Contingency Fund Advance

Vince Cable Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills wishes to recruit a chief executive officer (CEO) for the proposed Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) before Royal Assent has been received for the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill which will create the CMA.

The CMA CEO will play a critical role in leading the organisational design of the CMA and reform of its competition processes ensuring that greater speed and rigour of decision making is delivered, in line with the Government’s response to their consultation on competition reform. The CMA CEO-designate, in conjunction with the CMA chair-designate, my noble Fiend Lord David Currie, will need to effectively manage the transition to the CMA bringing together the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission into a single new body by October 2013. To help achieve this objective the CMA CEO will need to be in post early 2013.

Parliamentary approval for resource cover for this new service will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at up to £220,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.