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The first industry-led Retail Sector Council was officially launched today (7 March 2018) by Retail Minister Andrew Griffiths and Richard Pennycook, Chairman of Fenwick, The Hut Group and Howden Joinery Group.

The Council will meet regularly with industry to discuss the challenges the sector faces. They will review how best retailers could adapt to changing consumer behaviour, the business environment and opportunities such as the development of new technologies to improve customer service, the chances to grow skills through a sector push on high-value training and ways to boost sector productivity and its economic health.

Senior management from Boots, Amazon and other renowned retailers will sit on the Council as well as the British Retail Consortium. Together, with government, they will provide expert advice to the sector and contribute to its future direction.

Retail Minister Andrew Griffiths said:

The UK’s retail sector is undergoing rapid structural changes with consumers increasingly favouring online shopping and rising operating costs for retailers.

Our new collaborative Retail Sector Council will bring government and industry together to look at how best to ensure the industry adapts to meet the changing demands of consumers.

Richard Pennycook, co-chair of the Retail Sector Council:

I am delighted to be co-chairing the first Retail Sector Council, which comes at a moment of unprecedented change for our sector. Retail is one of the largest private sector employers in the country, and the Council will provide strategic oversight of the challenges we are facing by seeking positive change and increased productivity.

“We will be working together with industry and government to deliver our vision for the future of retail.

The UK’s retail sector is a driving force in the economy and essential to our high streets, local and regional communities. The formation of the council follows other government action to create a Britain fit for the future including the government’s response to the independent Taylor Review, which ensures employment law and practices keep pace with the modern ways of working, and its ambitious Industrial Strategy which sets out a long term plan to boost the productivity and earning power of businesses and people throughout the UK.

In 2016, the retail sector added a gross value of £94.6 billion to the UK economy; the new Council will aim to address key sector issues including skills and increasing productivity.

Notes to editors

Retail Sector Council members:

• Andrew Griffiths, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility, Co-Chair, Retail Council
• Richard Pennycook, Co-Chair, Retail Council, Chairman of Fenwick, The Hut Group and Howden Joinery Group and previously CEO of the Co-operative Group. Richard is also Chair of the British Retail Consortium and lead non-executive board member of the Department for Education
• Doug Gurr, UK Country Manager, Amazon
• Sir Charlie Mayfield, Chairman, John Lewis Partnership
• Elizabeth Fagan, Senior Vice President, Managing Director Boots UK & ROI
• Nick Beighton, CEO, ASOS
• Ursula Lidbetter, CEO, Lincolnshire Cooperative
• John Hannett, General Secretary, Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers
• Diane Savory, Chair, GFirst LEP
• Victoria Robertshaw, CEO, Keelham Farm Shop
• Helen Dickinson, CEO, British Retail Consortium
• James Lowman, CEO, Association of Convenience Stores

The Charity Commission, the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales, has opened a new statutory inquiry into The Great Generation (1120349). The inquiry was opened on 3 January 2018.

The charity operates in Brazil, India, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Uganda and works with individuals, schools and businesses to help achieve the millennium development goals, specifically poverty alleviation.

On 17 February 2017 the charity was included in a class inquiry which the Commission opened to examine charities that had repeatedly defaulted on their accounting obligations.

The charity submitted the outstanding documents to the Commission in April 2017 and, as a result, ceased to be a part of the class inquiry. However, despite receiving regulatory advice and being reminded to meet their legal duties, the trustees again failed to file the statutory accounting information on time for the financial year ending 31 December 2016.

As a result of the further failure of the trustees to fulfil their legal reporting obligations the Commission has now opened a new inquiry.

In addition to obtaining the overdue accounting information the inquiry will seek to ensure that the trustees comply with their legal duties to file future account submissions within the statutory deadlines and examine broader aspects of the charity’s administration and management to ensure it is being properly managed by the trustees.

The Commission is reminding charity trustees that if their charity’s gross income exceeds £25,000, they have a legal obligation to submit a copy of their annual report and accounts to the Commission within 10 months of the charity’s financial year end. Failure to do this is a criminal offence under section 173(1) of the Charities Act 2011.

It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK.

The charity’s details can be viewed on the Commission’s online charity search tool.

Ends

Notes to editors

1. The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work, see the about us page on GOV.UK.
2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.
3. Section 46 of the Charities Act 2011 gives the commission the power to institute inquiries. The opening of an inquiry gives the commission access to a range of investigative, protective and remedial legal powers.