Background
Stonefrost was born in Bristol and attended Merrywood Grammar School.
chairman executive secretary civil servant
Stonefrost was born in Bristol and attended Merrywood Grammar School.
He was most prominent for his involvement with the (Greater London Council) from 1973 until its dissolution in 1985. He did National Service with the Royal Air Force from 1948-1951. After that he worked for several local authorities, starting in Bristol before moving to Slough in 1954, Coventry in 1956, and West Sussex in 1961.
From 1964 to 1973 he worked as the secretary for the Institute of Municipal Treasurers and Accountants.
From 1973-1977 he worked with the Labour administration under Rex Goodwin to keep London out of the financial problems that plagued New York City. From 1977-1981 he managed the finances for the Greater London Council under the Conservative administration led by Horace Cutler.
Additionally, he was able to get his officials to manipulate the central government"s local financing scheme to obtain £200m of additional financing from other governmental agencies. He also argued strongly against the dissolution of the Greater London Council because of the resulting "fragmentation and chaos" that would result for the other London governmental agencies and the increased cost of borrowing money for each of the those agencies.
After the Greater London Council was dissolved in 1985 he led an investigation into the Liverpool City Council"s near bankruptcy and recommended stabilizing its finances by halting hiring, raising rents and tax rates, and reorganizing its debt obligations.
From 1986-1990 he was Chief Executive Officer of the British Rail Pension Fund (BRPF). He was involved with the sale of a collection of fine art owned by the BRPF after fine art prices rose in the 1980s. Although Labour Party Shadow Arts Minister Mark Fisher objected to the possibility that the collection might leave Britain, Stonefrost maintained the most important outcome was receiving the highest price for the works.
From 1990-1993 he was chairman of Municipal Mutual Insurance (Multi Media Interface).
Multi Media Interface had been a primary insurer of local governments in Britain but had expanded to also insure cars and homes. When he joined Multi Media Interface had become overexposed to problems relating to school arson attacks and general financial market problems and he engineered a sale to Zurich Insurance in 1993.
