Ann Chant CB will join the Board of Inland Revenue on 4 January 2000 as Director General, Strategic Service Delivery. Her appointment, in succession to Geoffrey Bush CB, who is retiring, has been approved by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Queen has approved Miss Chant's appointment as a Commissioner of Inland Revenue.
Ann Chant CB will join the Board of Inland Revenue on 4 January 2000 as Director General, Strategic Service Delivery. Her appointment, in succession to Geoffrey Bush CB, who is retiring, has been approved by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Queen has approved Miss Chant’s appointment as a Commissioner of Inland Revenue.
Ann Chant joined the National Assistance Board from school, and has spent most of her Civil Service career in successive social security Departments. She became the first Chief Executive of the Contributions Agency in 1991, moving in 1994 to take over as Chief Executive of the Child Support Agency, where she achieved a tenfold increase in the total of child maintenance paid. She was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1997 New Year Honours List.
In 1997 she was seconded from the Department of Social Security to Business in the Community (a registered charity of the Prince’s Trust) as a Managing Director. Returning from this secondment in May of this year, she has since then carried out a quinquennial review of the Public Trust Office and is currently conducting a review of the Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman, both for the Lord Chancellor’s Department. She was a member of the Cabinet Secretary’s Advisory Council for the Civil Service College from 1991 to 1997, and has been a member of the Council and Executive Committee of the Industrial Society since 1992.
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1. Ann Chant was appointed to her new post on the recommendation of a selection board chaired by the First Civil Service Commissioner, Sir Michael Bett. This followed an open public competition, in which the Inland Revenue were helped by search consultants Saxton Bampfylde Hever.
2. The holder of the post is one of five Commissioners, who constitute the Board of Inland Revenue and are appointed by The Queen to have care and management of the taxes system. The other Commissioners are Nick Montagu CB (Chairman), Steve Matheson CB, Michael Johns and Tim Flesher.
3. The Inland Revenue is currently carrying out a review of its internal structure. In the first instance Ann Chant will take on the management responsibilities previously held by Geoffrey Bush, for the Department’s local and regional operations including the two Accounts Offices and the National Insurance Contributions Office (formerly the Contributions Agency).