Helen Jones, Eileen Munro and Rohan Sivanandan appointed as members of the Cafcass Board
The Secretary of State has announced the appointments of 3 new Board members of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass).
Helen Jones, Eileen Munro and Rohan Sivanandan have been appointed as members of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) for 4 years from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2024.
Helen Jones is an experienced risk, compliance and regulatory policy practitioner, with both public and commercial cross sectoral experience in financial services and non-executive experience in social housing, services for children and young people and occupational pensions. Helen worked in various senior risk roles for the Bank of England and for the Financial Services Authority, before working for Lloyds Banking Group. She was a board member of the then YMCA London South West (now St Paul’s Group) for over 20 years, latterly as Chair of the board and has chaired the Board of the YMCA pension scheme for the last 12 years. Helen is a magistrate and member of the Greater London Family Panel. She takes over as the Lead Magistrate for the Central Family Court on 1 April. She is also a member of the Private Law Working Group established by the President of the Family Division.
Eileen Munro is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. Professor Munro has written extensively on how to improve reasoning in child protection work, covering how best to combine intuitive and analytic reasoning and also on the importance of understanding how the organisational system influences workers’ actions. In 2011, she completed the Munro Review of the English Child Protection System. She has since been working with the Signs of Safety organisation on whole system re-design to support Signs of Safety practice with families, thereby testing the feasibility of implementing her Review recommendations. Returning to her roots in philosophy, Eileen is also working in a 5-year philosophy of social technology project that is exploring the implications of complex causality for using research findings in a new location and how this challenges traditional evidence-based practice.
Rohan Sivanandan worked as an economist and senior executive in the private sector before moving into the education field. He worked across all phases of education, latterly as an education chief officer. Subsequently, Rohan set up his own consultancy specialising in organisational development, training and leadership coaching. He has been a school governor, trustee/director of a children’s charity, an arts charity trustee, a BAME mentor and sports coach.
Currently, he is a magistrate in criminal and family court; chairs panels on the Lord Chancellor’s Magistrates’ Advisory Committee for London; is an independent member of the Greater London Authority on Mayoral appointments; chairs Mental Health hearings and is an awards assessor for the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence.
Cafcass was created under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. The body safeguards and promotes the welfare of children involved in family court proceedings.
These appointments have been conducted in accordance with the Cabinet Office Governance Code on Public Appointments.
None of the appointees has declared any political activity.