The Animal and Plant Health Agency has hired a law enforcement veteran who is currently chief constable of Dyfed-Powys Police as its next chief executive.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs executive agency has been without a permanent chief executive since David Holdsworth left to lead the Charity Commission in July last year. Dr Jenny Stewart, APHA’s director of science and transformation, has served as interim chief exec since then.
Last year, a Defra recruitment campaign for a permanent APHA chief offered up to £125,000 a year for the successful candidate, who it said must be “comfortable leading in a crisis”.
In addition to being responsible for APHA’s 3,000 staff spread across 80 sites, Lewis will be tasked with overseeing the agency’s “transformation journey”, which includes the modernisation and digitisation of operations to meet current biosecurity risks.
In December the government committed £200m to upgrading laboratories at APHA’s Weybridge headquarters. A 2022 report from members of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee warned that facilities at Weybridge had been left “continually vulnerable” to failure because of previous poor management. They cited a figure of £2.8bn estimated to be required for upgrading the site and increasing laboratory capacity, less than half of which had been approved by HM Treasury.
APHA’s duties include acting as the national and international reference laboratory lead for many infections and non-infectious animal diseases, and training and regulating official veterinary surgeons and para-professional groups.
Lewis said it was “a real honour” to be appointed as APHA chief executive.
“Now more than ever, the UK needs a strong, science-led Animal and Plant Health Agency,” he said.
“From protecting our borders against animal and plant threats to unlocking opportunities for trade and growth, I’m excited to champion APHA’s vital work – and to lead alongside the world-class scientists and experts who make it possible.”
Lewis was previously chief constable of Cleveland Police and has held several national portfolios for the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
In Wales, he has led for the police service on rural affairs such as habitat protection, rural crime and mental health in the agricultural community.
Lewis originally joined Dyfed-Powys Police in 2000 and has now served in every rank. In 2010 he gained a Fulbright Scholarship and studied TASER deployments with police in Dallas, Seattle and New York.
Lewis has a PhD in change-management from Bath Spa University and has been a guest editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme.