The Parole Board for England and Wales today announced the appointment of Claire Bassett as its new Chief Executive Officer.

This follows the departure of the previous CEO, Linda Lennon, who has taken up a post as chief executive of the Royal Parks Agency.

Claire Bassett will be joining the Parole Board from the Criminal Cases Review Commission where she has been the chief executive for the last two-and-a-half years. Before that Claire was operations and services director at the crime reduction charity Nacro.

Sir David Latham, Chairman of the Parole Board said:

'I am delighted that we have been able to appoint such an experienced candidate as Claire to the post of Chief Executive. Claire has considerable experience of the criminal justice system from a number of different perspectives and has also served as the Chief Executive of a high-profile non-departmental public body. The post will be a challenging one over the next couple of years and I am confident that Claire will be able to rise to meet that challenge.'

Claire Bassett said:

'I am very pleased to be taking up the role of Chief Executive of such a respected body as the Parole Board, particularly at such an important time of change for the Board. I am very much looking forward to meeting and working with all the Parole Board’s staff and members and hope I am able to quickly make a real contribution to its valuable work.'

Claire will join the Parole Board from 11 April 2012.
Notes to editors

The Parole Board is an independent body that works with its criminal justice partners to protect the public by risk assessing prisoners to decide whether they can safely be released into the community.

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