Cotton takes up Tutty's role at DCMS
Bob Cotton, Gardner Merchant's director of communications and strategic development, is to take over the role of adviser to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) previously held by Roy Tutty.
Cotton's role will be to advise the Government on tourism strategy, help it to work with the tourism and hospitality industry, and advise the DCMS on developing policies.
The job, which starts in January for one year, will be full-time. He will have to give up his roles as chairman of the British Hospitality Association's (BHA) contract catering forum and his post on the BHA national executive.
Half his salary will be paid by the hospitality industry, through the BHA, and half by the DCMS.
Some civil servants are uneasy that an industry figure should be given such access to the corridors of power. "It leaves a slightly bad taste in the mouth," said a member of civil servants' union the First Division Association.
But Cotton claimed he would simply be acting as a go-between for government and industry. "Half the role is helping government formulate appropriate strategies for the industry, then explaining these to the industry. Half is listening to the industry and taking its concerns to government," he said. "It's not lobbyist at all. There's no political role to it."
