Our Council Members:
Lay Members
Chair: The Secretary of State appointed Sir Rodney Brooke CBE DL Chair of the General Social Care Council on 1 March 2002. A solicitor, he is a trustee of the Dolphin Square Trust and the Dolphin Square Charitable Foundation, a Member of the National Information Governance Board for Health and Social Care, of the Board of the Internet Watch Foundation and of the Council of the Tavistock Institute. His career has been in local government, including Chief Executive jobs at West Yorkshire County Council, Westminster and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. He was formerly Chair of the Bradford District Health Authority and the National Electricity Consumers' Council, a member of the Ethics Standards Board for Accountants and a trustee of the Community Development Foundation. He has written extensively on public sector policy, management and ethics.
Tanzeem Ahmed is currently employed as the Director of Olmec, which is a charitable company providing capacity building, training and employment services to socially excluded communities. She has 20 years experience of working in the voluntary sector. She has served on committees of several voluntary sector agencies and is currently Treasurer of the South Asian Social Researchers' Forum. She has vast experience as a researcher and consultant in areas of mental health, health, housing, regeneration and organisational capacity building with a particular focus on black minority ethnic communities.
Dr Christine Barton MBE has had a career as a teacher and lecturer. She now has personal experience of receiving social care and has become passionate about achieving rights and equality of opportunity for disabled people. She works both locally and nationally to improve choice and control for disadvantaged people. She is a member of Inclusive Living Sheffield, an organisation of disabled people, Partners for Inclusion, a partnership between disabled people and health and social care providers working to improve services, a member of the Sheffield First (Local Strategic Partnership) Inclusive and Cosmopolitan City Partnership Board, a member of the Research Advisory Group for the National Service Framework for people with long-term neurological conditions and a director of the Accessible Property Register Ltd, a website that advertises accessible and adapted property. She works as a freelance disability equality consultant and trainer.
Melanie Henwood is a self-employed independent Health and Social Care Consultant. She is a specialist adviser to the Health Select Committee, and Chair of the Advisory Board on Social Care to the MS Society. Ms Henwood has held Visiting Fellowships with the London School of Economics, the University of Leeds and the University of New South Wales, Australia. Melanie has more than 25 years experience in research and analysis, focusing particularly on the interface between health and care, and most recently on the emerging personalisation agenda. Before establishing her own consultancy in 1991, she held research posts at the King's Fund, the Family Policy Studies Centre, and the University of Bath.
Harry Marsh MBE is an independent consultant in the voluntary and charitable trust sectors specialising in children, families and disability. He is a trustee and Vice Chair of the National Children’s Bureau and also a member and former Chair of the Council for Disabled Children. He was appointed to the Board of the Children and Families Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) in 2004 and is lead member on diversity and a member of the CAFCASS Audit Committee. From 1988 to 2000 Harry served as Chief Executive of Contact a Family, a national charity supporting parents caring for disabled children, and prior to that was Assistant Director at Family Service Units. He was Vice-Chair of the General Social Care Council from 2001 to 2003 and has chaired the Audit Committee since 2002.
David Prince has been the Chief Executive and Accounting Officer for the Standards Board for England since April 2004. The Board is a non-departmental public body that promotes the Nolan principles of high standards of ethical conduct by the 100,000 elected councillors in all tiers of local government and similar bodies. It oversees the effectiveness of local standards arrangements and also investigates breaches of the statutory code of conduct that cannot be handled locally. He is also a lay member of the Performance and Best Value Committee of the Bar Standards Board.
Non-Lay Members
Vice-Chair: June Thoburn CBE LittD is a Registered Social Worker and Emeritus Professor of Social Work at the University of East Anglia (UEA) where she was founding Director of the Centre for Research on the Child and Family. She has worked as a social worker and social work manager in England and Canada. Her research has led to internationally recognised publications on family support, child protection, foster care and adoption. June continues to undertake research and to lecture on child and family social work and on research-led practice. She is a member of the national steering group of the Making Research Count collaboration and a trustee of Break (a voluntary organisation providing services for children and adults with severe learning, behavioural and emotional difficulties), Norfolk and Norwich Families' House, and ParentlinePlus.
Terry Butler CBE is an independent advisor in public services and social care. He is a Registered Social Worker and was Hampshire County Council's Director of Social Services until August 2005. He joined Hampshire in 1988 from East Sussex County Council, where he was Deputy Director of Social Services, having previously worked for several social services departments in London and the Midlands. Nationally, he has acted as a Government adviser and was seconded to the Department of Health to help implement the community care reforms in the early 1990s. He was an adviser on social care to the National Patient Safety Agency until 2007 and is now an adviser to Nestor Health Care. Terry is also a member of the Information Tribunal, Patron of the Relatives and Residents Association, a non-executive director of the South Central Strategic Health Authority and an international tour leader for Jon Baines Tours.
Bill McClimont has worked in the independent sector of health and social care for 17 years. He now works as a consultant and as a non-executive director of Active Assistance, a specialist provider of live in care for people with spinal injury. Bill is also a member of the Criminal Records Bureau Health & Social Care sub-group and has been appointed to act as a Selection Panel Chair for the Judicial Appointments Commission. Now Honorary Secretary of the UK Home Care Association, Bill previously served them as both Chair and Vice-President. He was a founding board member / trustee of TOPSS and then of Skills for Care until 2007. For several years, he was also Chair of the nursing and social care division at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
Michael Leadbetter is a former Director of Social Services, a consultant in Children’s and Adult Care Services and has been Chair of the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) since April 2007. CWDC is one of GSCC’s key partners, working to improve the lives of children, young people, their families and carers by ensuring that all people working with them have the best possible training, qualifications, support and advice. Michael Leadbetter is also a non-executive director and Audit Chair for North East Essex Primary Care Trust from 1 March 2007 to 28 February 2010. He is also Chair of two national voluntary organisations - Parentline Plus and Voice - and a trustee of three other children’s charities: Caldecote Foundation, Youth at Risk and the Wooden Spoon Rugby Charity.