Name Robert Baron | Role Baron Lingfield | |
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Books Choosing a State School: How to Find the Best Education for Your Child | ||
Robert Balchin, Baron Lingfield, DL (born 31 July 1942) is a British educationalist, noted as an advocate and pioneer for school autonomy.
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Career
Lord Lingfield serves as Chairman of the Trustees of ARNI. He is also the Chairman of the League of Mercy and a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London.
He previously served as Director-General of St. John Ambulance from 1984 to 1990 and was chairman of the Grant-Maintained Schools Centre (formerly Foundation) from 1989 until 1999. He has been Chairman of the Centre for Education Management (now CEFM) since 1995.
Knighted in 1993, becoming styled as Sir Robert Balchin, he was raised to the peerage as a Life Peer on 17 December 2010 as Baron Lingfield, of Lingfield in the County of Surrey.
He was Knight Principal (chairman of the Knights' Council) of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor from 2006 to 2012, and he has served as Honorary Colonel of Humberside and South Yorkshire ACF since 2004. The cadet-commandant of Yorkshire Army Cadet Force, Colonel Alan Roberts, OBE, TD, is a long-term associate of Lord Lingfield, serving as gentleman usher of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor, receiving an honorary doctorate from Brunel University and being appointed a companion of the Order of Mercy.
A Freeman of the City of London, he is also a liveryman of the Goldsmiths', Broderers', and Apothecaries' companies.
Lord Lingfield sits on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords, and he speaks in parliament mainly on education matters. He has written numerous articles on education and politics. His schools initiative was proclaimed by The Daily Telegraph's deputy editor, Benedict Brogan, as: "[being the] first and, as time passes, perhaps the most important legislative milestone achieved by the Coalition".