The majority of the Council members, including the Chair, must be lay members. Lay members are people who are not, and have not within 12 months of their appointment, been social care workers, or involved in the training, education, appointment, employment, supply, supervision, monitoring or representation of social care workers. The Council determines the strategic direction of the GSCC.

Our Council Members:

Lay Members

Rosie Varley - Chair

Chair: Rosie Varley OBE took up the role of GSCC Chair on November 2008. She is also Chair of the Public Guardian Board, Chair of Skills for Health Eastern Region and a member of The NMC Appointments Board and of the Mental Health and Disability Living Allowance tribunals. She was Chairman of the General Optical Council until the end of December 2008 and continued on its board until 31 March 2009 as a lay member. She was Acting Chair of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE - which oversees all health regulatory bodies) until December 2008. During 2008-09 Rosie chaired a DH working group on the governance arrangements for the new General Pharmaceutical Council. She has been an Appointments Commissioner, an NHS regional chairman, and an NHS trust chairman. Rosie is also a governor of the Priory School for children with special needs in Bury St Edmunds, and President of West Suffolk MIND.

Haqeeq Bostan is a lawyer by training but now works as an independent consultant with an interest in equality and discrimination issues. He has advised a number of public authorities (such as TfL and the Crown Prosecution Service) on matters concerning disability and equalities. He is a non-executive director of Southwark PCT, chair of the London Black Disability Forum and a director of Independent Living Alternatives.

Vice-Chair: Melanie Henwood OBE 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 Group on Independent Living 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.

David Prince CBE is former chief executive of The Standards Board for England which champions and ensures high standards of conduct in local authorities. He held senior positions at the Audit Commission, as managing director, strategy and resources and chief executive, District Audit. Most of his career was in local government, where posts included chief executive, Leicestershire County Council and director of finance and administration, Cambridgeshire County Council. Non-executive independent appointments include The Committee on Standards in Public Life, Leicestershire Police Authority, the audit committee of the Rural Payments Agency and the performance and best value committee of the Bar Standards Board.

Jill Crawford is currently lead Consultant for NCT Consulting, which supports primary care trusts and acute trusts in the provision of maternity services. She sits on the board of Independent Midwives UK and on the Fitness to Practice panel at the General Medical Council. Formerly Jill was the President of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Milton Keynes and Bradford Maternity Service Liaison committee.

John Tate is a Barrister and until recently was Director of Legal Services at the Independent Police Complaints Commission. In addition to his current role, John is a non-executive director at NHS Kingston Primary Care Trust where he is chair of the at arms length Provider Services organisation. He has been a senior civil servant for more than 20 years. His previous roles include Solicitor to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman, Legal Adviser to the Health Service Ombudsman and Assistant Director at the Serious Fraud Office.

Non-Lay Members

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 advisor and was seconded to the Department of Health to help implement the community care reforms in the early 1990s. He was an advisor on social care to the National Patient Safety Agency until 2007 and is now an advisor 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. Terry is in his second term as a member of the Council.

Hilary Tompsett is currently Head of the School of Social Work at Kingston University and St. George’s, University of London, and Chair of the Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee (JUC SWEC). She is Chair of the Surrey and Sussex Social Work Education Group for the two counties and has been chair and a member of a number of national working groups on workforce development and social work education. She is a registered social worker and, in a professional career spanning 14 years, worked as a practitioner and manager in children's services, mental health, a renal unit and with older people. Her research interests are in interprofessional practice and decision making.

Robin Currie is a Senior Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope University and an independent consultant in social care and the voluntary sector. He has worked as a practitioner and senior manager in social care in local authorities and the voluntary sector for over forty years. He was previously a GSCC external assessor of social work training programmes and a member of GSCC's conduct committee. He was formerly a University Lecturer in Social Work and was an external examiner on University social work courses for twenty years. He served for fifteen years as an independent advisor to a local authority social services committee and as a non-executive director of Merseyside Training and Enterprise Council. He has been a trustee of national and local charities and is currently on the Board of the Institute of Health and Social Care Research, Bishop Heber College, Tiruchirappalli, India. He is a Registered Social Worker.

Gordon Ratcliffe is the Divisional Director of Services to children and young people at the NSPCC North Division. Previously he was a Courts Section Manager and team leader for Bradford Social Services where he started working as a social worker. Gordon has also been a trustee of the National Children’s Research Institute.