Spencer Pitfield: Charles Heslop becomes the Conservative Policy Forum's Voluntary Vice Chairman

Dr Spencer Pitfield is the National Voluntary Director of the Conservative Policy Forum (CPF), a national group chaired by Oliver Letwin MP that gives its members the opportunity to discuss the major policy challenges facing Britain today. Follow Spencer on Twitter.

At our recent Spring Conference in London I announced that Fiona Hodgson would step down as CPF Voluntary Vice Chairman.

Fiona has been a dynamic force in not only the re-establishment of the CPF - and this of course required many behind the scenes discussions which led up to our re-launch in Birmingham in January 2011 - and over the past two years in particular has made sure that the CPF has smoothly and professionally rolled-out into the considerable national Party organisation we now represent.

I have no doubt that the CPF will continue to evolve and develop but two years down the road we can now say that we have achieved all of the significant milestones set-out by the Party Board when the green light was given for the CPF to be re-established.

On behalf of all our team - both voluntary and professional, and the many thousands of CPF members across the country - I would like to thank Fiona for everything she has done to make sure that the CPF has become such a national success. Fiona's energy, commitment and focus to making sure that we volunteers once again can not only air our policy views, but perhaps more importantly be sure that our views are heard loud and clear by the Party leadership, will be her lasting legacy to us all.

I am now very pleased to be able to announce that Charles Heslop - Party Board Member and our National Convention President this coming year - will take over the role of CPF Voluntary Vice Chairman. Charles is well-known to members across the country and I am sure will do a fantastic job. Welcome, Charles, to our team, and I look forward very much to working with you in the months ahead as we continue to further develop our CPF programme!