Reg Bailey CBE, Chair
Reg was the Chief Executive of Mothers’ Union – an international charity concerned with supporting children and families in 82 countries around the world – from 1999 until he retired in 2015.
In 2011 he was appointed by the government to review the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood and made a far-reaching series of recommendations which ranged across parental controls for internet enabled devices, the introduction of age ratings for music videos, improving the effectiveness of media literacy in education, to getting retailers to adopt a code of practice on marketing to children. He believes that our responsibility as a society is to ensure that children grow up as emotionally resilient young people as anything that can be done to protect children from inappropriate sexualisation and commercial pressure can only ever achieve limited success.
His recommendations were all accepted by government, and he was asked to continue as an advisor to ensure that they have been properly implemented. He is a member of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) Council; the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) Advisory Panel on Children’s Viewing, and is Chair of SANDS, the still birth and neo-natal death charity.
Married with an adult family, he was appointed CBE in 2013 for services to children and families. He is an Honorary Canon of St Alban’s Cathedral.