Transparency data

DWP register of board members’ interests Apr 2023 to Mar 2024

Published 22 July 2024

All of our employees are bound by the Civil Service Code – the framework on which the Department’s standards of behaviour are built. The consequences of failing to comply are serious and attract penalties up to and including dismissal. The Department’s Standards of Behaviour Policy and Procedures apply to employees at all grades.

It is mandated in the Department’s internally published Standards of Behaviour Procedures that employees’ interests and activities outside of work must not create conflict of interest or potential for perceived conflict of interest with their official role and they must not bring the Department into disrepute. Our employees are specifically instructed in the Standards of Behaviour Procedures never to request special treatment from any client of the Department that would benefit their outside interests. Our employees are also specifically required to consult their line manager and seek permission if they are proposing to take up a second occupation or any position with a non-political organisation (political activity is controlled under separate rules) if it could create a conflict of interests, or appear to create a conflict of interests.   Further, our employees must seek their manager’s written permission to take up any non-executive directorship during their employment with the Department.

In addition to the Department’s standing requirement for all staff to discuss potential conflicts with their manager before taking up an external appointment, our Senior Civil Servants and non-executive members are required to declare any interests which they hold to the Permanent Secretary on an annual basis. The information has been gathered during the year and has been reviewed by the Permanent Secretary. The returns were also scrutinised by our Departmental Audit and Risk Assurance Committee.

At the beginning of every Departmental Board meeting, all members are asked to declare any new potential conflicts of interest. These are noted in the minutes along with the appropriate action taken to manage them. Where a board member declares a potential conflict at a meeting, it is recorded in the minutes and the board member takes no part in any discussions relating to that matter. There were no conflicts of interests registered during board meetings in 2023 to 2024.

None of our ministers held directorships that conflicted with their management responsibilities in 2023 to 2024.

We have put in place legal agreements with Richard Corbridge and Charlie Steel that define the protocols and principles to be followed to identify, prevent, mitigate and remedy any conflict of interest or unfair advantage (whether actual, potential or perceived) that could arise as a result of Richard’s position on the Executive Team and Charlie’s position on the Department’s non-executive board.

In addition, in line with the current Declaration of Interest policy for special advisers, all special advisers have declared any relevant interest or confirmed they do not consider they have any relevant interests. The Permanent Secretary has considered these returns and relevant interests are set out in public.

A comprehensive list of directors and non-executive board members’ interests as of 31 March 2024 is shown below:

Ministers

Name	Name of company or organisation	Position held	Type of Interest (for example: pay, fees, shareholding)	Other relevant information
Rt Hon Mel Stride MP				Nil Return
Guy Opperman MP				Nil Return
Mims Davies MP				Nil Return
Laura Trott MBE MP				Nil Return
Tom Pursglove MP				Nil Return
Paul Maynard MP	Consumer Council	Participant	Unpaid
Jo Churchill MP				Nil Return
Lord James Younger				Nil Return

Departmental Board non-executive members

Name	Name of company or organisation	Position held	Type of Interest (for example: pay, fees, shareholding)	Other relevant information
Ashley Machin	Lloyds Banking Group		Shareholding
	Masthaven Bank	Chair	Paid	Contract ended December 2023
	Atlanta Insurance Intermediaries Limited (formerly Swinton Group Ltd)	Non-executive Director	Paid	Resigned December 2018
	Wealth Wizards Ltd (employed by Royal London)	Director	Paid
Valerie Hughes-D’Aeth	BBC	Chief HR Officer	Paid	Resigned November 2019
	CIPD	Chair	Unpaid
	VHD Consulting Ltd	Mentor & Consultant	Fees	Small amount of paid mentoring work. Potentially 40 days paid consultancy work over a 6 month period
David Bennett	Ashmore Group PLC	Chair	Fees	Resigned April 2022
	Blemain Finance Ltd	Director	Fees	Resigned January 2019
	Clydesdale Bank PLC	Director	Fees
	David Bennett Avisory Ltd	Director	Paid	Resigned April 2020
				Spouse/Partner is a Non-Executive Director for HMT - there are plans in place to handle any conflicts of interest
	M:QUBE	Advisor	Fees
	Paypal (Europe) S.a.r.L et cie	Director	Fees
	PayPal Australia	Advisor	Paid
	PayPal Digital Currency	Advisor	Paid
	Rugby School	Governor	Unpaid	Resigned June 2020
	Spot Finance Ltd	Director	Fees	Resigned January 2019
	Together123 Ltd	Director	Fees	Resigned January 2019
	Together Personal Finance Ltd	Director	Fees	Resigned January 2019
	Virgin Money Limited (Formerly Virgin Money PLC)	Director	Fees	Resigned May 2021
	Virgin Money UK PLC	Chair	Paid
	Allfund Group	Chair	Paid
Ian Wilson	BPDTS Ltd	Non-executive Director	Paid	Resigned June 2021
	Church of England Pensions Board	Trustee	Unpaid
	DXC UK Trustee Ltd	Director	Paid
	Friends of Milton Keynes Hospital Charity	Trustee	Unpaid	Resigned June 2021
	Government Actuary’s Department	Non-executive Director	Paid
	LFMKH Ltd	Director	Paid	Resigned June 2021
	Royal College of General Practitioners	Trustee	Unpaid
	Milton Keynes University Hospital Foundation Trust	Associate Non-executive Director	Paid	Role ended 31 March 2020
	Ministry of Defence: Defence Business Services	Non-executive Director	Paid	Term of office completed in June 2021
	Purple Leaf Solutions Ltd	Director	Paid
	RCGP Superannuation fund Trust company LTD	Director	Unpaid
	Royal Holloway, University of London	Council member	Unpaid
	UKRI	Non-executive Director	Paid	Resigned March 2023
Sally Cheshire	CAFCASS	Chair	Paid	Executive NDPB sponsored by Ministry of Justice
	NHS Resolution	Chair	Paid	Special health authority sponsored by Department of Health and Social Care
	Care Quality Commission	Non-executive Director and Chair of Audit & Corporate Governance Committee	Paid	Executive NDPB sponsored by Department of Health and Social Care Chair of Audit Committee. Role ended 31 December 2022
	Health Education England - LETB North	Chair	Paid	Executive NDPB sponsored by Department of Health and Social Care Role ended 31 March 2020
	Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority	Chair	Paid	Executive NDPB sponsored by Department of Health and Social Care. Term of office completed on 31 March 2021.
Simon Sear	BJSS Ltd	Director	Paid	Resigned March 2020
	Project 44 Ltd	Director/CEO	Paid	March 2020 until present
	Studio44		Unpaid	owned by Project 44
	Ascent	Chief Digital Officer	Paid
Charlie Steel	IWG PLC	Chief Financial Officer	Paid	There are plans in place to handle any conflicts of interest
	IWG PLC		Shareholder
	Babylon Holdings Ltd	Chief Financial Officer	Paid	Resigned October 2022
	Babylon Holdings Ltd		Shareholder	sold shareholding upon resignation
	Ecstase Ltd		Shareholder
	Electricite de Strasbourg		Shareholder	Sold 100% of holding prior to 31 March 2023. However, repurchased during April 2023
	Friends of Varsity Trip Ltd	Director	Unpaid
	National Grid		Shareholder of the freehold
	VGM Advisors Ltd (formerly North Pole Laundry Services Ltd)	Director	Shareholder
	AICPA-CIMA	Non executive director	Paid
	Rollright Aviation Ltd	Director	Unpaid
Arabel Bailey	Accenture		Shares
	Reckitt Benckiser		Shares	Disposed of May 2023
	Indivior		Shares	Disposed of June 2023
	Accenture	Head of Innovation	Paid	Resigned September 2020
	University Hospitals Bristol and Weston	Non executive director	Paid
Rev. Preb Gina Radford	Health and Safety Executive	Non executive director	Paid
	Church of England	Reverend	Paid
	Plymouth Marjon University	Member of Audit and Goverance Committee	Unpaid	Term of office completed in December 2022
	Public Health England’s COVID non-Pharmaceutical Interventions Ethics Group 2020 to 2023	Chair	Unpaid	Disbanded early 2023
	National Police Chiefs’ Councils Independent	Member	Unpaid
	COVID Ethics Committee 2020 to 2022	Member	Unpaid	committee disbanded June 2023
	Devon Community Foundation	Trustee	Unpaid
	South Brent Feofees	Chair	Unpaid
	St Luke’s Foundation	Chair	Unpaid

Executive members

Name	Name of company or organisation	Position held	Type of Interest (for example: pay, fees, shareholding)	Other relevant information
Sir Peter Schofield KCB	The Civil Service Benevolent Fund	Chair	Unpaid
Simon McKinnon CBE	Longmead Management Limited	Director	Owner	This is a limited company through which I have previously provided consultancy services. It has not traded since 2008
Debbie Alder CB	Movement of Work	Steering Group member	Unpaid
	WIG	Trustee	Unpaid	Resigned December 2021
Neil Couling CBE				Nil Return
Amanda Reynolds	AOB Consultancy Ltd	Managing Director	Shareholding	This company has not traded since January 2021.
Katie Farrington	Refuge	Trustee	Unpaid	There were plans in place handle any conflicts of interest (for example, on housing benefit policy). Resigned March 2022
	Volunteering Matters	Trustee	Unpaid
Barbara Bradley	National Youth Agency	Chair	Unpaid	Resigned November 2022
	Whitehall & Industry Group (WIG)	Trustee	Unpaid
Catherine Vaughan	IWG PLC		Shareholder	There are plans in place handle any conflicts of interest
	International Distribution Services PLC (formerly Royal Mail Group PLC)		Shareholder	There are plans in place handle any conflicts of interest
Sophie Dean				Nil Return
Katherine Green				Nil Return
Helen Pickles				Nil Return
Richard Corbridge				Partner is a Director at Credera Limited. There are plans in place to handle any conflicts of interest

Special advisors

Name	Name of company or organisation	Position held	Type of Interest (for example: pay, fees, shareholding)	Other relevant information
Joe Salam				Nil Return
James Heywood				Nil Return
Rebecca Macintyre				Nil Return

Other

Name	Name of company or organisation	Position held	Type of Interest (for example: pay, fees, shareholding)	Other relevant information
John McGlynn	APM Association for project Management	Trustee	Unpaid	Nov 2014 to Sept 2020
	APM Association for project Management	Chair of Board of trustees	Unpaid	Nov 2016 to Sept 2020
	AtkinsRealis (formerly known as SNC Lavalin)	Director	Paid