CLC appoints three new Council Members

This follows the retirement of lay member Peter Rowley and reflects the Council’s wish to ensure that it has the mix of skills and experience required to lead and support the organisation in delivering its ambitions. This increases the size of the Council from seven to nine members with a lay majority of one.

To add to the information available to the Council on issues in the market place, the CLC intends to establish in the autumn a Reference Panel made up of representatives of a wide range of different CLC-regulated practices. This will be a pilot that may be expanded if it is successful.

The three new appointments are:

- Heather Foster, who qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant in 1982, whilst working for an international electronics group. Her work included assignments in the USA, Italy and France. Following this, she worked for the Ministry of Defence and the Inland Revenue.  Heather went on to become Finance Director at the Land Registry until 2013.  She has been an independent member of the CLC’s Audit Committee since 2010.  Heather is also a qualified commercial and workplace mediator and has a consultancy business.

- Teresa Perchard, who has a background in regulation, consumer protection and consumer affairs.  She was Director of Policy and Advocacy at Citizens Advice for 13 years until June 2013.  Prior to that Teresa held senior policy roles with the Office of Rail Regulation, Office of Water Services and the National Consumer Council. Teresa’s non-executive portfolio includes being a board member of the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation; Lay Director of the Personal Finance Society and board director of the Trading Standards Institute's Consumer Code Approvals Board. She is a Trustee of the Fairbanking Foundation.

- Andrea Pierce, who is currently a Director and Head of Legal Services of Kings Court Trust, a large provider of probate and estate administration based in Bath. Before joining King’s Court Trust in 2006, Andrea worked as a solicitor focused on private client work.

Anna Bradley, Chair of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers said:

“We are seeing significant growth in the turnover of the firms regulated by the CLC – faster growth than the recovery of the economy and the housing market in particular would lead us to expect. In addition, the CLC will be able to regulate lawyers other than Licensed Conveyancers from early 2015, subject to parliamentary approval, and the first conveyancing apprenticeships should begin at around the same time.

"Taken together, it is clear that the Council is likely to be very busy.  Teresa, Heather and Andrea bring a wealth of diverse skills and experience to the Council that will help us to meet the coming challenges and protect consumers while continuing to support innovation and competition in conveyancing and probate."