Regional Development Agencies (Board Members)

I would like to announce my decision to offer continued terms to 19 board members whose first term of appointment finishes on the 13 December 2010. I have also decided, following approval from the Commissioner for Public Appointments, to offer extensions to a further 21 board members who are finishing their second or third term in office. The names of the board member are:

RDA	Board Member	Position Serving	Term Completed
Advantage West Midlands
	Angela Maxwell OBE	Business	First term
	Jas Bains	Voluntary/Community	First term
	Sue Prince OBE	Business	Second term
	Gerard Coyne	Trade Union	Second term
	Diane Rayner	Local Authority	Second term
East of England Development Agency
	Stuart Evans	Business	First term
	Paul Burall	Local Authority	Second term
	Sheila Childerhouse	Voluntary/Community	Second term
	Karen Livingstone	Trade Union	Second term^*
	Marco Cereste	Local Authority	Third term¹
East Midlands Development Agency
	Michael Seals MBE	Business	First term
	Ann Cartwright	Voluntary/Community	First term
	Steve Brown	Business	Second term
	Gary Hunt	Local Authority	Second term
	Jonathan Collins	Local Authority	Second term^*
	Geoffrey Stevens	Local Authority/rural	Second term
	Prof Philip Tasker	Education further/higher	Second term
Northwest Regional Development Agency
	Anthony McDermott MBE	Local Authority	First term
	Susan Williams	Local Authority	First term
	Prof John Brooks	Education further/higher	First term
	Peter Allen MBE	Business/rural	First term
	Peter Hensman	Business	Second term^**
	Joe Dwek CBE	Business	Second term^***
	John Merry CBE	Local Authority	Second term
One North East
	Graham Thrower	Business	First term
	Prof Christopher Higgins	Education further/higher	First term
	Gill Hale	Trade Union	First term
	Ian Dormer	Business	First term
	Alison Thain OBE	Business	Second term
	Ian Brown	Business/rural	Second term
	Bob Symonds	Local Authority	Second term
South East England Development Agency
	Keith Riley	Business	First term
	Dr Dolores Byrne OBE	Business	First term
	Imtiaz Farookhi	Business	Second term
Southwest Regional Development Agency
	Brian Robinson	Local Authority	First term
	Ellen Winser	Business	First term
	Nick Buckland OBE	Business	Third term¹
Yorkshire Forward
	Mark Lovell	Business	First term
	Mark Kirk	Local Authority	First term
	Linda Pollard OBE JP DL	Business	Second term
^Extension granted for a year from December 2009. ^Extension already granted for six months until June 2011. ^**Extension granted for a year from December 2009. ¹The Commissioner has granted extended terms up until December 2011 when the board member will have served the maximum 10 years in office.

The coalition Government have made the decision to support the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships to replace RDAs. Final closure of RDAs is likely to be completed by 31 March 2012 following legislation. On that basis the decision was made not to continue with any further board member recruitment. The continued terms for board members are necessary to ensure; i) that the RDA chairs are able effectively to manage their board membership up until closure, and; ii) that membership does not fall below the minimum requirement of eight, as stated in the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. The board members have a valuable role to play in helping manage the abolition of the RDAs and the transition to the new arrangements, in which their skills and experience will continue to be a valuable asset.

I have placed biographies of the board members in the Libraries of both Houses. I can confirm that the continued terms have been made in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointments code of practice.

Volume 514: debated on Monday 26 July 2010