Sir Stuart Etherington to Chair NatCen Trustees

In London, British charity executive and former social worker Sir Stuart Etherington has been appointed Chair of Trustees for not-for-profit organisation NatCen Social Research. He will take up the role next February when Sir Robert Burgess retires at the end of his term in the post.

NatCen focuses on social research to help government and charities understand social behaviour and inform policy. The organisation's staff includes policy sector specialists, survey methodologists, data analysts and qual and quant researchers, and its field force also includes nurses who are able to collect clinical data. It also offers telephone, web and mobile surveys.

Etherington (pictured) is the former CEO of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), where he worked for 25 years, during which he was knighted for services to the voluntary sector. He is currently Chair of The Oversight Trust, and was previously CEO of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), a member of the Economic and Social Committee of the European Union, Chair of London United, and Chair of The Patron's Fund. He is also an IES Honorary Fellow.

Etherington's government appointments have included work for the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit's Advisory Board on the Voluntary Sector, and HM Treasury's Review of the Voluntary Sector. Guy Goodwin, CEO of NatCen, comments: 'This is an exciting appointment for everyone at NatCen. We have enjoyed much success in recent years but there is still so much more for our charity to achieve as the independent voice at the heart of the big debates around our society in the 2020s. Sir Stuart's appointment reflects these ambitions and I very much look forward to working with him'.

Web site: www.natcen.ac.uk .