Sue Wilkinson

Sue was an executive board director at the National Trust until the end of 2016 and was the executive board lead on tourism, representing the Trust on a number of tourism industry fora.

Sue was responsible for membership, fundraising, volunteering and participation and during her career with the Trust she oversaw the growth of membership to nearly 5 million members, led the Trust’s marketing, visitor experience and customer service teams and ran a number of successful fundraising campaigns. She also delivered several multi-million pound IT projects and led a successful brand review. Sue is currently a trustee of the Canal & River Trust and chairs the annual Living Waterways Awards.

Sue is also deputy chair of the Churches Conservation Trust, a board director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) and a trustee of the Medical Research Foundation. Until 2018 she was a trustee at the Greenwich Foundation with responsibility for the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich and in earlier years she served on the Visit England Board and as a trustee of the Institute of Fundraising.

Helena Hamerow

Helena Hamerow is Professor of Early Medieval Archaeology in the Faculty of History and the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford. She is also a Fellow of St Cross College, where she was Vice-Master from 2005-2008. She served as Head of the School of Archaeology from 2010 to 2013, during which time she served on the Board of Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum and the Board of Curators of the Bodleian Libraries.

Helena is a former President of the Society for Medieval Archaeology and Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute. Her research interests lie in the economy, villages and farming practices of rural communities in northwest Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Helena is on the Board of Directors of Oxford Archaeology, on the Board of Visitors of the Pitt Rivers Museum and is an elected member of the Council of the University of Oxford. She was appointed as a Historic England Commissioner in 2019.

Ben Derbyshire

Ben Derbyshire is Chair at HTA Design LLP, a design consultancy to the home building industry specialising in Creative Collaboration between its multidisciplinary team, clients, communities and other professionals. A member of the practice since 1976 and a partner since 1986, Ben became a main board director when the practice incorporated in 1998 and was appointed Managing Director of HTA Architects Ltd in 2005.

Ben became Chair and Managing Partner of HTA Design LLP when it was formed in 2013 until 2016 and now acts as its Chair. He has built up broad-ranging expertise through involvement in much of HTA’s work in regeneration, master-planning, housing and mixed use design across all sectors. Ben leads the practice’s internal design review processes and heads up its marketing effort.

Other recent posts include:

• President of RIBA, between September 2017- August 2019, having been elected onto Council in 2014, and becoming President Elect in August 2016. The RIBA is a global professional membership body driving excellence in architecture.

• Chair of the Housing Forum between March 2013 – March 2016, having served as a board member from march 2011. The Housing Forum is a cross-sector, industry-wide organisation with 150 member organisations, from both public and private sectors.

• Trustee of The London Society between March 2013 – April 2016. The London Society is a membership organisation established to encourage public interest and participation in urban planning and transport as well as to study and celebrate the capital’s unique history and character.

• Board member of Design for Homes between April – 2010 – April 2016. Design for Homes champions the value of good design in the housing industry. It owns the Building for Life quality standard and promotes the highly regarded annual Housing Design Awards.

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These roles are remunerated at £4,133 per annum. These appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Government’s Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Sue, Helena and Ben have made no such declarations.

 Dr Helen Forde

Helen Forde worked as an archivist in local government archives, private archives and finally at The National Archives where she was in charge of what is now Collections Care. She was both chairman and president of the professional archives organisation – the Archives and Records Association – and worked extensively overseas with the International Council on Archives.

Helen taught postgraduates on the archives course at University College London for many years and after retirement worked with the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, The Postal Museum and Banbury Museum. She is the author of numerous articles on archive preservation as well as historical subjects.

Jeannette Strickland

Jeannette Strickland is an independent archive and records consultant. A qualified archivist and records manager, she has worked in local government and for a major charity and for 20 years was Head of Art, Archives & Records Management for Unilever PLC. She took Unilever Archives & Records Management successfully through submissions for Designation of Unilever’s collections (Arts Council) and The National Archives’ Accreditation process; implemented a digital preservation programme; and was responsible for writing the company’s record retention policy and global retention schedule.

She has written several papers and chapters for academic texts, spoken at a number of conferences, organised the International Council on Archives’ Section for Business Archives conference in 2014 and taught on the postgraduate archive training programme at University College Dublin.

Active throughout her career in both the Archives & Records Association (ARA) and the Business Archives Council, her current professional activities include membership of ARA’s Archive Services’ Accreditation Committee, ARA’s Qualifications Accreditation Panel and acting as a Mentor to several candidates on the ARA Registration Scheme. She is also studying for a PhD in History at the University of Liverpool.

These roles are remunerated at £386 a day for up to 24 days a year. This reappointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Government’s Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Ben has made no such declarations.

Ben Verwaayen, former CEO of BT plc and Alcatel-Lucent is presently General Partner at Keen Venture Partners, an investor in high tech scale ups. Ben is also a non executive director at Akamai in Boston US and AkzoNobel in Amsterdam.

This role is remunerated at £42 519 per annum. This reappointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

The Government’s Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Ben has made no such declarations.

Swanholme Limited and Nistor International Limited were both wound up in the public interest in the High Court on 24 September 2019. The Official Receiver has now been appointed as the Liquidator.

In considering the petition to wind up the company, the court heard that Swanholme was incorporated in November 2015, advertising itself online as a company that specialised in short-term full-serviced rental accommodations in prime locations throughout Europe.

Following complaints, however, the Insolvency Service conducted confidential investigations into the Swanholme and found several incidents of misconduct.

Swanholme filed false and misleading accounts at Companies House. This information was trusted by at least one creditor when it provided foreign hotel and car rental services to the company on a bill-back basis in the region of £8,000-9,000. Swanholme, however, failed to pay the creditor back.

For three months Swanholme traded saying they were registered to an address in Leatherhead but did not reveal to creditors that their tenancy agreement had been terminated due to non-payment of fees.

And the company failed to produce its books to investigators and this has meant the Insolvency Service has been unable to establish the true level of debt held by Swanholme.

During the same hearing, the court also considered a connected company, Nistor International Limited, which had assisted Swanholme in obtaining credit.

Nistor International was incorporated in May 2018 and advertised itself as company that provided cleaning services for nuclear environments and the government.

The court heard that Swanholme presented Nistor International as a reference in support of at least one credit application and requested that fuel cards for Swanholme be delivered to Nistor International’s registered office in Hove, East Sussex.

Additionally, several payments were made between Swanholme Limited and Nistor International Limited by way of a pre-paid credit card but as neither company has co-operated with the enquiries, investigators have not been able to determine the nature of the relationship between the two companies.

In court, Judge Briggs stated that the misleading financial accounts lodged with Companies House presented a “real prejudice to the lenders and public”, while praising the diligence of the Insolvency Service investigator.

David Hill, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service, said

The systematic abuse of creditors to gain funds enabled the company directors behind Swanholme and Nistor International to benefit at the expense of legitimate businesses.

There should be no doubt that whenever we discover there are serious failings by companies and their business dealings, as there were with these companies, that we will investigate and take action to close down their activities.

By virtue of the winding up order all public enquiries concerning the affairs of the companies should be made to: The Official Receiver, Public Interest Unit , 4 Abbey Orchard Street, London, SW1P 2HT. Telephone: 0207 637 1110 Email: piu.or@insolvency.gov.uk.

Swanholme Limited (company registration number 09887876) was incorporated on 25 November 2015. The company’s registered office is at: PO Box 4385, 09887876: COMPANIES HOUSE DEFAULT ADDRESS, Cardiff, CF14 8LH

Nistor International Limited (company registration number 11357073) was incorporated on 11 May 2018. The company’s registered office is at: Gemini House, 136-140 Old Shoreham Road, Hove, England, BN3 7BD

The petitions were presented under s124A of the Insolvency Act 1986 on 15 August 2019 at the High Court of Justice.

The Official Receiver was appointed as liquidator of the companies on 24 September 2019 by Chief ICCJ Briggs, a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales.

Company Investigations, part of the Insolvency Service, uses powers under the Companies Act 1985 to conduct confidential fact-finding investigations into the activities of live limited companies in the UK on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Information about how to complain about a live company.

Information about the work of the Insolvency Service.

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

The letter, signed by Home Secretary Priti Patel, US Attorney General William P. Barr, US Secretary of Homeland Security (Acting) Kevin K. McAleenan and Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, concerns Facebook’s ‘Privacy First’ proposals.