The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s director of consumer and competition policy is leaving her post to join the Consumers’ Association, publisher of Which? magazine.
News of Caroline Normand’s appointment as director of policy at Which? emerged as Professor Alexis Jay was appointed to replace Dame Lowell Goddard at the helm of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and Sir Charlie Bean was nominated for the Office for Budget Responsibility’s executive body.
Normand has worked at BEIS and its predecessor bodies since 1991. She starts her new role at Which? at the beginning of October.
Two perm secs for merged Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Child abuse inquiry loses third chairperson as Dame Lowell Goddard stands down
Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith said Normand would “play a key role” in helping the organisation meet its objectives for the next decade and beyond, continuing its work to make consumers more powerful.
She will be joined at Which? by new director of communications and campaigns Vickie Sheriff, who was head of news and deputy official spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office between 2009 and 2013.
Elsewhere, home secretary Amber Rudd said that Professor Jay would run the child sex abuse inquiry with “vigour, compassion and courage” following Dame Lowell’s shock resignation last week.
Child protection expert Professor Jay was already a member of the panel for the current inquiry, and previously led the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. Nevertheless, she becomes the new inquiry’s fourth chair in just over two years.
Separately, chancellor Philip Hammond today announced the nomination of Sir Charlie Bean for appointment to the OBR’s Budget Responsibility Committee.
The economist, who is a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, will replace Sir Stephen Nickell on the Budget Responsibility Committee from the beginning of 2017, if his nomination is approved by the Treasury Select Committee.