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New Advisory Panel On New Industry, New Jobs, Universities And Skills

News Release issued by the COI News Distribution Service on 31 July 2009

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today announced the creation of a new advisory panel on New Industry, New Jobs, Universities and Skills.

The new panel, to be chaired by Roger Liddle, will help generate ideas across the whole of the Government’s New Industry, New Jobs agenda, link it with the skills and higher education agenda and challenge conventional policy thinking in these areas.

Announcing the panel Lord Mandelson said:

“The New Industry, New Jobs agenda will help equip Britain to succeed in what will be a radically transformed global economy over the next decade. People and business need the skills and backing to take advantage of the changes to come. This new advisory panel will generate new ideas and fresh thinking.”

The panel comprises:

· Roger Liddle, Chair of the Policy Network and CumbriaVision;

· Nicholas Barr, Professor of Public Economics, London School of Economics;

· Hermann Hauser, Entrepreneur;

· Will Hutton, Executive Vice-Chair, The Work Foundation;

· Adam Lent, Head of Economic and Social Affairs, TUC;

· Dr Wendy Piatt, Director General of The Russell Group of Universities; and

· Janice Shiner CB, Chair, The National Youth Agency.

Members of the advisory panel will be unpaid and will be providing advice in a personal capacity, rather than as representatives of interest groups.

The panel will report to the Secretary of State and officials at the Department for Business will support its work.

Notes to Editors

1. New Industry, New Jobs, Universities and Skills Advisory Panel:

Rogger Liddle is currently Chair of Policy Network, the international progressive think tank; Chairman of CumbriaVision, a public-private partnership promoting a development strategy for the Cumbria sub-region; and a Visiting Fellow of the European Institute of the London School of Economics. Until October 2007 he was economic policy adviser to the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso; prior to that a Member of the Cabinet of the Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson and for seven years from 1997 European adviser to the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He has written extensively on European and British affairs. He co-authored two papers for the President of the Commission's think tank, the Bureau of European Policy Advisers on "Europe's Social Reality" (February 2007) and the "Single Market: Yesterday and Tomorrow" (July 2006). He has written papers for the Fabian Society “A New Social Europe” (September 2007) and “The New Case for Europe” (February 2005) and co-edited with Tony Giddens and Patrick Diamond “Global Europe, Social Europe” (October 2006). A decade previously in 1996 he had co-authored "The Blair Revolution" with Peter Mandelson. Roger was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and The Queen's College Oxford where he gained an MA in Modern History and an M Phil in Management Studies.

Nicholas Barr is Professor of Public Economics at the London School of Economics and the author of numerous books and articles including The Economics of the Welfare State (OUP, 4th edn, 2004), Financing Higher Education: Answers from the UK (with Iain Crawford) (Routledge 2005), and Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices (with Peter Diamond) (OUP, 2008). He spent two periods at the World Bank working on the design of income transfers in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund. Since the late 1980s, he has been active in debates about pension reform and higher education finance, advising governments in the post-communist countries, and in the UK, Australia, Chile, China, Hungary, New Zealand and South Africa. A range of academic and policy writing can be found on http://econ.lse.ac.uk/staff/nb.

Hermann Hauser co-founded Acorn Computers in 1978, leading the development team towards the production of the BBC Micro Computer. He has wide experience in developing and financing companies in the information technology sector having founded and invested in over 25 technology companies in the UK and US including ARM, E*Trade UK, Cambridge Display Technology, Virata, etc. In 1997, he co-founded Amadeus Capital Partners Ltd which targets early stage European technology companies. CSR, Icera, Xmos, Solexa are among the investments he made.

Hermann obtained an MA in Physics from Vienna University. He also holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge.

Will Hutton is executive vice chair of The Work Foundation, the most influential voice on work, employment and organisation issues in the UK. Regularly called on to advise senior political and business figures and comment in the national and international media, Will is today one of the pre-eminent economics commentators in the country. He began his career in the city, as a stockbroker and investment analyst before moving to the BBC, where he worked both on radio, as a producer and reporter, and on TV as economics correspondent for Newsnight. Prior to joining The Work Foundation, Will spent four years as editor-in-chief of The Observer, for which he continues to write a closely-watched weekly column. Will’s best-known book is probably The State We’re In, which was seen at the time as setting the scene for the Blair revolution. Since then he has published The State to Come, The Stakeholding Society and (with Anthony Giddens) On The Edge, a groundbreaking analysis of globalisation. His most recent book is The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21 st Century and his next is a book about fairness. Outside The Work Foundation, Will is a governor of the London School of Economics, where he is also a visiting senior fellow. He is an honorary fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, a member of the Scott Trust and a fellow of the Sunningdale Institute. In 2004, Will was invited by the European Commission to join a High Level Group on the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy and act as its “rapporteur” for the final report.

Adam Lent has been Head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the TUC since August 2006. He leads on macroeconomic policy, industrial strategy, labour market and welfare issues, climate change, and pensions for the TUC. Prior to his current post, Adam worked for a number of think-tanks and research bodies on a variety of policy areas, including the Rowntree Trusts’ centenary project, the Power Inquiry. He has been a lecturer and research fellow at Sheffield University from where he received a PhD. He is a member of the Consumer Prices Advisory Committee, the Business-Government Tax Forum and a trustee of the charity for young homeless people, Centrepoint.

Dr Wendy Piatt is the first Director General of The Russell Group of Universities, appointed to set up an organisation providing strategic direction, policy development underpinned by research and communications for the 20 major research-intensive universities in the UK. She was previously Deputy Director and head of public service reform at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit where she has also led work on social mobility, local government, education and skills and digital inclusion. Prior to that, she was Head of Education Policy at the Institute for Public Policy Research, specialising in higher and further education. She has written numerous reports on education policy and has a Master's degree and a Doctorate in Political Philosophy and Literature from Lincoln College, University of Oxford, and a first degree in English from King’s College, London.

Janice Shiner CB has worked at the most senior levels within the public sector in the United Kingdom and New Zealand leading sector and organisational reform. She is current the Chair of the National Youth Agency, an advisor to the Aldridge Foundation and strategic advisor to the board of Whites Consulting Ltd. In the three years to August 2008 Janice was Chief Executive of the Tertiary Education Commission, Wellington, New Zealand. The Tertiary Education Commission is responsible for the planning and funding of all post-compulsory education in the New Zealand and is the primary source of policy advice on tertiary education to the government. Before moving to New Zealand, Janice was Director General of Lifelong Learning at the Department of Education and Skills responsible for all post-school education. Prior to joining the Department, Janice was Principal of Leicester College and led the merger of two large further education colleges and established the new college. Before that, Janice was Director of Education and Policy at the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) and led much of the policy work on mergers, capital and quality. Janice started her career in the private sector in organisational development and HR. She has held posts such as Vice President, HR Chase Manhattan Bank, HR posts in WH Smiths, and a range of posts in advertising.

Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is building a dynamic and competitive UK economy by: creating the conditions for business success; promoting innovation, enterprise and science; and giving everyone the skills and opportunities to succeed. To achieve this it will foster world-class universities and promote an open global economy. BIS - Investing in our future.

Contacts:

BIS Press Office
NDS.BIS@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Clare Black
Phone: 020 7215 5981
Clare.Black@bis.gsi.gov.uk