as a former minister. The material information taken into consideration by the Committee is set out in the annex.

The Committee’s advice is not an endorsement of the appointment – it imposes a number of conditions to mitigate the potential risks to the government associated with the appointment under the Rules.

The Ministerial Code sets out that ministers must abide by the Committee’s advice. It is an applicant’s personal responsibility to manage the propriety of any appointment. Former ministers of the Crown, and Members of Parliament, are expected to uphold the highest standards of propriety and act in accordance with the 7 Principles of Public Life.

2. The Committee’s consideration of the risks presented

The Combined Authority is a local government body. You wish to become a Member of its Independent Advisory Board, which was established to oversee the implementation of recommendations for the recent Tees Valley Review Report and enhance the authority’s performance in delivering strategic projects in the region.

You did not meet with, nor did you make any policy, regulatory or commercial decisions specific to the Combined Authority in ministerial office; and there is no known overlap between your former ministerial responsibilities and this appointment. Therefore, the Committee^{[footnote 1]} considered the risk this appointment could reasonably be perceived as a reward for decisions or actions taken in office is low.

As a minister it is likely that you had access to a range of information that could benefit any organisation. The Committee considered the risks limited in this case because:

• As above, there is no discernible overlap between your most recent ministerial role and your responsibilities at the Combined Authority Independent Advisory Board.
• Your former department identified no specific sensitive information you had access to that would offer an unfair advantage.
• You will have been out of office for a year by the time you take up this appointment, which reduces the currency of any information you may possess

As with any former minister, there are inherent risks associated with your network of contacts and potential influence within government. However, you confirmed that your role will not involve any contact with the UK government and instead your prospective role is orientated towards local stakeholders.

3. The Committee’s advice

The Committee determined that your role with the local authority raises no particular propriety concerns, particularly as it is part of the wider public service delivering services for the citizen. The risks identified can be appropriately mitigated by the conditions below, which seek to prevent you from making use of privileged information, contacts and influence gained from your recent time in ministerial office to the unfair advantage of the Combined Authority.

The Committee advises, under the government’s Business Appointment Rules, that your appointment with Tees Valley Combined Authority be subject to the following conditions:

• you should not draw on (disclose or use for the benefit of yourself or the persons or organisations to which this advice refers) any privileged information available to you from your time in ministerial service;
• for two years from your last day in ministerial service, you should not become personally involved in lobbying government or any of its arm’s length bodies on behalf of Tees Valley Combined Authority (including parent companies, subsidiaries, partners and clients); nor should you make use, directly or indirectly, of your contacts in government and/or Crown service to influence policy, secure business/funding or otherwise unfairly advantage Tees Valley Combined Authority (including parent companies, subsidiaries, partners and clients); and
• for two years from your last day in ministerial service, you should not provide advice to Tees Valley Combined Authority (including parent companies, subsidiaries, partners and clients) on the terms of, or with regard to the subject matter of, a bid with, or contract relating directly to the work of the UK government and its arm’s length bodies.

The advice and the conditions under the government’s Business Appointment Rules relate to your previous role in government only; they are separate from rules administered by other bodies such as the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Registrar of Lords’ Interests.^{[footnote 2]} It is an applicant’s personal responsibility to understand any other rules and regulations they may be subject to in parallel with this Committee’s advice.

By ‘privileged information’ we mean official information to which a Minister or Crown servant has had access as a consequence of his or her office or employment and which has not been made publicly available. Applicants are also reminded that they may be subject to other duties of confidentiality, whether under the Official Secrets Act, the Civil Service Code or otherwise.

The Business Appointment Rules explain that the restriction on lobbying means that the former Crown servant/minister ‘should not engage in communication with government (ministers, civil servants, including special advisers, and other relevant officials/public office holders) – wherever it takes place – with a view to influencing a government decision, policy or contract award/grant in relation to their own interests or the interests of the organisation by which they are employed, or to whom they are contracted or with which they hold office.’

You must inform us as soon as you take up this role, or if it is announced that you will do so. You must also inform us if you propose to extend or otherwise change the nature of your role as, depending on the circumstances, it may be necessary for you to make a fresh application.

Once the appointment has been publicly announced or taken up, we will publish this letter on the Committee’s website, and where appropriate, refer to it in the relevant annual report.

4. Annex – Material information

4.1 The role

You propose to take up a paid, part-time role as a Member of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (the Combined Authority) Independent Advisory Board. The Combined Authority is a local government combined authority established in 2016, covering five unitary authorities in the Tees Valley urban area.

Your role as a member of the Independent Advisory Board will be to oversee the implementation of recommendations from the Tees Valley Review Report of January 2025. The board’s primary function is to oversee and enhance the performance of the authority, ensuring the effective delivery of strategic projects related to economic development, transport, skills and housing. You stated the role will involve no contact with government. You also noted you previously served as a Borough Councillor before being elected to Parliament.

4.2 Dealings in office

You informed the Committee that during your time in ministerial office you had no involvement in policy development or decisions that affected the Combined Authority.

You also confirmed you had no contact with the Combined Authority and made no contractual or commercial decisions relevant to the authority. You stated you had no access to privileged information that would be relevant to your new role.

4.3 Departmental assessment

The Cabinet Office confirmed that you were not involved in any regulatory, policy, funding, or commercial decisions that would have affected the Combined Authority.

The department also confirmed that it has no relationship with the Combined Authority and that you had no contact with the authority during your time in office. The department did not identify any access to privileged information that could be seen to offer an unfair advantage to the Combined Authority.

The Cabinet Office recommended standard conditions for this appointment.

1. This application for advice was considered by Isabel Doverty; Sarah de Gay; Hedley Finn OBE; Dawid Konotey-Ahulu CBE DL; and Michael Prescott; and The Baroness Thornton. ↩

2. All Peers and Members of Parliament are prevented from paid lobbying under the House of Commons Code of Conduct and the Code of Conduct for Members of the House of Lords. Advice on obligations under the Code can be sought from the Parliamentary Commissioners for Standards, in the case of MPs, or the Registrar of Lords’ Interests, in the case of peers. ↩