Claire Nichol appointed as executive director at BOSS

Claire Nichol appointed as executive director at BOSS

Claire Nichol has been appointed as the new Executive Director to lead the British Oil Security Syndicate (BOSS) as it expands Payment Watch, the successful fuel debt recovery service for forecourt operators.

She replaces Kevin Eastwood, who has been Executive Director of BOSS since 1998 and is to retire at the end of March.

Kevin was instrumental in setting up BOSS in 1991 and has led BOSS in its campaign to reduce crime on Britain’s forecourts. At BOSS Kevin built effective partnerships and created new ways to tackle forecourt fuel crime, including Forecourt Watch which brought retailers, police and the oil industry together in a coordinated approach for the first time.

In 2010 BOSS turned to help fuel retailers to recover mounting losses from No Means of Payment incidents and introduced Payment Watch, which has become the most successful debt recovery service in the forecourt fuel sector.

Kevin said: “I’d like to thank everyone involved with BOSS. Together we’ve worked hard to deal with forecourt crime and find new and more effective ways to tackle forecourt fuel crime. I’m confident that with Claire at the helm BOSS will continue to play its part in more innovative ways in helping to reduce forecourt losses through No Means of Payment and Drive Off incidents, whilst driving up standards of safety and security with all forecourt operators across the UK.”

Managing director Claire Nichol joined BOSS in 2006 as Head of Membership Services developing the administrative and support services offered to members. More recently Claire has overseen the transformation of BOSS with the introduction and implementation of the GDPR compliant Electronic Reporting System for Payment Watch, as well as reengineering operating procedures and improving the effectiveness of recovering unpaid fuel debts.

Annually BOSS estimates that 1.7 million incidents of forecourt fuel crime take place in the UK. These incidents cost forecourt operators £88 million (2019).  Up until 2020, forecourt fuel crime was dominated by Drive-Off incidents, however, No Means of Payment (NMoP) now represent two-thirds of all incidents by volume and value.