Environment Secretary

Environment Secretary can refer to:

See also

Environment

Environment may refer to:

In computing:

Secretary

A secretary, personal assistant, or administrative assistant is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication, or organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit of more than one. In other situations a secretary is an officer of a society or organization who deals with correspondence, admits new members, and organizes official meetings and events.

Duties and functions

A secretary has many administrative duties. Traditionally, these duties were mostly related to correspondence, such as the typing out of letters, maintaining files of paper documents, etc. The advent of word processing has significantly reduced the time that such duties require, with the result that many new tasks have come under the purview of the secretary. The duties may vary according to the nature and size of organization. These might include managing budgets and doing bookkeeping, attending telephone calls, handling visitors, maintaining websites, and making travel arrangements. Secretaries might manage all the administrative details of running a high-level conference or arrange the catering for a typical lunch meeting. Often executives will ask their assistant to take the minutes at meetings and prepare meeting documents for review. In addition to the minutes, the secretary may be responsible for keeping all of the records of an organization.

Owen Paterson

Owen William Paterson (born 24 June 1956) is a British Conservative Party politician who was the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2012 until 2014 and has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Shropshire since 1997.

Paterson was first appointed to the Shadow Cabinet of David Cameron in 2007 as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Upon the formation of the Coalition Government in 2010 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, where he remained until being moved to DEFRA in 2012.

In 2014 he established and became the Chairman of UK 2020, a centre-right think tank based in Westminster.

Early life and career

Paterson was born in Whitchurch, Shropshire. He attended Abberley Hall School and Radley College, before beginning studies at Cambridge University, where he read History at Corpus Christi College. He then went on to the National Leathersellers College (now the British School of Leather Technology at the University of Northampton).

Michael Gove

Michael Andrew Gove (born 26 August 1967) is a British Conservative politician and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Heath. He is also an author and was formerly a columnist for The Times.

Born in Edinburgh, Gove was raised in Aberdeen where he began his career as a journalist. He was first elected to the House of Commons in the 2005 election for the safe Conservative seat of Surrey Heath. He was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet by David Cameron in 2007 as Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

After the formation of the Coalition Government in 2010, Gove was appointed Secretary of State for Education. At its 2013 conference, Gove was criticised by the National Association of Head Teachers, whose members condemned the climate of bullying, fear and intimidation they said he had created during his time as Education Secretary. The conference passed a vote of no confidence in his policies. Votes of no confidence were also passed by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, National Union of Teachers and NASUWT at their conferences in 2013.