Necessity Still Breeds Ingenuity - Archive of SQUALL MAGAZINE 1992-2006

News Shorts and Other Busyness

Jobs For The Boyds

Squall 11, Autumn 1995, pg. 13.

Sir Thomas Boyd-Carpenter, a lieutenant general in the armed forces with no experience of benefit issues, took charge of the government’s social security advisory body on September 1st.

The body must be consulted by the government on any social security change. In the past it has been deeply critical of the government’s policy, warning, for example, that cuts in housing benefit would risk damaging the fabric of the nation.

Sir Thomas, son of a Tory grandee, will be paid £250 a day and work one day a week. His previous experience includes being chief of staff with the British Army on the Rhine, deputy chief of staff for programmes and personal at the MOD and writing the best selling Conventional Deterrence into the 1990s.

But not to worry. He says he is “committed to acquiring quickly” the necessary expertise for his new job. It is thought that Social Security secretary Peter Lilley wants to neutralise the previously independent body.