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Industrial Development Advisory Board

My honourable friend the Minister for Business and Enterprise (Mark Prisk) has today made the following Statement. We will shortly commence a triennial review of the Industrial Development Advisory Board, to Cabinet Office guidelines. As part of the coalition agreement, all government departments are required to review all their non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) at least every three years. The Industrial Development Advisory Board has been selected by BIS as one of the NDPBs for which the review will commence during the first year of the programme (2011-12). The review will be conducted as set out in Cabinet Office guidance, in two stages. The first stage will: identify and examine the key functions of the Industrial Development Advisory Board and assess how these functions contribute to the core business of BIS; assess the requirement for these to continue; if continuing, then assess delivery options and where the conclusion is that a particular function is still needed examine how this function might best be delivered, including a cost and benefits analysis where appropriate; and if one of these options is continuing delivery through the Industrial Development Advisory Board, then make an assessment against the Government's ““three tests””: technical function; political impartiality; need for independence from Ministers. If the outcome of stage 1 is that delivery should continue through the Industrial Development Advisory Board then the second stage of the project will be to ensure that it is operating in line with the recognised principles of good corporate governance, using the Cabinet Office ““comply or explain”” standard approach. The report of the review will be placed in the Libraries of the House. If you would like further information or wish to comment please e-mail triennialreviews@bis.gsi.gov.uk.