Sir Robert Francis KC, IBCA Interim Chair
Sir Robert Francis KC is a Barrister who has specialised, for most of his career, in healthcare law and public inquiries. He has become a leading figure in addressing the failures in patient safety and promoting justice for victims of medical negligence and institutional wrongdoing. Before his retirement, Sir Robert was authorised to sit as a deputy High Court Judge. Sir Robert has been awarded Honorary Fellowships of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Pathologists, the Royal College of Surgeons (England), and the Faculty of Forensic Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians. He has also received an honorary Doctorate of Medicine from St George’s Medical School and of Law from the University of Exeter.
David Foley, IBCA Interim Chief Executive
David was previously the Director of Public Bodies, Governance and Priority Projects in the Cabinet Office, and the SRO for the Public Bodies Reform Programme. Before joining the Cabinet Office, he led a number of large operational delivery teams both in Public Bodies and Departments, mainly in the welfare and justice sectors. These included the National Enforcement Service, Working Age Benefits delivery, the DWP Counter Fraud Service and Civil Legal Aid delivery.
Non-executive directors
The six non-executive directors are:
Russell Frith, Interim Chair of the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee
Russell is a chartered accountant with over 35 years’ experience of auditing, accounting and governance in the public, private and third sectors. He has spent over 25 years in the Scottish public sector including as Assistant Auditor General at Audit Scotland until 2017 where, inter alia, he led on audit quality, professional standards, housing benefit audit and the National Fraud Initiative. He has been extensively involved in setting professional standards for auditors and accountants across the UK and been a member of several boards and audit committees. He is currently a board member and chair of the audit committee of several public bodies, including Social Security Scotland and a trustee of several charities and community organisations, including his local Citizens' Advice Bureau.
Deborah Harris-Ugbomah
Deborah Harris-Ugbomah FCA is a chartered accountant, having trained and audited financial services with PwC before moving into investment banking and venture capital. Deborah has extensive executive and Non-Executive Director experience in risk, financial strategy, assurance, and corporate governance. Her industry experience is in financial services, public sector, and the charity sector. Deborah is an active member of her professional body, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW), as an elected member of Council. Deborah is the first black person in its 152 years to be successfully elected as President of the London Society for the London-based ICAEW chartered accountants.
Paula Sussex
Paula has a strong track record of transformation and growth in both the private and public sectors. With a background in blue chip consulting and technology services businesses, Paula was Senior Vice President and member of the UK Board at CGI, responsible for building new markets in health and public sector, and prior to that she was CEO of Atos Consulting and a Managing Consultant at KPMG. Paula qualified as a barrister before turning to the tech world. She is a graduate of London Business School and was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours list.
Gillian Fairfield
Dr Fairfield has worked in clinical, managerial and leadership roles across different sectors and specialities, in hospitals, general practice and public health. She has held Chief Executive posts in four NHS and NHS Foundation Trusts. In 1997 she was awarded a British Medical Association Fellowship in public health to study managed care in Washington State and Harvard Universities. She has served as a Non Executive Board member on the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and is currently Chair of the Disclosure and Barring Service and a member of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body.
Sir Rob Behrens CBE
Sir Rob Behrens CBE is an Ombudsman and public servant. Sir Rob is the outgoing Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in the UK. He was made a CBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list in 2015 for ‘services to higher education’, and received a Knighthood for ‘Public Service’ in the King’s Birthday Honours 2024. In the same year he was awarded The Certificate of Merit ‘for distinguished Service to the Ukrainian People’ by Verkhovna Rada, the national Parliament of Ukraine.
Helen Parker
Helen is the former Deputy CEO of Which? and a committee member of Healthwatch England. She has also served as the Senior Independent Director on the Board of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Her other roles include serving on consumer advisory panels for the rail regulator and for Pay.UK which operates the UK's interbank payment systems.
Senior leadership team
Richard Hornby, Interim Director of Finance
Richard is the Interim Director of Finance for IBCA. He is a senior finance professional with experience in public and private sector organisations. Richard has a background in delivering and integrating local public services, project and portfolio management as well as strategic leadership at an organisational level.
Prior to joining IBCA, Richard was the Chief Financial Officer at the Cabinet Office, and Director with responsibility for both the Cabinet Office's Finances and Corporate Strategy.
Prior to this, he was Director of Finance and Estates at Home Office (2016-2020), Director of Finance at Coastal West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (2014-2016) and County Treasurer at West Sussex County Council (2009-2014).
Gill Nicholson, Interim Director of HR
Gill is the interim HR Director for IBCA. An experienced Civil Servant and HR professional who has worked in the Department of Business and Trade, HMRC, the Home Office as well as Director of People at the Care Quality Commission.
Rachel Forster, Interim Director of Communications
Rachel Forster is the interim Director of Communications for IBCA, setting up a new team and comms approach that is firmly community-first and transparent by default. Previously Deputy Director for Service Transformation Communications at HMRC, she focused on moving millions of customers to digital channels within one of Europe’s largest government transformation portfolios. She has also led internationally-acclaimed COVID support scheme communications, advised governments internationally on communicating major new policies, and is particularly interested in the role of communications in creating simple and easy public services to support customers and colleagues. She holds a Masters in strategic communications leadership, is a qualified Agile practitioner and previously worked in local government and as a regional and national journalist.
John Kelly, Interim Director of Data
John Kelly is the interim Director for Data for IBCA, developing a data capability to be safe and secure, while also enabling modern techniques to protect against fraud and drive more efficiency. John's previous role was at HM Treasury as Chief Data Officer, where he led the first AI correspondence product in government, modernised finance data analysis, introduced fiscal models to help inform preventative spend, and more. John was recognized in the top 100 data leaders in the UK (DataIQ 100 2024) and globally (Global CDO 100 2024). John's interest is in technology transformation, and he has a background in business analysis & data engineering. John spent almost 15 years working in local government, improving services ranging from children & families to adult and end-of-life care, as well as leading a multi-million pound IoT (Internet of Things) project to support people in living independently for longer.
Celine McLoughlin, Interim Director of Digital and Service
Celine is the interim Director of Digital and Service Owner for IBCA leading on both the service design and development of the compensation scheme and the technical infrastructure for the Authority.
Celine has previously led on the design and development of various complex services at the Department for Work and Pensions both across Retirement and Health and Disability ensuring direct insight from users genuinely drives the development and championing whole service thinking.
Sindy Skeldon OBE, Interim Director of Operations
Sindy is the Interim Director of Operations for IBCA, developing an operational organisation and establishing a new leadership team which is truly community first. Previously Deputy Director for National Insurance, Child Benefit and Childcare Services in HMRC ensuring these critical services were delivered in an environment under intense Ministerial and Public scrutiny. Sindy has been in operational delivery for 34 years, with many of these years in senior operational delivery profession roles, leading teams across many high profile and diverse areas; Working Age Benefits, Jobcentre Network, Operational Excellence and the Implementation (and leadership) of Universal Credit across 103 Jobcentres in the North East and so is adept at leading in an agile environment. Renowned for her ability to lead and inspire large and geographically spread teams, Sindy was responsible for leading the DWP Universal Credit Virtual Service Centre; establishing the service from scratch and delivering to circa 1 million customers via 3,500 claim managers all working from home for the first time during the pandemic (many of the practices instigated by Sindy are now utilised as good practice).