The Defra Supervisory Board established in 2010 is the main departmental Board. The Board provides collective strategic and corporate leadership to the department.

In the interests of transparency we regularly publish summaries of meetings and details of expenses, hospitality etc (see below).

Members

Caroline Spelman MP
Secretary of State
Chair of the Supervisory Board

Jim Paice MP
Minister of State for Agriculture and Food

Richard Benyon MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Natural Environment and Fisheries

Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Parliamentary Under-Secretary

Bronwyn Hill
Permanent Secretary

Katrina Williams
Director General
Strategy, Evidence and Customers

Peter Unwin
Director General
Policy Delivery

Professor Robert Watson
Chief Scientific Adviser

Graham Ledward
Director General (Interim basis)
Chief Operating Officer

Tom Taylor
Finance Director

Non-executive members

Iain Ferguson
Iain Ferguson is the Chairman of Wilton Park (FCO Agency), a Non–Executive Director on the Boards of Balfour Beatty plc, Davis Service Group plc and Gregg’s plc, and a Member of the PWC (UK llp) Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Foresight Global Food and Farming project, the Better Regulation Strategy Group and the Honorary Vice-President of the British Nutrition Foundation. He was CEO of Tate & Lyle plc from May 2003 until the end of 2009 and had previously been with Unilever for 26 years. He is the lead non-executive for the Department.

Paul Rew
Paul Rew is a non-executive director of Northumbrian Water Group plc, the Met Office and chairs their audit committees. Paul is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Business School of the University of Exeter. He was formerly a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers with 36 years experience of providing assurance and advice to a wide range of companies and was the sector leader for Energy and Utilities and for Renewables.  Paul led the PwC Sustainability and Climate Change Assurance business.

Sir Tony Hawkhead
Sir Tony Hawkhead is Chief Executive of Groundwork UK.

While Tony has been Chief Executive, Groundwork has grown from a charity with a £20m annual turnover delivering 800 projects a year, to one with national reach across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Today, Groundwork has a £140m annual turnover and delivers 6,000 projects a year.

Tony chaired the Department for Work and Pensions Third Sector Welfare to Work Taskforce, which reported in 2009, and was a member of the Local Government Association Climate Change Commission in 2007.

In 2003 Tony was awarded the CBE for services to the environment.  In 2011 he was further honoured with a Knighthood for services to environmental regeneration.

Catherine Doran
Catherine Doran is Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Royal Mail Group, a position she took up in 2011. She is a Non-Executive Director for BQF and also a member of the CIO Board for eSkills UK. Catherine has worked in Information Technology in a number of different sectors,  for over 30 years. Prior to Royal Mail she was CIO for Network Rail, BT Retail and Capital One (Europe).

Meetings

The Supervisory Board meet every other month, summary notes are published below.

• 22 March 2012 (PDF, 160 KB )
• 26 January 2012 (PDF, 160 KB)

Details of management meetings prior to January 2012 are available on the National Archives website.

Business costs and hospitality

Business costs for the most senior civil servants (directors general and above) and non-executive directors of the management board and Agency Chief Executives in Defra are, from 1 April 2009, published and updated quarterly. The following is available:

• Business costs and hospitality (1 July to 30 September 2011) (PDF, 280 KB)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 April to 30 June 2011) (PDF, 230 KB)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 January to 31 March 2011) (PDF, 200 KB)
  (also available in CSV format)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 October to 31 December 2010) (PDF, 200 KB)
  (also available in CSV format)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 July to 30 September 2010) (PDF, 200 KB)
  (also available in CSV format)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 April to 30 June 2010) (PDF, 350 KB)
  (also available in CSV format)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 January to 31 March 2010) (PDF, 350 KB)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 October to 31 December 2009) (PDF, 300 KB)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 July to 30 September 2009) (PDF, 250 KB)
• Business costs and hospitality (1 April to 30 June 2009) (PDF, 250 KB)

The Government agreed to publish an annual list of hospitality received by members of departmental boards by calendar year. The first such list, including information for the main government departments for the period January to December 2007, was published in February 2009 on the Cabinet Office’s website. The register below covers the period from January 2008 to end March 2009. From 1 April 2009 onwards this information is published alongside the business costs information set out above.

• Hospitality January 2008 to 31 March 2009 (PDF, 70 KB)

Permanent Secretary’s meetings with external organisations

Details of the Permanent Secretary’s meetings with external organizations are now published on a quarterly basis, reflecting the civil service’s commitment to transparency.

• Meetings with external organisations (1 July to 30 September 2011) (PDF, 20 KB)
• Meetings with external organisations (1 April to 30 June 2011) (PDF, 20 KB)
• Meetings with external organisations (1 January to 31 March 2011) (PDF, 20 KB)
• Meetings with external organisations (1 October to 31 December 2010) (PDF, 20 KB)
  (also available in CSV format)