Parliamentary Design Commission set up

The Design Commission is a standing body comprising politicians from all parties as well as design industry representatives. It will meet every two to three months and carry out investigations and inquiries looking at obstacles and opportunities in design.

Members include Design Council chairman Lord Michael Bichard, chief executive David Kester and chief design officer Mat Hunter; Sir George Cox, author of the Cox Review; Participle founder Hilary Cottam; Jeremy Grice, chief executive of The Team; Laura Haynes, chairwoman of Appetite; Wayne Hemingway; Helen Hamlyn Centre director Jeremy Myerson; Seymour Powell co-founder Dick Powell; design and sustainability consultant John Thackara and Lloyd Northover Group chairman David Worthington.

Joining them are Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment chairman Paul Finch and chief executive Richard Simmons; Jeremy Davenport, co-founder of the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network; architect Bill Dunster; creative industries consultant Graham Hitchen; Emma Hunt, chairwoman of the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design; MP Barry Sheerman; Royal Society of Arts trustee Andrew Summers; and Baroness Janet Whitaker.

APDIG manager Jocelyn Bailey says the commission met once in November 2010 to agree on a mission statement. She says the committee is comprised of people involved in APDIG’s report on public sector design procurement (DW 4 March 2010) and people ‘who have experience of both the design industry and Government policy’.

Bailey says, ‘The main thing the commission will focus on initially is two inquiries –one on design education and one on public services.’ She says the commission is looking to launch the design education inquiry ‘as soon as possible’.