Guidance

Windrush Lessons Learned Review: Independent Advisory Group membership list and biographies

Updated 21 October 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Members
Dame Ursula Brennan
Professor Dame Sandra Dawson
James Hanratty RD
Sir Peter Housden
Dr Omar Khan
Loraine Martins MBE
Dr Mike Phillips
Seamus Taylor CBE
Jacqueline McKenzie

Dame Ursula Brennan

Dame Ursula Brennan DCB is a retired civil servant and a former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice. From 1975, Dame Ursula worked for a number of government departments including the Department of Health and Social Security / Work and Pensions and Ministry of Defence. Ursula became Second Permanent Secretary and then the first woman Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence responsible, with the Chief of the Defence Staff, for the leadership of a department of nearly 300,000 service and civilian personnel. In 2012 she moved to run the Ministry of Justice with responsibility for the courts, tribunals and prisons in England and Wales, the administration of legal aid, probation and youth justice, and policy on human rights and data protection. Ursula retired from the Civil Service in 2015 and is a trustee of the National Theatre and a member of the Better Government Initiative. She has an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent and was made a DCB in the New Year’s Honours 2013.

Professor Dame Sandra Dawson

Professor Dame Sandra Dawson is Professor Emerita of management studies and former director (1995 to 2006) of Judge Business School University of Cambridge and fellow of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, where she was formerly the master from 1999 to 2009 and the first woman to be the head of a formerly all male college at the university. Prior to her career at Cambridge, she was an academic at Imperial College London University. In her academic career she writes and speaks on organisational structure, leadership and change, diversity and knowledge sharing, and health management and public policy.

Sandra has wide-ranging experience in the public, charitable and commercial sectors, through academic research, leading executive development and non-executive roles, and holds current non-executive positions in TSB bank, the Social Science Research Council in the USA and the American University of Sharjah. Former roles include membership of the UK India Round Table, the Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology, chair of the Riverside Mental Health NHS Trust, and non-executive positions in Oxfam, the Financial Services Authority, Barclays plc, the Institute for Government, the Public Health Laboratory Service and the UK’s Senior Salaries Review Body. Sandra was the 53rd person to be inducted into the International Women’s Forum Global Hall of Fame, in recognition of her achievements and in 2004 she was awarded the DBE for her contribution to higher education and management research.

James Hanratty RD

James Hanratty RD has held prominent positions in a variety of UK legal institutions including in the House of Lords and Royal Courts of Justice where he was Chief Executive. He was an Immigration Judge for 17 years dealing with the full range of immigration appeals, including asylum and deportation applications, and is a former President of the Council of Immigration Judges. He was previously an examiner in Criminal Law for the Law Society for 10 years. He has advised 3 Lord Chancellors in the House of Lords and was legal adviser to the government on the handover of Hong Kong to China, living in Hong Kong for 6 years. He was in the Royal Naval Reserve for 22 years, retiring as Lieutenant Commander, and was awarded the Reserve Decoration. In 2016 he published his autobiography, ‘The Making of an Immigration Judge’, drawing on his wider experiences.

James is a keen sailor and a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes. He is also a significant supporter of mainly service and maritime charities.

Sir Peter Housden

Sir Peter Housden was the Director of Education at Nottinghamshire County Council before becoming the Chief Executive in 1994, serving for 7 years in this role overseeing a wide-ranging programme of modernisation. In September 2000 he was seconded to the Audit Commission to lead work on the NHS national plan.

Sir Peter joined the Department for Education and Skills in November 2001 as Director General for Schools, with overall responsibility for the department’s work in schools and in early years including primary standards and secondary reform. In 2005, Sir Peter was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and became Permanent Secretary of the Scottish Government from June 2010. In this role, Sir Peter was the principal policy adviser to the First Minister and the cabinet and led significant work on the integration of public services and new approaches to leadership in public services workforces. He was a member of the UK Civil Service Board and its Senior Leadership Committee.

Peter is a Trustee of the RNLI and Chair of the Civil Service Club. He was appointed KCB in the 2010 Birthday Honours List.

Dr Omar Khan

Dr Omar Khan is Director at the Runnymede Trust. He was previously Runnymede’s Head of Policy and led the financial inclusion programme. Dr Khan’s other advisory positions have included: chair of Olmec, chair of the Ethnicity Strand Advisory Group to Understanding Society, chair of the advisory group of the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester, Commissioner on the Financial Inclusion Commission and a member of the 2014 REF assessment, the 2011 Census and the UK representative (2009 to 2013) on the European Commission’s socio-economic network of experts. Omar was previously a governor at the University of East London and a 2012 Clore Social Leadership Fellow.

Omar is the author of ‘Financial Inclusion and Ethnicity’, ‘Caring and Earning Among Low-income Caribbean, Pakistani and Somali People’, ‘Who Pays to Access Cash?’, ‘Why Do Assets Matter?, ‘A Sense of Place’, and ‘The Costs of “Returning” Home’. Omar has published many articles and reports and speaks on a wide variety of topics including multiculturalism, integration, socio-economic disadvantage, and positive action. Omar has a DPhil in political theory from the University of Oxford, a masters in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a masters in South Asian studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Loraine Martins MBE

Loraine Martins MBE joined Network Rail in 2012 as its first Director of Diversity and Inclusion, and leads on making the rail industry a more open, diverse and inclusive business. Network Rail has 34,000 staff throughout the UK and is responsible for the rail infrastructure which includes engineering, maintenance of tracks and flagship stations like Kings Cross.

Loraine is a director of her own business, Merit Works, a management consultancy specialising in strategic leadership, diversity and inclusion and organisational change. Clients have included global businesses. Before setting up her own business, Loraine led 2 priority areas - equality and inclusion, and employment and skills - in the construction of the Olympic Park, infrastructure, venues and facilities for London 2012, for which she was awarded an MBE.

Loraine joined Trust for London in February 2008. She is Vice Chair of Trustees, Chair of Fleet Grants Committee and Vice Chair of Nominations Committee.

Dr Mike Philips

Dr Mike Philips studied at the University of London (English), the University of Essex (politics), and at Goldsmiths College London (education). He worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster from 1972 to 1983 before being appointed lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster. In 1992, he became a full-time writer publishing 4 crime fiction novels featuring black journalist Sam Dean: ‘Blood Rights (1989, serialised by the BBC)’, ‘The Late Candidate (1990)’, ‘Point of Darkness (1994)’ and ‘An Image to Die For (1995)’. He is also the author of ‘London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain (2001)’, a series of interlinked autobiographical essays and stories. With his brother, the political journalist Trevor Phillips, he wrote ‘Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (1998)’ to accompany a BBC television series. Dr Philips was also cultural director for the town of Tilburg in the Netherlands (2006 to 2008), and is now co-director of the European cultural consultancy and publisher, Profusion. Mike was formerly cross-cultural curator at the Tate and a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Seamus Taylor CBE

Seamus Taylor CBE is a lecturer in Social Policy at Maynooth University, Ireland. Previously he held posts as Director of Equality and Diversity at the Crown Prosecution Service, Director of Strategy at the Commission for Racial Equality and Head of Policy: Equality and Diversity at Haringey Council. Seamus has served on national bodies in Britain including as trustee of the Runnymede Trust; commissioner on the Independent Commission on the future of Multi Ethnic Britain and chair of a Whitehall group on recruitment diversity in the senior civil service. He is currently the independent chair of the CPS London Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel and chair of the Irish Penal Reform Trust.

Educated at Dublin and London Universities, graduating from both with distinctions, he is currently completing doctoral studies on hate crime policy making at Lancaster University. He holds a visiting lectureship at Amsterdam University College. Seamus was awarded a CBE in 2010 in recognition of his contribution to equality and diversity in the legal system and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA).

Jacqueline McKenzie

Jacqueline is an immigration advisor who is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in 2008 and called as a barrister to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Grenada in 2011 with undergraduate and post graduate degrees in law, human rights and international relations. Prior to becoming a lawyer, she spent 18 years in local government in a number of roles including, equalities, community development and regeneration, following on from three years as a civil servant in the Department of Health and Social Security. She has also lectured in equalities and international law and human rights law at Schiller International University from 2010 to 2012.

Jacqueline practiced as an immigration, criminal and civil liberties lawyer at Birnberg Peirce and Partners during which time she managed a large portfolio of asylum and immigration cases including in the areas of nationality, refugee and conducive deport law and managed a number of claims for unlawful detention. Since 2010, Jacqueline has been running her own immigration and asylum specialist firm, McKenzie Beute and Pope. In February 2015, she founded the Organisation for Migration Advice and Research to assist people who cannot afford legal services and to undertake research, policy work and training on migration issues.

Jacqueline also provides training in immigration law and policy to organisations including for the CARICOM Diplomatic Corp of High Commissioners in the UK. Since the start of the April 2018 Windrush crisis, Jacqueline has run pro bono surgeries to assist people affected, given lectures and talks, collated data on the experiences and the impact of those affected and founded Windrush Action, a group of some 400 victims and their families, to act as their own voice and advocates.

In 2012, Jacqueline undertook a two-year sabbatical to act as the Chief Executive of Female Prisoners Welfare Association/Hibiscus; a charity specialising in working with migrants and foreign national prisoners. Jacqueline is the founder of the Learning Cube which provides extracurricular educational and cultural opportunities to children aged 6 to 16 at weekends.