Friday, 30 September 2016
Legal Services Board announces new Board Members
The Ministry of Justice and the Legal Services Board (LSB) today announced the appointment of Catharine Seddon and Jeremy Mayhew as new Board Members for three year terms with effect from 1 October 2016.
Both Catharine and Jeremy will be lay members of the Board.
The appointments were made by the Lord Chancellor in consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, in accordance with the Legal Services Act 2007.
Chairman of the Legal Services Board, Sir Michael Pitt said:
“I am delighted to welcome both Catharine and Jeremy to the Board.
They each bring essential skills and significant experience to the Board’s work, and will be in a position to contribute immediately to our forward-looking agenda of regulatory reform and modernising legal services delivery.”
ENDS
For further information, please contact the LSB’s Communications Manager, Vincent McGovern (020 7271 0068).
Notes for editors:
- Catharine Seddon spent many years as a film documentary maker for BBC TV and then as an independent producer for Channel 4. She began working for the judiciary in 2002 and now sits on tribunals in the jurisdictions of social security, employment and mental health.
She is a presiding magistrate in Central London and she sits as a Lay Assessor under the Equality Act in county court cases. Her national public appointments include the Gambling Commission and the Determinations Panel of The Pensions Regulator. She is a former Audit and Risk Assessment Committee (ARAC) chair and member of the Human Tissue Authority and member of the Independent Appeals Committee for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She is also a trustee for the London Centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy.
Catharine read Philosophy and Psychology at Somerville College, Oxford.
- Jeremy Mayhew is Chairman of the City of London’s Finance Committee and a Member of the UK Government’s Regulatory Policy Committee. For most of the past 35 years, Jeremy has worked in the broadcasting industry– and, for the past 15 years, he has been a senior strategy consultant, mainly advising clients in and about the media sector – most recently, as a Senior Adviser in PwC’s consulting practice, having previously been a Partner and Director in other consulting firms.
Since 1996, Jeremy has been a Common Councilman (local councillor) in the City of London. Prior to chairing the City’s Finance Committee, Jeremy chaired the City Bridge Trust (London’s largest independent grant-awarding charity), the Barbican Centre Board, and the City’s Audit & Risk Management and Education Committees.
In the past, Jeremy has been a Non-Executive Adviser to the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and has served on the Boards of the London Development Agency, the Strategic Rail Authority, and BBC Worldwide (the BBC’s main commercial division).
Jeremy read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford University and, subsequently, gained an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School.
- The new appointments are for a three year term from 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2019. They carry a non-pensionable remuneration of £15,000 per annum for at least 30 days work.
- This appointment was made in accordance with the Code of Practice of the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
- Details of the other members of the Legal Services Board and their biographies can be found on the LSB‟s website here.
- The Legal Services Act 2007 (the Act) created the LSB as a new regulator with responsibility for overseeing the regulation of legal services in England and Wales. The new regulatory regime became active on 1 January 2010.
- The LSB oversees nine approved regulators, which in turn regulate individual legal practitioners. The approved regulators, designated under Part 1 of Schedule 4 of the 2007 Act, are the Law Society, the Bar Council, the Master of the Faculties, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys, the Association of Costs Lawyers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
In addition, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants are listed as approved regulators in relation only to reserved probate activities.
- As at 1 April 2016, the legal profession in England and Wales comprised 145,059 solicitors, 15,288 barristers, 6,848 chartered legal executives and 5,697 other individuals operating in other areas of the legal profession such as conveyancing. The UK legal sector is valued at £32 billion per annum (2015) which is up 23% in cash terms since 2012. For more information see here.