News

The latest new appointments in the social care sector:

A person with learning difficulties has been elected joint chair of learning difficulty charity Mencap's National Assembly for the first time. Steven Austin will be responsible for chairing and setting the agenda for assembly meetings and representing Mencap. The assembly provides an opportunity for Mencap members to express their opinions and at least one third of the elected assembly representatives must be people with a learning difficulty.

Leo Finn, the former chief executive of Northern Rock plc, is the new chairperson of the Northern Rock Foundation, which funds charitable activity in the north east and Cumbria. The foundation receives 5 per cent of Northern Rock bank's pre-tax profits annually.  

David Fielding has been appointed as a special adviser to the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. He is on secondment from the National Lottery Community Fund, where he was director of corporate services. He is also an independent assessor for government appointments.

Health secretary John Reid has appointed two non-executive members to the Office of the Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts. Colin Davies and Brian Parrott have both been appointed on an interim basis while permanent members are recruited.
The new independent regulator was established by the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 and will be responsible for authorising, monitoring and regulating NHS Foundation Trusts.

Parrott is currently chairperson of Central Suffolk Primary Care Trust and is formerly director of social services for Surrey Council from 1995-200, and chairperson of the Association of Directors of Social Services resources committee. Colin Davies was previously the chairperson of North Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

David Edmonds has been appointed as chairperson of the NHS Direct Special Health Authority. Edmonds was previously director general of telecommunications at Oftel, the UK telecoms regulatory agency and his past roles include being chairperson of Crisis, the charity for single homeless people, for six years.

Leading father's rights campaigner Duncan Fisher has been appointed as a commissioner at the Equal Opportunities Commission. Fisher had already worked with the EOC on work and life balance issues through his work as the director and co-founder of Fathers Direct.

Kwame Akuffo and Professor Janet Walker have been appointed as members of the social security advisory committee (SSAC) for three years.
Akuffo has been a law teacher for the past 21 years and is currently a senior law lecturer at Ealing Law School, Thames Valley University. He teaches international human rights and public international law.
Walker is director of the Newcastle Centre for Family Studies and professor of family policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Welsh assembly government have appointed Gwenda Thomas to head a review of the progress made to date in safeguarding vulnerable children in Wales. Thomas is assembly member for Neath. She has served as chairperson of the social services committees of West Glamorgan Council and Neath Port Talbot Council. The review is expected to take around 12 months.

Gerald Oppenheim has been made director of planning and performance in the new lottery distributor being created by the merging of the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund. He was formerly the director of policy and communications at the Community Fund.
Vanessa Potter, previously the director of policy and external relations for the New Opportunities Fund, has been given the same position in the new distributor.

Helen Edwards, director of the Active Communities Directorate in the Home Office, has been appointed as director general of the department’s communities group. Edwards will be responsible for the Home Office’s work on active communities, civil renewal, race equality, faith, community cohesion and identity cards.

Sandy Blair is leaving his position of director of the Welsh Local Government Association in June. Blair, who joined the association in March 2001, was previously the chief executive at Newport Council. He is also a former president of  the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE). The association is currently recruiting for his replacement.

Nick Parker, a former senior partner with Price Waterhouse Coopers, is to head the Scottish Executive's performance and innovation unit. His role will involve modernising government in Scotland and improving the delivery of public sector services.

Mark Avery has been appointed as the director of the private and voluntary healthcare division of the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC). Avery has 25-years' experience of working in health care in Australia. He was jointly appointed by the NCSC and Commission for Healthcare Audit & Inspection (CHAI). He becomes head of independent healthcare in April when CHAI takes over the private healthcare responsibilities of the NCSC.

Three further appointments have been made to the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection (CHAI) executive management team:

Lorraine Foley has been appointed as the head of information and analysis. She was previously a director and head of electronic banking and cash management at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Stacey Adams has been appointed as head of communications. She joins CHAI from the NHS Health Development Agency, where she was responsible for communications, including dissemination and evaluation strategies around public health.

Mick Linsell has also joined CHAI as head of corporate services.

Heather Schroeder, area director for north Surrey at Surrey Council with responsibility for social inclusion and housing, is to be seconded to run Camden Council’s social services department for three months while it recruits a permanent replacement for Jane Held.

Held left just days before Christmas, and Camden has refused to reveal why she resigned. She has joined the Commission for Social Care Inspection on a secondment basis.

The director of Nottingham social services has been appointed as head of inspection, regulation and review at the new Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI).

Paul Snell will be one of six new business directors at the CSCI. Jonathan Phillips, the Social Services Inspectorate’s regional director for Yorkshire and the Humber will be head of quality, performance and methods, and Geraldine Macdonald, professor of social work at the University of Bristol, will become head of information knowledge and management.
The other business directors are Judith Thomas, David Walden and Hazel Parker-Brown.

Baroness Jill Pitkeathley has been named as the new chairperson at Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service).
Pitkethley, who is currently chairperson of the New Opportunities Fund, was appointed after the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer told the existing chairperson, Angela Killick, and twelve board members, to resign following a recent critical review.

Sue Richards

Sue Richards,  the chief officer for social services and housing at Wokingham Council in Berkshire, has been appointed to head Northamptonshire Council’s children and families service.
She will succeed Clive Danks, the interim director who will retire in March.

 

A new chief executive has been appointed at the Revolving Doors Agency, a charity working with offenders with mental health problems.
Julian Corner has had senior roles in the social exclusion unit and the Home Office, where he headed cross-government work on the national rehabilitation strategy.  He was due to take up his new post in January.

Lancashire Council has appointed Stephen Gross as their new head of adult services to oversee specialist services for people with learning difficulties, physical disabilities, sensory impairment and mental health problems.
Gross is currently head of service for adults and older people at Wakefield council. The new appointment is part of Lancashire’s reorganisation of management for adult services.

Jacqui Smith, the deputy minister for women and equality, has announced the membership of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights taskforce.
The new commission, chaired by Smith, will draw together the work of existing equality commissions. Members of the taskforce include Amanda Ariss from the Equal Opportunities Commission, Mohammed Aziz from the British Muslim Research Council, Tessa Harding from Help the Aged and Pam Smith from the Commission for Racial Equality.

The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has appointed the director of Hampshire social services, Terry Butler, to advise on patient safety work in the field of social care.
The NPSA was set up to co-ordinate the efforts of the NHS to report and learn from adverse incidents and ‘near misses’ in the NHS. Butler will join a team of clinical speciality advisors on a part-time basis.

Dr Matt Muijen is to leave his post as chief executive of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health next year.
Dr Muijen joined the centre as director in 1991. He previously worked as a clinical psychiatrist and a fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry. He is also a trustee of the charity Turning Point and a patron of the Early Years Children’s Network.

The director-general of the British Retail Consortium, Bill Moyes, has been named as the chairperson of the Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts.
The new Independent Regulator was established by the Health and Social Care Act 2003 and will be responsible for authorising, monitoring and regulating NHS Foundation Trusts. Moyes will take up his new position in the new year.

Journalist Fiona Millar will take up the post of chairperson on the board of the National Family and Parenting Institute (NFPI) trustees in April next year.
She will replace the founding chairperson Dame Margaret Booth, who will have the role of the first president of the NFPI during her retirement.
Millar has been working as an adviser to Tony and Cherie Blair.

The National Housing  Federation has announced that its new chairperson will be Richard Clark.
Clark is the chief executive of the Prime Focus Regeneration Group.

Remploy, Britain’s largest employer of disabled people, has appointed Bob Warner as its new chief executive.
Warner has been Remploy’s finance director for the past two years.

The charity Fostering Network has made two new appointments to its senior management team.
Lucy Peake, who has worked in public affairs for four years, will join the organisation as head of external affairs. Maynard Hutchings has been appointed as head of finance and IT. He previously worked as a resource director for the Royal Mail.

Sue Newton

Sue Newton, the founder of a pioneering adult placement scheme launched by Liverpool-based PSS and adopted throughout the United Kingdom has retired from the company
Newton was recently honoured for her work by the city's mayor at a reception to celebrate the scheme's 25th anniversary.

 

Stephen Dunmore, the former chief executive of the New Opportunities Fund, will head the new distributor, when the Community Fund and the New Opportunities Fund are merged.

Dr Fiona Adshead has been appointed England’s deputy chief medical officer responsible for public health.
Dr Adshead’s new role will be to reduce health inequalities and improve the health of the population in general, helping to develop policies and implement programmes in areas such as the prevention of cancer and heart disease.
She is currently director of public health at Camden Primary Care Trust.

The head of the children and families service at Hackney Council, Josephine Kwhali, has announced that she is to step down.
Kwhali was the first black woman to hold the post of social services assistant director of children and young people’s services at Lambeth Council in 1984.
She joined Hackney at the end of 1999 when the council was under ministerial measures and has been instrumental in driving through changes which led to the council receiving two stars in the Social Services Inspectorate ratings last month.

The head of knowledge services at the Social Care Institute for Excellence will be one of seven board members at the new NHSU (NHS University), which aims to become a new kind of university dedicated to health and social care.
Amanda Edwards has also worked as a principal policy adviser at the Cabinet Office’s centre for policy and management studies and was head of personal social services quality strategy at the Department of Health.

John Crawley, the long-serving chief executive of the fch housing association, has announced that he is stepping down.
Crawley has been chief executive for 20 years. The board will begin recruiting a successor in the new year.

Debbie Jones

Debbie Jones is to become the new acting director of health and social care at Durham Council. She will replace the current head of social services Peter Kemp when he leaves the council at the end of April.
Kemp, the longest serving social services director in the country, said that it was “time to move on and take a change of direction”.
He took the helm of Durham social services in 1986, having been deputy director for two years.
Jones is currently the head of service for children and their families at the council, and will shadow Kemp until he leaves his post.

Lancashire Council has appointed Stephen Gross as its head of adult services to oversee specialist services for people with learning difficulties, physical disabilities, sensory impairment and mental health problems.
The appointment is part of the council's reorganisation of management for adult services that aims to focus on developing specialist services for adults. Responsibility for older people and adults has now been split.
At present Gross is head of services for adults and older people at Wakefield Metropolitan District Council.

Nurse Margaret Robertson has been appointed as the head of a children's hospice currently being built in Balloch, Scotland.
Robin House expects to open in 2004 and is being funded by a £10 million appeal by the Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS). Robertson previously worked as deputy head of care at Rachel House children's hospice in Kinross, Scotland, which is run by the CHAS.

Mark Charters

Mark Charters has joined Northamptonshire Council as its head of community services. This is a new grouping that includes adult social services, cultural services such as libraries, lifelong learning and country parks.
Charters will take up his post in February and is currently head of health and community care at Southampton Council. He will succeed the interim director of social services Stephen Wilds.

 

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