We are pleased to confirm that we have appointed Professor Bob Garratt to lead an independent review of our current corporate governance structure, to be benchmarked against established best practice governance standards.  The review will begin immediately and we expect it to be completed by March 2009.

We have taken this action in response to the recent letter we received from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) asking specific questions regarding best practice corporate governance relating to our constitution and board structure and the promotion and protection of wider stakeholder interests. For more details please see our previous story.

Professor Garratt has extensive consulting experience across a wide range of organisations, from large corporates to family businesses, state-owned enterprises, professional practices, not-for-profits, central government and local communities.  He is a Founder Member of the Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance; is on the Chartered Accreditation Committee, leads the Developing Strategic Thought programmes, and is an External Examiner of the Institute of Directors.  In 2002, he won the Shareholder Value corporate governance essay prize sponsored by the European Business Forum and PwC / IBM.

Bob Gilbert, our Chairman, comments: "We are actively committed to achieving the highest governance standards in our desire to build an organisation that serves the best interests of industry stakeholders, our members and customers.  Professor Garratt is an excellent choice to lead the review - he has breadth of experience and detailed knowledge of not-for-profit and membership organisations. We look forward to his recommendations."