Board of Trustees

SCIE is governed by a board of trustees who guide its work and ensure its independence.

Alternatively find out more about our Senior Leadership Team.

Board members

• Paul Burstow, Chair of the Board

  

  Paul Burstow joined the SCIE board as Chair in July 2017. He has over thirty years of public service leadership in local government, Westminster and Whitehall. Since leaving parliament he has been appointed to chair the north London based, internationally renowned, Tavistock and Portman NHS FT - the home of psychotherapy. He is a member of the independent oversight and advisory group for the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. His interest in mental health led to his appointment in 2016 as the University of Birmingham's Professor of Mental Health Public Policy, a part-time role in which he is leading a policy commission devising a new prevention and early action paradigm. Paul was appointed minister of state for care services in 2010 leading the drafting of the Care Bill (now Act) and No Health Without Mental Health strategy. His interest in social care saw him appointed as Chair of the Design Council's Transform Ageing National Advisory Panel in 2016 and as President of the TSA - the voice of technology enabled care in 2017. Paul was appointed to Her Majesty's Privy Council in 2012.

  • Paul's tweets

• Rachel Armitage

  

  Rachel has worked in the health information and media sector for over 25 years, producing evidence-based products and services for doctors, nurses and patients. As Director of the BMJ Evidence Centre, she gained extensive experience of structuring knowledge and evidence for practitioners and service users to improve best practice and the experience of care. She then joined the global publisher Elsevier as Director of e-Education Solutions for EMEA/LA. Here she developed and commercialised new, digital learning products for the undergraduate market.

  Rachel is currently Managing Director of RCNi, the independent, commercial media arm of the Royal College of Nursing. She is a member of the RCNi Board, Audit and Remuneration Committees, and is responsible for the digital transformation of services to meet the needs of the nursing community.

• Georgia Chimbani

  

  Georgia is Director of Adult and Community Services for Suffolk, accountable for discharging the statutory duties locally, as well as shaping the national and local agendas for adult services. A registered Social Worker, she holds a master’s degree from the University of Southampton. Throughout her 25 year career Georgia has been a strong advocate for practitioner-led research and practice to deliver positive outcomes for people and communities. She is passionate about the promotion of equality, non-discriminatory practice, and empowerment of communities. Georgia has been the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services lead for dementia and has worked with partners to set the national strategic direction for dementia through the Dementia Programme Board.

  Georgia has been instrumental in setting up and co-chairing the Dementia Action Partnership, making Suffolk a dementia-friendly county. She is current lead for the ADASS International Network and sits on the board and council of the European Social Network.

• Clenton Farquharson MBE

  

  Clenton is a disabled person from a black and minority ethnic background. He is an equality and diversity, social justice consultant with 20 years’ experience as a trainer and specialist adviser. He employs his own personal assistants and manages his own care; as well as his Mum’s personal budget whilst she employs personal assistants. He’s Chair of the Think Local Act Personal partnership board, and a member of the Coalition for Collaborative Care. Clenton is also a member of the NHS Assembly, set up to oversee the NHS Ten Year Plan, the current chair of Quality Matters, a trustee of the Race Equality Foundation, ambassador for Disability Rights UK. He is a director of Community Navigator Services CIC, and a Skills for Care Ambassador.

  He’s interested in the marginalised lived experience surrounding education, housing, health, social care, employment and transport. Clenton encourages life chances, potential and opportunity. Clenton’s been named in the Disability News Service’s list of influential disabled people. He supports Birmingham City Football Club.

  • Clenton's tweets

• Zoe Gould

  

  Zoe is a digital transformation specialist, writer and speaker with over 15 years of experience in the Civil Service and the health sector, including ten years working in digital and business transformation. At Kainos, she advises and delivers digital transformation. Zoe works with clients to ensure the smooth and successful delivery of multimillion pound contracts; developing strategies and leading multidisciplinary teams and keeping user needs at the heart of all of Kainos’s work. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion, including speaking events on disability diversity, Women in Digital and LGBTQ+ issues. Zoe is an AWS GetIT Ambassador, encouraging more young women into engineering careers. She has worked delivering services such as the COVID-19 home testing service and improving social care workforce date. Zoe has worked across five government departments and agencies.

• Jane Green

  

  Jane Green has been a professional educationalist working in all sectors of autism education. This has included Local Authorities, commissioners, large national charities specialising in the social model of autism education, plus a professional speaker. With no previous education qualifications she started her degrees after her children were born. Her last degree was a MA Ed in (Management and Leadership) focussing or organisational transformation in autism education.

  Jane is a ‘sandwich carer’ and this inspired her to help others. She is currently a Trustee for a carers’ charity and has been on the SCIE Co-production, Equalities, Diversity and Human Rights Steering group for three years. Jane is passionate about co-production in equality, diversity and human rights. Now disabled, she volunteers with SEDS and EDS UK Support for Ehlers-Danlos Hypermobility Syndromes to improve accessibility in transport, aviation, health care and social care as well as education. Jane offers advice/talks about neurodiversity in employment, staying employed, age, health, making work accessible including meetings, health and girls/women; and is autistic.

• John Grosvenor

  

  John is a Chartered Accountant and spent 38 years with international professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers working with international companies and in his time was based in London, Rotterdam, New York and Singapore. Since stopping full-time work he has held a number of Non-Executive and Trustee roles, with a particular focus on the charitable and not for profit sectors. He was Treasurer of the Alzheimer’s Society for seven years and is currently the Treasurer for Alzheimer’s Disease International, the federation of Alzheimer’s associations globally. His roles have included Board member of the MS Society and Board member and Chair of the Audit Committee of a NHS Foundation Trust Hospital. His current roles are Chair of Goalball UK, a Paralympic sport for blind and visually impaired people, and on the advisory board of Mazars LLP, a professional services firm.

• Zoë Hallam

  

  Zoë is a commercial procurement specialist currently working in the healthcare sector where she supports the provision of genomic screening services into the NHS. She is a lifetime disability advocate, having taken up campaigning at the age of 16 with Muscular Dystrophy UK, and having subsequently been a spokesperson and representative for a number of disability-led organisations. Most recently she was a Trustee at Attitude is Everything, a charity broadening access to live events for disabled people. She is a personal budget user herself and is passionate about the inclusion of younger people in conversations about disability and social care. Zoë holds an Advanced Diploma in Procurement and Supply and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

• Sean Holland

  

  Sean Holland began his career working in homeless projects before training as a social worker at the University of Ulster. From 1986 he worked in a variety of social work posts in Northern Ireland. In 2008 was appointed to the Social Services Inspectorate in NI becoming Assistant Chief Social Services Officer and then Chief Social Worker for Northern Ireland, a post he held for over 10 years. Sean also served as a trustee of NICO, which encourages building efficient, accountable and sustainable public sector institutions internationally and has been directly involved in work to strengthen social work services in a number of countries including Ukraine, Croatia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Jordan. He has also been a member of the Advisory Committee for the Child Protection Research Advisory Centre at Edinburgh University. He currently serves on the board of TUSLA, the national children’s social services agency for the Republic of Ireland chairing its Services and Quality Committee. Since October 2022 Sean has held the position of Director of Access to Justice in the Department of Justice NI. Sean is a qualified social worker, practice teacher, has an advanced diploma in the management of psychological trauma and has a LLM in medical law. In 2021 he was made a CBE and in 2022 he was appointed visiting professor of social work at Ulster University.

  • Sean's tweets

• Margaret Lally

  

  Margaret joined the Board in March 2019. She worked in the NHS for number years where her responsibilities included developing services for people with learning disabilities and managing a range of community health services. Margaret left the NHS to become Deputy Chief Executive of the Refugee Council. She then went onto the British Red Cross where she was responsible for developing services in the UK including its health and social care offer. Margaret has previously worked with SCIE including chairing the Group which established Guidelines for the Care and Support of People with Learning Disabilities as They Grow Older. Margaret is currently trustee of Heritage Care which provides services for older people, people with learning disabilities and people with mental health issues.

• Brett Terry

  

  Brett joined SCIE in July 2022 and is the director of people at the Children’s charity, The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). He has more than 20 years’ experience in the charity sector and specialises in organisational development, including large scale transformational change, leadership development and employee and volunteer engagement. Brett has held numerous roles at Alzheimer’s Society. He has also worked at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Cancer Research UK and Amnesty International. Brett believes passionately in the power of people and in creating working and volunteering environments where everyone feels valued; and where they can be their one true, authentic self. His motivation for joining SCIE lies in:

  playing my little part in helping the lead organisation developing and implementing better national and local care, support and safeguarding.

  Brett Terry