Our Commissioners, committees and governance | Equality and Human Rights Commission

The Board of Commissioners

Our Board of Commissioners is the highest level decision-making body in the organisation, responsible for the strategic oversight of the Commission.

The Board comprises:

Kishwer, Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Chair)
Alasdair Henderson (Joint Deputy Chair)
Eryl Besse (Wales Commissioner and Joint Deputy Chair)
Marcial Boo (Chief Executive Officer – Commissioner ex officio)
Dr Lesley Sawers OBE (Scotland Commissioner)
Jessica Butcher MBE
David Goodhart
Su-Mei Thompson
Akua Reindorf
Arif Ahmed MBE
Kunle Olulode MBE
Joanne Cash

Our Chair and Commissioners are public appointments made by the Minister for Women and Equalities. The latest round of appointments was announced in January 2023.

The Board has a strategic oversight role. It does not directly manage our operations, but delegates that role to the CEO and our staff. It holds the CEO and the staff to account by monitoring performance against our strategic priorities and ensuring that resources are being used to good effect.

The Board meets around eight times a year. We publish minutes of recent Board meetings.

Our committees

Our work is also guided by two statutory committees:

These committees, whose roles are set out in the Equality Act 2006, advise the Commission about the exercise of its functions in Scotland, in Wales, and oversee the exercise of some delegated functions. The statutory committees are chaired by Commissioners, and their membership is recruited by the Commission for their expertise and experience.

We have two additional non-statutory committees established by the Commission to support and inform our decision-making and work programme.

ARAC and P&WC are both chaired by Commissioners and can have both commissioner and independent membership.

Our governance

Our governance manual sets out in detail the roles and responsibilities of the Board of Commissioners, our statutory and non-statutory committees, senior management and officers. It is designed to ensure the Commission operates in accordance with best practice and in a way that commands public confidence.

Our relationship with government, and how the Commission operates as an independent arm’s length body is set out in a Government-Commission framework document. This details how we operate in areas such as spending controls, recruitment and responding to Parliament in a way that ensures our independence of government and our ability to fulfil statutory functions while remaining fully accountable for our corporate performance and use of public funds.

Register of Commissioners’ interests

The governance framework sets out rules and guidance for Commissioners on conflicts of interests, and we maintain a publicly available register of Commissioners' interests. Declarations of interests are available to download as Word documents, below.