London
A new chairman has finally been appointed for the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). She is Paula Ridley, whose current job is chairman of the Liverpool Housing Action Trust. Until June she was also Chairman of the Tate Gallery Liverpool, a trustee of the Tate Gallery and the Tate’s liaison trustee at the National Gallery. Her appointment was made by the Prime Minister on 23 October, following many months of discussion between the Department for Culture and the museum. Lord Armstrong, the outgoing Chairman, had wanted to step down in June, ten years after his appointment. Although this date had been known well in advance, names of potential successors suggested by the V&A proved unacceptable to the Department for Culture, and vice versa. Among those proposed by the museum was Goldman Sachs banker Gavyn Davies, while the department proposed retired Granada chairman Alex Bernstein. When the June deadline passed, Lord Armstrong reluctantly agreed to stay on for a further two months. He finally retired on 31 August, leaving the post empty for a further two months until Ms Ridley’s appointment.