Warwickshire News Mine

Noel’s career in local government spanned 40 years. He began his professional career in 1966 in Nottinghamshire as a trainee Trading Standards Officer, and following qualification in 1968 was appointed as Trading Standards Officer in the London Borough of Bromley.  In 1970 he was asked by Kent County Council to lead the first Trading Standards special investigation team in the UK with a brief to tackle fraud against the public sector.

In 1974 Noel was appointed Assistant Chief Officer in Kent and in 1979 was appointed County Trading Standards Officer for Warwickshire.  In 2000 he became Director of Libraries, Heritage and Trading Standards.

Throughout his career, Noel always maintained a reputation for being community orientated and customer focused, placing a strong emphasis upon increasing access to services that he worked hard to ensure were of a consistently high quality.

Noel was responsible for developing and introducing one-stop shops to Warwickshire, co-ordinating market research and mystery shopping across all county services and developing solutions to improve consumer access to services.

Always with an eye upon developing good relations with local media, Noel was responsible for establishing the county’s first ever Public Relations Unit, helping to raise the profile of the County Council and increase awareness of the many and varied services it provides.

As County Trading Standards Officer and latterly Director of Libraries, Heritage and Trading Standards, Noel headed a department that received national recognition for its work and achieved improvements in both service quality and delivery.

During his tenure, the Trading Standards Service was twice awarded the national Office of Fair Trading’s Excellence in Trading Standards Award; new museums and libraries were opened or refurbished, including Roman Alcester, Stockingford Early Years Centre and Library and the County Record Office; and library visitor and membership numbers increased substantially, in some areas by more than 50%.

Noel shared his energy and enthusiasm with his colleagues and maintained a keen interest in innovative projects that served to push the boundaries of accepted service provision. These included in the introduction of 235 People’s network computers in to libraries with free Internet access, e-Trading Standards National.  A data resource now available to the TS Service nationally.  The development of ‘talkingshop’, the award winning interactive consumer education tool for schools delivered by the Trading Standards Service and latterly the creation of a brand new service, Warwickshire Direct to create a contact point for residents to obtain information and advice on all Council services.

Noel has been active on national and international consumer issues. He has been Chairman of the Trading Standards Institute, and Chairman of its Management Board; a member of the National Consumer Council; a member of the Financial Services Authority Consumer Panel; Secretary and latterly Vice Chairman of the Product Safety Enforcement Forum of Europe; a member of the Banking Codes Standards Board and a warden of the Birmingham Assay Office. He has also served on a number of Ministerial working groups relating to Consumer Affairs, Consumer Policy, Enforcement Policy and Regulation of the Tourism Industry.
In 2002 Noel was awarded the OBE for services to Consumer Protection and Trading Standards.

Noel is married to Yvonne and has two children and two grandchildren.  He has been a resident of Lighthorne since moving to Warwickshire in 1979.  He has been active in the local community organising fund raising events for local charities and to sustain the village hall.  He lists his interests as almost everything but particularly “my family”.

He will continue to Chair the Executive Board of the TSI after his retirement and will sit on a number of other Boards related to Consumer Affairs.

Link to WCC