The secretary to the undercover policing inquiry and a longstanding civil servant, Cecilia French, has been appointed chief executive of the Parole Board.
French has “an impressive background in central government with over 25 years of experience in a range of policy and operational delivery roles” and “will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Parole Board”, the independent body said in an announcement.
French has worked on the undercover policing inquiry, which was commissioned by then-prime minister Theresa May in 2015 to investigate allegations about the activities of undercover officers, since March 2019.
She began her career as a policy adviser in the Home Office before a stint as private secretary to two ministers in the department. She became head of sentencing reform in the department’s Criminal Justice Group in 2000, before moving to the Office for Security & Counter-Terrorism four years later.
In 2012, she moved to the Ministry of Defence, where she spent two and a half years as become secretary to the Al Sweady Inquiry, investigating reports of the torture and the murder of Iraqi civilians by the British Armed Forces, before returning to the Home Office. There, she worked as deputy director of the Police Integrity Unit and then director of public protection, a role in which she worked on policy development, legislation and sponsorship on safeguarding issues such as violence against women and sexual offences, and counter extremism. While in that post, she was responsible for delivery of the government’s counter-extremism and violence against women and girls strategies.
Caroline Corby, chair of the Parole Board, said: “I am very much looking forward to working with Cecilia. With an impressive CV and a track record of delivery in senior positions, I am confident that Cecilia will provide excellent leadership to the important work of the Parole Board.”
In its announcement of the appointment, the Parole Board said it “would like to put on record our deepest thanks to Faith Geary for stepping up as interim chief executive since March 2024”. Geary, a director at the Parole Board, will stay on in her interim role until French joins on 1 October.
“Under Faith’s leadership, the Parole Board has halved the number of people awaiting a paper and oral hearing assessment and has set a strong foundation for the new chief executive,” it added.