Corporate Governance

Act as a shareholder representative for, and lead establishment of, UK government’s most complex and commercial arm’s length bodies (ALBs) on behalf of sponsor departments

The UKGI governance team has deep Board, governance, commercial and financial expertise drawn from both inside and outside government. ​ We support HMG’s effective ownership of its arm’s length bodies (ALBs), enhancing Departments’ ability to effectively discharge their responsibilities in relation to their ALBs and promoting those assets’ successful organisational performance. This includes taking a proactive shareholder role​, sharing best practice advice on setting up new ALBs​, undertaking governance reviews ​and providing shareholder function scoping and design workshops. ​

In accordance with Managing Public Money (MPM), departments are encouraged to seek UKGI’s advice for managing departments’ responsibilities as shareholders, and also when establishing central government companies, public corporations or ALB’s which have a significant commercial element, significant private sector interface and/or whose governance is of material complexity.

 

Delivering a shareholder function which seeks to drive continuously improving and sustainable asset performance can include:

 

  • Governance structure and documentation: Driving accountability and effective shareholder relationships by working with assets and departments to put in place best practice and fit for purpose corporate and government governance frameworks
  • Objectives, business planning and performance: Supporting and challenging assets to produce fit for purpose business plans, performance metrics and reporting, and so drive increased accountability and improved planning between assets and HMG
  • Corporate capability: Challenging and monitoring our assets’ internal systems and processes to help identify and mitigate risk and promote best practice internal governance, culture and organisational health
  • Effective leadership: Applying senior corporate expertise to influence ALB recruitment and remuneration processes, board reviews and succession planning to help shape strong and fit for purpose capability in our assets’ boards and senior executive
  • Effective relationships: Facilitating effective, pragmatic and transparent relationships between our assets and government, through formal and informal, senior-led, regular interactions
  • Experienced Shareholder Non-Executive Director: Acting as Shareholder NED, contributing deep governance and government expertise to our assets’ boards, and facilitating the relationship and understanding between asset boards and their departments

Andy Butterworth

Executive Director

Andy joined UKGI in December 2016 and is part of the Special Situations team which focuses on sectors and corporates where there is a risk of economic shock impact to major employment or assets of national interest. Andy is a FCA and prior to joining UKGI was an M&A Director at Deloitte specialising in advising on non-standard and accelerated M&A transactions, many of which involved advising companies, investors and lenders on maximising value in constrained, challenging or time-critical situations. Whilst at UKGI, Andy has also worked within UKGI’s housing activities with MHCLG, delivered a number of projects with the UKGI Defence team and led UKGI’s team working on UK Export Finance. Andy also led on UKGI’s portfolio management activities.

Roshana Arasaratnam

Executive Director

Roshana joined UKGI in June 2022 having worked across capital markets, public sector and not for profits over the last 20 years, most recently as Associate Managing Director at Moody’s Investor Services where she has led ratings teams across Europe.

Before Moody’s, Roshana led finance, business planning and performance improvement initiatives in local government, having trained as a chartered accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In addition, she tutors in Sustainable Finance at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership, is a member of the ICAEW Sustainability Committee, is a Trustee at Womankind Worldwide, mentors startups at Cass Business School and is a diversity mentor for BT.

James Coppin OBE

Executive Director

James joined UK Government Investments (formerly the Shareholder Executive) in March 2014. He has worked on a variety of corporate finance and governance projects, including government investments into industry and government asset sales. Major government sales worked on include the two public equity offerings of Royal Mail shares that removed Royal Mail from public sector ownership and advising the Department for Transport on Network Rail’s sale of c. 5,000 railway arches. He has recently been advising the Department of Health and Social Care on transactions relating to the provision of indemnity cover for GPs and working with the UK’s Vaccine Task Force on negotiating agreements with vaccine manufacturers to secure vaccines and manufacturing capacity as part of the UK’s response to Covid-19.

Prior to joining UKGI, James spent ten years working in corporate finance, first on the sell side in investment banking and, immediately prior to joining UKGI, on the buy side, at a hedge fund. He started his career at Bank of America, working in London and New York.

James holds an Economics degree from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

Our work on appointments:

UKGI is involved in the appointment or reappointment of over 100 board members every 3 years across its portfolio. It is a crucial part of UKGI’s shareholder function, ensuring exceptional talent is engaged to provide senior leadership across the range of organisations we support.

Operating at the edge of the public and private sector, we seek to use the best practice of both to support the running of open and fair competitions which find and promote a diverse range of suitable candidates, often working work closely with Executive Search firms.

Becoming a Board Member
The role of the Board is to provide collective leadership to the organisation so it fulfils its own strategic aims and the objectives and priorities set by the relevant Secretary of State, and complies with the requirements relating to the use of public funds. Role descriptions will be tailored to the particular roles available and the expertise required on that board. It is therefore important that applicants have relevant senior experience, effective communication and interpersonal skills, data literacy and sound judgement.  While we often appoint experienced Non-Executives, we are always interested in those who are looking to go plural.

If you would like to find out about future vacancies, register on our vacancies page.

We would encourage you to also register your profile on the central Cabinet Office Public Appointments website. Here you will find a wide range of opportunities across the public sector.

The public sector and state owned enterprises, wholly or partially owned, which UKGI works with are:

Our publications set out how we strive to meet the needs of government departments and, ultimately, taxpayers and wider society through our governance role

UKGI is committed to good stewardship practices and the Financial Reporting Council’s revised 2020 UK Stewardship Code. UKGI is reaffirmed as a signatory to the UK Stewardship Code for a third year; our report provides an update on our stewardship activities during 2022/23 and outlines our stewardship priorities going forward.

UKGI Stewardship Code Report

22 February 2024 19 MB

 

UKGI paper on the use of ALBs in government: a view from practitioners

A key part of UKGI’s mission is to support departments across Whitehall to be most effective in their role as shareholders of arm’s length bodies. In this paper, published in 2020, we have drawn on our expertise across both the public and private sectors to identify how, where and why arm’s length bodies are used by government, and to define seven critical success factors for setting up and managing them. The paper is intended to help inform debate across Whitehall and beyond on the effective use of arm’s length bodies for specialised delivery, as well as to share practical know-how and expertise in this area.

Case Studies