This year’s Guardian Public Service Awards judges include Guardian staff and public service experts, with in-depth knowledge of local and central government, private and not-for-profit organisations.
Head judges
Patrick Butler, Guardian social policy editor
Patrick Butler is the Guardian’s social policy editor. A Guardian journalist for more than 20 years, Butler has written extensively about welfare reform and the impact of government cuts on public services.
He was previously editor of Society Guardian, the Guardian’s weekly social affairs supplement.
Categories: climate champions; transformation.
David Brindle, Guardian public services editor
David Brindle is the Guardian’s public services editor and is chair of the 2019 Public Service Awards judging panel.
He has been with the Guardian since 1988, first as social services correspondent and then as editor of Society Guardian.
Brindle has won awards for his coverage of social services, mental health, nursing and disability issues. He is chair of social inclusion charity NDTi and non-executive director of the Recovery Focus group of charities. He is vice-chair of the Recovery Focus group and served for nine years on the board of Housing 21, a housing and care provider for older people.
Categories: care; diversity; public servant of the year shortlist.
Jane Dudman, Guardian public leadership editor
Jane Dudman is the Guardian’s public leadership editor, writing and commissioning articles on public leadership and policy, with a particular interest in women’s issues, local and central government, and the role of voluntary organisations in delivering public services. She is part of the team that curates the weekly Society newsletter.
Formerly a freelance business and technology journalist, Dudman has worked at the Guardian since 2007, first as associate editor of Public magazine, then as editor of the public leaders, housing and voluntary sector professional networks.
Categories: digital innovation; housing; leadership excellence.
Clare Horton, Society site editor
Clare Horton is the Society Guardian site editor, writing and commissioning articles on social affairs and public policy. She has been a journalist at the Guardian for almost 19 years and is part of the team that curates the weekly Society newsletter. Horton previously edited the Guardian’s networks for health and social care professionals.
She started her career in local newspapers and is a former news editor of the Big Issue in the North.
Categories: recruitment & HR; workforce learning & development.
Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist
Polly Toynbee is a columnist for the Guardian. She was formerly BBC social affairs editor and is chair of the Brighton festival.
Her books include Dismembered: How the Attack on the State Harms Us All, co-authored with David Walker.
Categories: public health & wellbeing; workforce wellbeing.
This year’s judges
Sarah Johnson
Sarah Johnson is a commissioning editor at the Guardian. She founded and edits the Blood, sweat and tears series, which features first-person accounts of working in and receiving healthcare, and the My working week series, from frontline public service professionals.
As a writer, Johnson specialises in mental health and other aspects of healthcare in the UK and abroad. She has been a journalist at the Guardian for six years, after starting her career in Vietnam.
Chris Allcock
Chris Allcock is the programme director for national charity Safe Families for Children, which links struggling families with a network of supportive volunteers and won the 2018 Guardian care award.
Allcock has nearly 20 years’ experience of working in the voluntary sector, working closely with a range of agencies and statutory services. He has been involved in successfully managing and delivering large regional and national programmes. His background is in working with young people, although he has a passion to see creative solutions offered to the whole family to ensure children can thrive.
Sharon Allen
Sharon Allen OBE has been chief executive of Arthur Rank hospice in Cambridgeshire since April 2019. Prior to this, for nine years Allen was chief executive at Skills for Care, the Department of Health and Social Care’s delivery partner for workforce development and leadership in social care. She has previously been at a large not-for-profit social care and supported housing organisation providing a wide range of services across the north of England.
In addition to her executive roles, Allen is a board member and chair of operations committee with CHS Group in Cambridgeshire and a trustee and chair of Age UK’s nominations and remuneration committee. A qualified registered social worker, Allen has a degree in housing and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing. In June 2015 Allen was awarded an OBE for her services to social care, housing and homelessness.
Caroline Anderson
Caroline Anderson is director of human resources and organisational development (HR & OD) at Great Ormond Street hospital, where she specialises in leading organisation and cultural change.
She previously worked as the HR & OD director at HM Land Registry, which won the learning and development category at the 2018 Guardian Public Service Awards. Anderson has been named public sector HR director of the year by the Public Services People Managers Association, as well as receiving Personnel Today’s award for excellence in public sector HR. She also led HR & OD for Hackney council and workforce development for Greenwich council.
Helen Backus
Helen Backus is a commissioning manager for Buckinghamshire county council. Her background includes working in the charity sector; before this, she served 10 years in the military. Her experience includes strategic commissioning, establishing and maintaining services for vulnerable children and young people, linked hospital and community provisions for older vulnerable people, and specialist linked housing for students with higher needs in communities.
She is a parish councillor and a member of the All Party Parliamentary Groups for autism and learning disabilities.
Jas Bains
Jas Bains is chief executive of the Cardiff-based Hendre Group, which provides housing, care and support and professional services. Before joining the Hendre Group in July 2017, Bains spent 15 years as chief executive with Accord, an English housing and care group.
Bains has a strong track record of successfully delivering transformational change across the public and not-for-profit sector. He is passionate about driving the integration of housing and social care and about service innovation. In 2011 Bains was awarded an MBE for outstanding services to housing and community cohesion.
Billy Boland
Dr Billy Boland is a consultant in community psychiatry, and deputy medical director at Hertfordshire partnership university NHS foundation trust. He is also honorary senior lecturer (clinical) at the University of Hertfordshire.
He is the current chair of the executive committee of the General Adult Psychiatry Faculty, having previously served as vice-chair. He is on the advisory board of the money and mental health policy unit, and is a member of the Guardian’s 2019 public services editorial panel.
Sue Bott
Sue Bott, a disabled person with visual impairment from birth, has been active in the disability movement in the UK for many years. She is deputy chief executive at Disability Rights UK, a merger of the National Centre for Independent Living (of which she was chief executive), Disability Alliance and Radar.
Before that, Bott spent 15 years working for Shropshire Disability Consortium, a centre for independent living, initially as its development worker and latterly as its chief officer. She has a degree in political theory and institutions and a master’s degree in public service management. She was awarded a CBE in 2014 for services to disabled people and their families.
Emma Bridge
Emma Bridge is chief executive of Community Energy England (CEE), a not-for-profit organisation that represents and supports those committed to the development of energy projects that are led by and benefit communities. CEE was established by community energy practitioners to provide a voice for the sector and to help to create the conditions within which it can flourish.
Appointed as CEE’s chief executive in 2014, Bridge has unparalleled knowledge of the sector and its practitioners. Her passion for community energy began when she was appointed as general manager of Sheffield Renewables in 2012. Before that, she had more than 15 years of experience working in sustainable development at local, national and European levels for corporate, public and third sector organisations.
Mercedes Broadbent
Mercedes Broadbent is policy and communications officer at Managers in Partnership (MiP), the trade union founded in 2005 by the Unison and FDA unions to provide specialist representation for senior managers and professionals working in the UK’s health and social care sectors.
Broadbent leads MiP’s policy brief, as well as its internal and external communications functions and public affairs strategy. She previously worked for a thinktank in Westminster, the European Parliament, and as a freelance journalist.
Marc Budden
Marc Budden is the temporary chief constable of Gwent police, which he joined in 1993. He has worked in a range of different roles but predominantly in neighbourhood, partnerships and specialist operations.
Budden is a gold public order, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence and specialist strategic firearms commander, and was a hostage negotiator for more than 10 years. He has commanded a number of large incidents and events both locally and nationally, including the Nato presidential visit and G20 summit as well as supporting Greater Manchester police as the specialist strategic firearms commander in the days following the Manchester Arena attack.
Budden has a master’s degree in critical and major incident psychology from Liverpool University. He is a member of the Guardian’s 2019 public services editorial advisory panel.
Kru Desai
Kru Desai has more than 30 years’ experience of working with public and private sector organisations seeking to improve public services. A former partner at consultancy KPMG, where she led the government and infrastructure practice and was also a member of its UK board, she has also held executive leadership roles in consultancy, infrastructure and services businesses. A management consultant by professional background, Desai has worked with governments and their delivery agencies in the UK and sub Saharan Africa on delivering large, complex technology and digital-enabled change programmes.
She is the chair of communications agency Zinc Network and is a member of the council at City, University of London. Desai has served as a local government commissioner for England with oversight for electoral boundary changes, a school governor, and a member of the London mayor’s smart London board, and also chaired the minority ethnic group of the national employment panel at the Department for Work and Pensions. She is a member of the 2019 Guardian public services board.
Clenton Farquharson
Clenton Farquharson MBE is chair of the Think Local Act Personal partnership board. He is also a member of the NHS Assembly, set up to oversee the NHS 10-year plan, the current chair of Quality Matters, a trustee of the Race Equality Foundation, and an ambassador for Disability Rights UK.
Farquharson is a director of Community Navigator Services CIC, and a Skills for Care ambassador. He works as consultant, auditor, trainer, and coach on inclusion, equality and disability, and was named in Disability News Services’ list of influential disabled people.
Peter Fleming
Peter Fleming is leader of Sevenoaks district council, chair of the Local Government Association’s improvement and innovation board and also a national spokesperson for the association. He recently co-chaired the Local Government Information Unit’s homelessness commission.
Multi-award-winning Sevenoaks district council is the first local authority to become self-sufficient from direct government funding, runs a balanced, 10-year rolling budget, keeps services in-house and uses property to support services to and the priorities of its residents.
Rachel Foster
Rachel Foster is senior manager, communities and libraries at Cheshire West and Chester council. She has worked in, managed and led public libraries in Cheshire for more than 20 years.
As a passionate libraries advocate and chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, Foster has led transformation in Cheshire West and Chester, both through physical library redevelopments and through inspiring cultural change. Chester’s Storyhouse won the 2018 Guardian award for transformation and was also named the overall winner of the Public Service Awards.
Victoria Gould
Victoria Gould has 30 years’ experience as a solicitor in the public sector, specialising in social care, child protection and education law. She has been service manager for Warwickshire county council’s young people legal service since 2006. The service has won a number of national awards and her team undertakes legal work for local authorities across the region.
Gould was a non-executive director of an NHS trust for five years, for which she was also the convenor of complaints and chair of Mental Health Act managers. She has previously been on the Law Society’s children panel and mental health tribunal panel.
She is interested in political and social issues and volunteers for a number of charities, including running a drop-off hub for Care4Calais.
Eleonora Harwich
Eleonora Harwich is director of research and head of digital and tech innovation at the Reform thinktank. Her work focuses on how tech innovation can help public services deliver better outcomes for people.
Harwich has led and co-authored papers on AI in the NHS, the value of healthcare data, commercial models within healthcare system and data sharing in the public sector. She is a member of the AI programme advisory board for the Kent, Surrey, Sussex academic health science network. She is also the London hub lead of One HealthTech, a volunteer-led network that seeks to promote diversity in healthtech.
Gillian Holdsworth
Dr Gillian Holdsworth is director of SH:24, an online sex and reproductive health service developed in partnership with the NHS. Using design-led innovation, SH:24 seeks to promote and enable self-care and improve the sexual health of the population.
Since its launch, SH:24 has doubled access to STI testing and reduced STI rates by 8%. SH:24 was awarded the BMJ Innovation team award in 2017; the digital impact award (health), the Queen’s award for enterprise (innovation category) and the 2018 Guardian public service award for digital and technology.
Suzanne Hudson
Suzanne Hudson is a senior workforce adviser for the Local Government Association in England and Wales. She has more than 16 years’ experience of managing change in HR. Her role at the LGA is to identify issues and develop HR solutions for implementation across the sector.
Hudson previously worked at Croydon council, where she managed and delivered a range of HR projects, including major organisational change and performance management processes. Prior to this, she worked for Thameslink Rail, where she was responsible for organisational change and development. Before that, she was a lecturer in French and economics at Southbank University.
Zarina Khan
Zarina Khan is a UK policy and advocacy specialist, focusing on women, peace and security. She is a gender adviser within the National Security Secretariat, based in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, shaping how UK overseas conflict prevention and peacebuilding work better meets the needs and rights of women and girls affected by conflict.
Before joining the civil service, Khan worked for international non-governmental organisations, focusing on women’s rights in conflict and emergencies. She was previously the director of Gender Action for Peace and Security, leading the network’s policy and advocacy on the UK national action plan on women, peace and security. She has also trained in working with survivors of sexual violence in the UK.
Julie Ogley
Julie Ogley is director of social care, health and housing at Central Bedfordshire council and president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS). She chairs the council’s internal efficiency and modernisation board, and is establishing a strategic commissioning hub for the authority.
Ogley previously worked at North East Lincolnshire council, where she was executive director of community care, and has a wealth of experience working at a number of councils including Wirral council, Northumberland county council and Humberside county council. She has been chair of the East of England ADASS branch and the regional lead trustee. She was vice-president from April 2018 to April 2019.
Rachel Power
Rachel Power is chief executive of the Patients Association, an advocacy group working on behalf of patients to improve their healthcare experience. During her time in the role, Power has established a new senior leadership team and a three-year strategy to help drive the organisation forward.
She has more than 20 years’ experience working in health and social care in the voluntary sector and is passionate about empowering patients and speaking on their behalf to ensure their voices are heard and acted on.
Lynn Saunders
Lynn Saunders is the governor of Whatton prison and has worked for the prison service for 27 years. She also helped set up and is chair of the Safer Living Foundation, a charity to help prevent sexual (re) offending.
She has worked with people convicted of sexual offences for most of her career and was awarded honorary doctorates from Nottingham Trent University and Keele University in recognition of her work. She was awarded an OBE in the 2017 new year honours list, and received the Guardian Public Service Award for leadership excellence in 2018.
Irene Sclare
Dr Irene Sclare is a consultant clinical psychologist, specialising in working with young people with emotional disorders, and with young refugees. She is employed by South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust, runs Discover workshops, undertakes staff training and research, and has held various senior NHS leadership roles. She trained at the University of Newcastle and Canterbury Christ University.
The Discover programme, which Sclare created, is delivered mainly in London and south-east England. It offers accessible, evidence-based mental health interventions in schools for 16- to 18-year-olds who find it hard to access psychological support. In 2018, Discover won the Guardian Public Service Award for health and wellbeing.
Javina Sehgal
Javina Sehgal is managing director for NHS Harrow clinical commissioning group and has led the organisation since its inception in April 2013. Before this, she was the borough director for NHS Harrow primary care trust (PCT). Sehgal has also held many senior commissioning roles in health and care partnerships at Richmond, Kingston, Hammersmith & Fulham PCT and council, and Brent PCT and council.
In January 2017, she was seconded to the Greater London authority for 18 months as programme director working for the mayor of London on behalf of the London health and care partnership to establish Thrive LDN, a collaboration to address mental health inequity and disproportionality. During this time, Sehgal also led the Good Thinking programme, a prevention and early intervention digital service, to improve the mental health and wellbeing of people in London and reduce the burden on services. She continues to be the London lead for this programme.
Andy Tilden
Andy Tilden is the interim chief executive of Skills for Care, a charity specialising in workforce development in the social care sector.
He previously trained as a teacher, and has worked as a residential care worker, trainer and manager in the NHS, and is a qualified social worker in juvenile justice, child protection and learning disability services. Before joining Skills for Care, he helped set up and run a charity delivering qualifications, learning and development to the care sector.
David Walker
David Walker chairs Oxford health NHS foundation trust, which provides mental health and community services across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and the west country and was formerly deputy chair of Central and North West London NHS foundation trust. He is a member of council at Royal Holloway University of London.
After a career in journalism with the Times and the Guardian, where he was founder editor of Public magazine, Walker was managing director, public reporting at the Audit Commission. With John Tizard he has co-authored studies of outsourcing and public audit for the Smith Institute. With Polly Toynbee his books include Unjust Rewards and (forthcoming in 2020) The Lost Decade.
Carolyn Williamson
Carolyn Williamson is deputy chief executive and director of corporate resources for Hampshire county council and president of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. She is also the chief financial officer for Hampshire county council and Hampshire pension fund; is responsible for the council’s IT service and leads on the council’s digital strategy implementation.
She is responsible for her council’s unique corporate services shared partnership arrangement, which provides finance, HR and transactional services to its partners: Hampshire county council, Hampshire Constabulary, Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service, Oxfordshire county council, and Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster councils.
Pip Yaxley
Pip Yaxley is a manager for Heart and Home, a supported lodgings service providing accommodation and support for vulnerable care leavers across Norfolk and Suffolk. The service is provided by The Benjamin Foundation charity for children, young people and families experiencing challenges.
Yaxley experienced sofa surfing herself as a teenager and this has led to a passion to support young people who may be going through periods of instability. She has been with the charity since 2009, starting as a volunteer providing homeless outreach initially and then helping to develop and grow the Heart and Home service across two counties. The service was the winner of the 2018 Guardian Public Service housing award.
