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General Social Care Council chair Rodney Brooke has been knighted in the Queen’s birthday honours for his contribution to public services.

Brooke, who has chaired the regulator since 2002, was formerly chief executive of Westminster and West Yorkshire councils and has also written extensively on public policy and management.

He said the award was “a tribute to all those who work in the public sector and especially the unsung heroines and heroes who work in social care”.
Brooke’s was one of a number of honours received by people in the sector.

CBEs were awarded to Charles Fraser, chief executive of London’s largest homeless provider, St Mungo’s, Disability Rights Commission chief executive Robert Niven and Mervyn Murch, Professor of Law at Cardiff Law School, for his extensive academic and advisory work in family justice.

There was also a CBE for Shami Chakbrabarti, director of human rights pressure group Liberty, and a former Community Care columnist.

Denise Marshall, chief executive of Eaves Housing, which provides housing and support for vulnerable women, was awarded an OBE. In 2003, she set up the POPPY  project, the country’s first specialist housing and support scheme for women trafficked into prostitution.


OBEs were also received by Des Kelly, director of the National Care Forum, the umbrella body for voluntary care providers, Anthony Lawton, chief executive of young people’s charity Centrepoint, Nancy Pears, co-founder of the Eating Disorders Association, and Sheila Scott, chief executive of the National Care Association, which represents care homes.

There were also a number of MBEs awarded to people associated with social care.

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 Mithran Samuel