Who’s going to be judging this year’s Guardian Public Service Awards? As in previous years, we have assembled a panel from the Guardian’s own team of editors and journalists, together with experts from the field of public service, including those with in-depth knowledge of local and central government, as well as services delivered by private and not-for-profit organisations.
The judges
Alison Benjamin, editor, Society Guardian
Alison Benjamin is the editor of the Guardian’s Society pages and assistant editor on Opinion. She has been a journalist at the Guardian for more than 15 years and specialises in social affairs and comment.
She is also the co-author of two best-selling books about bees: A World Without Bees, Bees in the City: an urban beekeepers’ handbook and Keeping Bees and Making Honey
David Brindle, public services editor, the Guardian
David Brindle is the Guardian’s public services editor. He has been with the Guardian since 1988, first as social services correspondent and then as editor of Society Guardian.
He has won awards for his coverage of social services, mental health, nursing and disability issues. He is a trustee of 2Care, a charity working with people with mental health problems and dementia, and served for nine years on the board of Housing 21, a housing and care provider for older people.
Patrick Butler, head of society, health and education, the Guardian
Patrick Butler is the Guardian’s head of society, health and education, overseeing editorial coverage in those areas across the Guardian, Guardian Unlimited and the Observer.
Previously editor of Society Guardian, the Guardian’s weekly social affairs supplement, Patrick has been a journalist for more than 20 years, for much of that time writing and reporting on health and social affairs.
Shami Chakrabarti, leading human rights campaigner
Shami Chakrabarti is a lawyer. She is chancellor of the University of Essex, honorary professor of law at the University of Manchester, honorary fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford and a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple. She rejoined 39 Essex Chambers in 2016.
Shami was director of Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties from 2003 to 2016, and a member of the panel of the Leveson Inquiry, the judicial inquiry into UK phone hacking in 2011. She was awarded a CBE in 2007, was one of eight bearers of the Olympic Flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics and chaired the Baileys Prize for Womens’ Fiction in 2015. Her first book On Liberty, is published by Penguin.
Mike Dearing, consultancy partner, Ameo
Mike Dearing is a specialist in service transformation and organisational design. Having held senior roles in both the public and private sectors, he now leads Ameo’s consultancy practice.
Mike began his career as a management consultant, but wanted to demonstrate he could deliver and took up roles first as director of transformation and then managing director of an NHS/local authority joint venture company.
Anthony Douglas, chief executive, Cafcass
Since 2004, Anthony Douglas has been chief executive of Cafcass, the national agency charged with articulating the voice of the child in family courts throughout England. Cafcass employs the highest number of social workers of any UK organisation, responsible for 120,000 children annually.
Prior to becoming a social worker he was an economist and journalist, and has written four books on UK social care. He is a visiting fellow of the universities of East Anglia and Plymouth, and a member of the national Family Justice Board and Adoption Leadership Board.
Jane Dudman, editor, Guardian Public Leaders Network
Jane Dudman is editor of the Public Leaders Network, the Guardian’s online section on policy and leadership in public service, and also edits the Guardian Housing Network.
She has been a Guardian journalist for more than nine years, before which she was a freelance business journalist. She was shortlisted as political journalist of the year in the 2016 Words by Women Awards.
Dawn Foster, contributing editor, Guardian Housing Network
Dawn Foster is contributing editor of the Guardian Housing Network, and writes on politics, social affairs and economics for the Guardian, London Review of Books, the Independent and Times Literary Supplement.
She is a regular political commentator for Sky News, Channel 4 News, and BBC Newsnight. Her first book, Lean Out, is on feminism, austerity and corporate culture.
Lord Bob Kerslake, chair, Peabody
Bob Kerslake joined Peabody as chair in June 2015. He has been chair of London’s King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust since April 2015; chair of the Centre for Public Scrutiny since early June 2015; chair of the London collective investment vehicle for the capital’s local authority funds since September 2015; and is president of the Local Government Association.
Former head of the civil service, Bob was also the permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government from November 2010, stepping down in February 2015. Prior to his DCLG role, Bob was the first chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency. Before joining the civil service, Bob received a knighthood for his services to local government, having spent eight years at the London borough of Hounslow and a further 11 years leading Sheffield city council. In early 2015, he was made a life peer, taking the title Baron Kerslake of Endcliffe in the City of Sheffield.
Will Moy, director, Full Fact
Will Moy is the director of Full Fact, the UK’s fact-checking organisation. He has given evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee on the communication of official statistics and the Leveson inquiry on accuracy and press standards, on both occasions communicating the lessons from the hundreds of individual fact checks Full Fact has conducted.
He has been a guest on TV and radio, from rolling news and the Today Programme to discussion shows on Radio 5 Live and LBC. He and the team are often asked to assist the media with factual and statistical issues both on and off the record.
Dave Penman, general secretary, FDA union
Dave Penman became general secretary of the FDA in 2012. After school, he joined the civil service. After becoming involved in his union, including serving on the STUC General Council, he became a union organiser in 1995. He joined the FDA as a national officer in 2000 and was subsequently promoted to the senior management team, before becoming deputy general secretary.
Since his appointment as general secretary, he has been a member of the TUC general council. He has a strong interest in long-term structural public service reform, particularly around reward.
Joanne Roney, chief executive, Wakefield council
Joanne Roney started her career in local government as an apprentice at 16. She has worked for the voluntary sector, private sector and local government, spending most of her career in housing and regeneration. For 10 years, until 2008, she was executive director at Sheffield city council, responsible for neighbourhood regeneration, housing investment and adult social care.
Since 2008 she has been chief executive of Wakefield, a Metropolitan district council in West Yorkshire with a population of 326,000. She has an MBA from Birmingham University, is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and a member of the Princes’ Trust and Royal Society of Arts.
Ben Summerskill, director, Criminal Justice Alliance
Ben Summerskill is director of the Criminal Justice Alliance, a coalition of 110 charities working across the criminal justice pathway. From 2003 to 2014 he was chief executive of Stonewall, where he led a series of parliamentary campaigns, on issues from civil partnership to fertilisation, and also built Stonewall’s diversity champions support programme for major employers into the largest non-governmental intervention of its kind in the world.
In recent years he has been a finalist as EY social entrepreneur of the year and runnerup as Britain’s most admired charity chief executive. he won a lifetime achievement award at last year’s British LGBT Awards.
