Audit and Assurance Board
The Audit and Assurance Board (AAB) consists of a non-executive Chair, Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), non-executive members and a representative from the Chief Police Staff Officers Association (CPOSA).
The AAB seeks to assure that National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) business is conducted in accordance with the law and proper standards, in an open and transparent way; that public money is safeguarded and properly accounted for and that resources are managed in an effective, efficient and economical way in achieving the NPCC objectives. The Board also provides scrutiny of NPCC business operations including business plans, risk management, budgets and proposals for capital assets or liabilities.
Chair
Robert is an experienced Leader, Chair and Non-Executive Director. He has held a number of high profile non-executive leadership roles across a wide range of national, regional and local organisations.
He is a specialist in leading transformation and change, in consumer issues and stakeholder engagement and in managing governance and risk.
As Managing Director of his own Farming and Equestrian company for 26 years he understands business and the importance of a strong commercial focus.
Robert’s roles have included:
- Chair, Consumer Council for Water (CCW)
- Head Commissioner, Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise
- Deputy Chair, the Environment Agency
- Leader, Kirklees Council
- Chair, Leeds City Region
- Chair, West Yorkshire Combined Authority Scrutiny
- Deputy Chair, Local Government Association
- Chair, West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Authority
In his career Robert has led a major internal culture change at CCW, established a new Independent Commission on Civil Aviation Noise and turned Kirklees in to one of the leading Councils in the Country.
As an experienced Peer Reviewer for the LGA and Peer inspector for the Audit Commission Robert specialised in reviewing Councils with significant challenges.
Serving as a Councillor for 26 years, he worked with the police at neighbourhood and Borough level.
In his spare time, he enjoys walking the family dogs and sport. Robert and his family are season ticket holders at Bradford City.
Members
David Skaith was elected the first Mayor for York and North Yorkshire on Thursday 2 May 2024.
Jo Coles was nominated by York & North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith, to be appointed Deputy Mayor for Policing, Fire and Crime.
On Wednesday 12 June 2024, this was confirmed by the North Yorkshire Police Fire and Crime Panel and Jo took up her new role on Monday 8 July 2024.
The Chair of the NPCC, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens has worked nearly 30 years in policing, first joining Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 1993 and then Surrey Police in 1996, where he has been working for over 20 years, serving in every rank up to the role of Chief Constable.
He was initially based in East Surrey on neighbourhood policing, and went onto roles in serious and organised crime, professional standards and local policing.
On a national level, CC Stephens played a major role in developing and modernising neighbourhood policing, and he led the implementation of the Neighbourhood Policing Guidelines in 2016. Before his appointment, he was the Chair of the NPCC Finance Coordination Committee, as well as the national Communications Advisory Group.
Roger Hirst was first elected as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex in May 2016, and in May 2024, he was elected for a third term in Office. He became the first Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner in the country in October 2017. Roger’s core belief is that safe and secure communities are the bedrock on which prosperity is built for all, and this remains central to his vision for making Essex safer.
A strong advocate of prevention, partnership and people, Roger has worked hard to build a foundation of collaborative working between emergency services, local authorities, councils, the voluntary sector and communities in Essex, believing we can do more and achieve more together.
A long-standing member of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioner’s Board and Finance Lead for Police and Crime Commissioner’s nationally, Roger led the successful campaign to secure funding for an additional 20,000 police officers across the country and achieved the target of recruiting an additional 905 Essex Police officers in March 2023, making the force the biggest in its 185-year history. Roger’s ambition is to continue to cut crime through continuing investment in local visible policing, using data driven activity to target known hotspots and providing early intervention to identify and protect vulnerable people.
Prior to his election as Commissioner, Roger was Cabinet Member at Essex County Council with responsibility for Transformation and then for Communities; Deputy Leader of Brentwood Borough Council; and has 33 years’ experience as a senior investment banker in the City of London. Roger is a Trustee for several charities.
Gareth is the current General Secretary of the Chief Police Officers Staff Association, having served 33 years as a police officer. He started his career with Essex Police and worked in a variety of roles of which a significant number were in the specialist crime arena.
After 23 years, and having successfully completed the Strategic Command Course, Gareth joined Norfolk Constabulary as an Assistant Chief Constable for local policing, protective services and royalty protection.
Gareth then joined Suffolk Constabulary where he served as both the Deputy Chief Constable and Chief Constable, retiring in 2019. During his tenure, he was Chair of the NPCC Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Co-ordination Committee, Investigations Portfolio and Homicide Working Group.
Following retirement from Home Office policing, Gareth was appointed as a senior civil servant and joined the Ministry of Defence Police as their Chief Operating Officer. He is also a lay member of the University of Suffolk Research Ethics Committee.
Gareth was awarded the Queens Police Medal in the 2020 New Years Honours List and was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Suffolk in February 2020.
David, an accountant by background, has very extensive senior public and private sector experience having held four positions of chief executive in local government and being Business Development Director for Deloitte's outsourcing arm.
For the past 15 years, he has been concentrating upon advising organisations experiencing governance failures including, on occasions, carrying out sensitive and complex investigations in the NHS and local government, often producing public reports.
He has held a number of non-executive roles including with central government departments and in the private sector. He has been a member of the Audit Committee of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. In addition, he has been a Non-Executive Chair of a large acute NHS trust. Currently David is Chair of the Smaller Authorities’ Audit Appointments, the body approved by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to appoint auditors to a range of small public bodies. He also sits on the council of the whistle blowing charity Protect.
Harjinder is an accomplished HR and change professional and has undertaken a number of senior HR roles, working at C suite, Executive and Board level, including NED roles, delivering strategic people initiatives. She has cross sector experience having started out at PwC and EY in change and transformation consultancy roles working for local government and central government, some of the clients included DWP, DVLC, DfE, Defence).
At West Midlands Police she led the people change workstream in a five-year transformation programme, working closely with Accenture, keeping the public and users at the heart of the change complemented by digitalisation.
In more recent roles she has been involved in designing and executing people strategies and programmes to drive workforce performance efficiencies, organisation development, culture and engagement whilst navigating through complex budget and governance matters structures. Roles have included JLR, Local Government Pension Scheme and West Coast Partnership Development/DfT (new rail network). She has operated in a regulatory environment and understands fully the governance, risk and assurance structures and obligations that come with this.
Harjinder has a keen interest in diversity and inclusion fostering inclusive workplace cultures and securing notable accreditations and accolades including more recently;
• FT Adviser in Finance Culture Winner - 2023
• Local Authority PF Diversity and Inclusion Winner 2023
• Personnel Today Family Friendly Employer Finalist 2022
Harjinder has an Economics background and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (FCIPD).
Graham is Interim Strategic Finance Director having taken over from Seonaid Taylor. Graham has been in the Home Office for six years working in finance in the Migration & Borders space and prior to that spent 11 years at the Department for Food and Rural Affairs.
John Tizard was elected as Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire in May 2024. The PCC is the only elected politician who represents the whole county. As PCC, John has a duty to ensure that there is an effective and efficient police service and wider criminal justice system.
Elected on 2 May 2024, Police and Crime Commissioner John Tizard has vast experience of representing communities in Bedfordshire where he has lived for almost 50 years.
As well as holding leadership roles in numerous businesses, charities, and public sector organisations, John served as a councillor for 18 years.
For most of this time, he was leader of the Labour group of councillors on the former Bedfordshire County Council. He was also a joint leader of the council for some of this period.
John is driven by his commitment to social justice and his belief that governance and behaviour are essential for any organisation to fulfil its mission and maximise its impact and has held local government posts nationally and in Europe.
John’s career includes senior leadership roles in the business sector where he held a senior strategic executive role in a FTSE 100 company for many years. He has had non-executive director experience in several start up and social businesses.
He has had leadership experience in charities both as a senior executive at what is now Scope and as a trustee and chair of several charities.
He is currently a trustee of Bedfordshire-based Making Me, which enables young people to thrive by equipping them to navigate their mental and emotional journey into adulthood and was previously Chair of Action Space, a London-based Arts Council sponsored arts organisation which enables and promotes the right of artists with learning difficulties.
John established and led research centres at the University of Birmingham and London South Bank University both of which specialised in public sector collaboration and partnerships between the public, business, and voluntary and community sectors.
John has advised organisations and leaders in the business, charity, social and public sectors in the UK and internationally on subjects such as leadership, governance, public service reform, procurement, and in sourcing.
He has been an evaluator in the European Public Service Awards programme since 2015 and has written for a variety of publications and has, in the past few years, authored reports for the Fabian Society, the TUC and Unison on topics including reforming public sector audit, outsourcing, and in sourcing of public services, and strengthening worker's rights.
Some of his key areas of interest include community engagement, tackling anti-social behaviour, hate crime, cyber-crime, knife crime, reducing crime against women and children, and investing in prevention methods to tackle the causes of crime.
