Board of Trustees

SCIE is governed by a board of 13 trustees who guide its work and ensure its independence. Board papers are available on our website.

Alternatively find out more about our Executive Management Group.

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.
Mark Atkinson

Mark is an experienced and senior social sector leader with a strong record of enabling organisations to define their strategy, transform their operations and deliver their commitments. Mark brings considerable experience of leading business change, refocus and growth through a number of executive and non-executive roles. He is currently Chief Executive of RNID which follows five years at Scope, including three and a half years as its Chief Executive.

Mark is also a Board Member at Habinteg Housing Association and chairs its Appointments and Remuneration Committee.
Katie Brennan

Katie joined SCIE’s board in 2018. She is an economist and sociologist by training, with a MSc in regional economic development from the London School of Economics. She has academic and professional expertise in quantitative and qualitative analytics, behavioural economics and organisational transformation. Katie has experience working as an analyst and supporting regional economic development projects. She also has over 10 years’ experience with national policy making and implementation in the energy and health sectors. This includes time at Monitor/NHS Improvement, helping to promote best practice use of payment and contract design; and leading reform of mental health payment rules to support improved care. In 2016 Katie took the role of Deputy Director of Financial Strategy at Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group. In this role she has supported contract development and transformation efforts across North East London, including improving data and analytics to enable better informed decision-making across the health and care system.
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
Alex Fox

Alex is CEO of Shared Lives Plus, the UK network for Shared Lives and Homeshare. Members include 6,000 Shared Lives carers who share their homes and family life with people who need support and 175 local organisations. Alex sits on the NHS Assembly and is Vice Chair of the Think Local, Act Personal board, leading its Building Community Capacity network. Alex is an Honorary Senior Fellow, Birmingham University and London South Bank University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He chaired the government’s review of health and care charities (2015-18) and co-chairs the Social Care Learning disability & Autism Advisory Group. He co-founded the Social Care Innovation Network. Alex is author of A new health and care system: escaping the invisible asylum (Policy Press) and Meeting as Equals (RSA/NCVO) on the future of charities. He was awarded an OBE for services to social care in 2017.
- Alex's blog
- Alex's tweets
Sue Gower MBE

Sue Gower MBE has over twenty five years’ experience of public sector governance. She has held a number of national positions, most recently as a member of the Children Commissioner’s Audit and Risk Committee. Sue is a qualified Teacher, a Peer Reviewer with the Local Government Association, a specialist Trainer with the National Offender Management Service and Centre for Exploitation and Online Protection and was BASPCAN/NSPCC Child Protection Trainer of the year 2018.

Sue is a safeguarding specialist and leads the Child Death Overview Process in Kent. She designed and developed eCDOP, a case management system that electronically enables this statutory function and is now used nationally. Sue was the primary carer for her eldest son for over 21 years. She supported his terminal neuromuscular condition by working with a range of health, education and social care services and has personal experience of effective co-production. In 2009, Sue received an MBE for voluntary service to children and young people.
- Sue's tweets
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.
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 posts in Northern Ireland. In 2001 Sean worked on the 20 year strategy for the HPSS, ‘A Healthier Future’, and in 2008 was appointed to the Social Services Inspectorate and became Assistant Chief Social Services Officer. From January 2012 Sean was Deputy Secretary of Social Services Policy Group. Sean has undertaken work on child care and social work from the Russian Federation to Iceland. Sean is now Chief Social Work Officer/Deputy Secretary, DHSSPSNI and sits on the Departmental Board of the Department of Health. Sean is a trustee at NICO, which encourages building efficient, accountable and sustainable public sector institutions. He has also been a member of the Advisory Committee for the Child Protection Research Advisory Centre at Edinburgh University. Sean is a qualified social work practice teacher, has an advanced diploma in the management of psychological trauma and has a LLM in medical law.
- Sean's tweets
Annie Hudson

Annie Hudson joined the SCIE board in January 2016 and is the former Chief Executive of the College of Social Work. Annie trained and practised as a social worker in Brighton and Newcastle upon Tyne. She was then a lecturer in social work at Manchester University where she researched and published on child protection, young women’s experiences of care and social work education. In 1989 Annie returned to local authority work as a child care team manager in central Bristol. Annie has held a number of senior local authority posts; including as Bristol’s Director of Adult Community Care and then, subsequently, as Bristol’s Director of Children’s Services. She was also previously a member of the Research in Practice Board and of the national Adoption Leadership Board.
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.
Mary McKenna

Mary McKenna is a Northern Irish technology entrepreneur. She co-founded online learning community Learning Pool in Derry, grew the company to 100 people and 1 million online users and along the way transformed how learning was delivered at scale in the UK public sector. These days Mary works extensively with first time entrepreneurs and founding teams creating products in the #techforgood space. Mary is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Saïd Business School (University of Oxford), an EU Horizon Europe innovation judge and a mentor at Imperial College London’s Enterprise Lab. She recently co-founded AwakenHub, a community to connect female founders with each other. Mary was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2014 New Year’s Honours for services to digital technology, innovation and learning.
- Mary's tweets
Dr. Ossie Stuart

Ossie is a disabled person, from a black and minority ethnic background. He is an equality and diversity consultant with fifteen years’ experience as a trainer and specialist adviser. He employs his own personal assistants and manages his own care. Ossie spent 12 years as an academic at the Universities of Oxford, York and Surrey and has written seminal works on the experience of BME disabled people and social care. As a trainer Ossie has provided disability and equality/diversity training for various bodies. Since 2013 he has also run the annual Calibre Leadership and Management Programme at Imperial College London. Ossie thinks it’s important that disabled people have control over their own destinies; that it’s essential that they are involved in the design and delivery of services relevant. Ossie is in control of the services he receives, seeing co-production as the key driver for excellence.