The Lord Filkin
Honorific prefixThe Right Honourable
Office 1Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education
Prime minister 1Tony Blair
Term start 19 September 2004
Term end 110 May 2005
Predecessor 1The Baroness Ashton of Upholland
Successor 1The Lord Adonis
Office 2Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs
Prime minister 2Tony Blair
Term start 213 June 2003
Term end 29 September 2004
Predecessor 2The Baroness Scotland of Asthal
Successor 2The Baroness Ashton of Upholland
Office 3Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs
Prime minister 3Tony Blair
Term start 329 May 2002
Term end 313 June 2003
Predecessor 3Beverley Hughes
Successor 3Fiona Mactaggart
Office 4Lord-in-Waiting
Government Whip
Prime minister 4Tony Blair
Term start 411 June 2001
Term end 429 May 2002
Predecessor 4The Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale
Successor 4no appointment
Office 5Member of the House of Lords
Status 5Lord Temporal
Term label 5Life peerage
Term start 529 July 1999
Birth nameDavid Geoffrey Nigel Filkin
Birth date1 July 1944 (age 82)
Birth placeBirmingham
PartyLabour
OccupationChair, Centre for Ageing Better (2013−2018)

David Geoffrey Nigel Filkin, Baron Filkin, (born 1 July 1944) is a British Labour politician.[1][2][3]

Career

Filkin was educated at King Edward VI Five Ways School, Birmingham, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read history.[4] His early career was as a Director of Housing and then Chief Executive in Local Government. He was Chief Executive of the Association of District Councils, representing local authorities to government, promoting the foundation of the Local Government Association and creating Best Value, the policy for sourcing in local government. Later he was a policy analyst and writer, contributing to the development of Labour's policies for local and regional government. In 2000 he led the Prime Minister's Review of local government and subsequently was a government minister for four years.

Parliamentary career

Filkin, having been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1997 New Year Honours,[5] was created a life peer as Baron Filkin, of Pimlico in the City of Westminster, on 29 July 1999.[2][6] In 2000, with Simon Over, he founded the Parliament Choir, which gathers members of both Houses of Parliament and Parliamentary Staff.

He has held a number of Government offices, first as Lord in Waiting (junior Whip) from June 2001 to May 2002, then as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department from May 2002 until June 2003, and then as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Departments for Constitutional Affairs (June 2003 to September 2004) and Education and Skills (September 2004 to May 2005).[citation needed]

He founded the Public Services Research Group which published Public Matters, a critical review of Labour's public service reforms and in 2008 he founded and chaired the charity, 2020 Public Services Trust. Its Commission into Public Services in 2020 reported in 2010. He led the report, Commissioning for Outcomes, proposing and explaining the policy of paying for results. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Purchasing and Supply. He founded the Parliament Choir in 2000, chaired the Committee on Statutory Instruments from 2005 to 2010 and proposed and then chaired the Lords Select Committee on Public Services and Demographic Change. Its report, Ready for Ageing? was published in March 2013.

Geoffrey Filkin was Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on Public Service and Democratic Change which published a report on "Ready for Ageing?".[7]

Upon being appointed chair of the Big Lottery Fund's Centre for Ageing Better in November 2013, Filkin set aside the Labour whip, choosing to sit as a non-affiliated peer. Upon his resignation from the charity's chairmanship in 2018, Filkin returned to the Labour whip in January 2019.[8]

References

  1. ^ Staff. David Geoffrey Nigel Filkin, Baron Filkin, National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 2008-10-03
  2. ^ Mosley, Charles (ed.) (2003), Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, Vol. 1, 107th ed., Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, p. 1430, ISBN 978-0-9711966-2-9 – (Cited at thePeerage.com, which accessed 18 July 2020)
  3. ^ Staff. Lord Filkin, TheyWorkForYou. Retrieved 2008-10-03
  4. ^
  5. ^ No. 54625. 31 December 1996. p. 8.
  6. ^ No. 55573. 5 August 1999. p. 8457.
  7. ^ "Geoffrey Filkin: Ready for Aging? - Eastminster". Eastminster. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  8. ^ "Lord Filkin to step down as Chair of Centre for Ageing Better". Charity Today. 3 September 2018.