Dame Deirdre Hutton DBE appointed to lead the governance review at Which?

Which? has appointed Dame Deirdre Hutton to oversee its governance review.

The review will look at a number of areas of the organisation. This includes assessing whether the governance structure achieves the high level principles and expected outcomes set out in the new Charity Governance Code.

The review will be structured in stages, with an issues paper due in the Autumn prior to this year’s AGM in November. Draft recommendations are expected towards the start of 2019, with the aim of final recommendations and proposals for the AGM in November 2019.

Tim Gardam, Chair of the Consumers’ Association, said:

“We are delighted that Dame Deirdre Hutton is confirmed as the independent Chair of our governance review and that Julia Unwin CBE will be joining as an Independent Member of the Review Committee.

“We initiated the governance review to ensure our governance and ordinary membership arrangements work to maximise our ability to achieve our desired charitable and commercial strategic objectives.”

The governance review committee that Dame Deirdre Hutton will lead will include Tim Gardam, Chair of the Consumers’ Association and three other Council Trustees.  Julia Unwin will act as a further independent member on the committee.

Notes to Editor

  • Which? is unique: a membership charity and social enterprise that highly values and depends on its commercial businesses both as a means of achieving consumer empowerment and enabling it, as a charity, to remain independent of any government funding, donations or fundraising activity.

  • Which?, in consultation with Dame Deidre, has now decided on a two year timetable to allow full consultation with members and ensure a full consideration of a robust framework that will shape the organisation for the future.

  • Dame Deirdre Hutton became Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority on the 1 August 2009 and was previously Chair of the Food Standards Agency until July 2009. She has served on a number of public bodies and has considerable experience of corporate governance, risk-based regulation and consumer policy.

  • Julia Unwin CBE was previously Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRT) and the Joseph Rowntree Housing trust (JRHT) from 2007 to 2016. Julia oversaw the development of JRF’s comprehensive strategy to solve UK poverty – the organisation’s largest programme to date. Prior to this, Julia was the Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency.

Press Release