Margaret Carney

Margaret Carney retired from her role as Chief Executive of Sefton Council in June 2019 after leading the organisation for 10 years. In a local government career spanning over 40 years, she held senior positions with a number of North West local authorities. A strategic leader and a qualified accountant, Margaret has specialist knowledge and understanding relating to local government, health, social care, and financial management. Since retirement Margaret has continued to work on a part time basis for local government in sector led improvement roles.

Margaret was born and continues to live on Merseyside. She attended Notre Dame college in Everton Valley and qualified as an accountant in John Moore’s University in Liverpool.

An experienced board member across the public and voluntary sector. She has been a non-executive director of New Directions for 12 years and has a passion for improving the quality and reach of social care for our our most vulnerable people. She has held roles on the boards of Housing Associations and voluntary sector organisations.

Glen Williams

I am Glen Williams and have been the Branch Secretary for Sefton UNISON for 15 years and active for over 30 years currently holding various senior regional and national positions within UNISON.

John Joseph Kelly

Janis Blackburne

Liz Dowd

Cllr Liz Dowd has represented Ford Ward (Litherland) as a Sefton Labour Party Councillor since May 2018 and is Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Regeneration and Skills. Liz also holds a number of other positions on Sefton Council and is a member of the Audit and Governance Committee and the Public Engagement Panel.

Liz has also been involved with many voluntary organisations, including those providing support to vulnerable people.

For the past 25 years, Liz has worked at senior management level in the NHS and holds post graduate qualifications in health and public sector management.  She has expertise in commissioning services for children with complex needs and working across health and social care to integrate services and improve outcomes for service users. Liz believes this experience is particularly pertinent to her role as a Board  member of New Directions in both the delivery of existing services, and the future potential to expand the role of the organisation.

Judy Hardman

Cllr Judy Hardman was elected in May 2022 as a Sefton Labour Party councillor to represent Sudell Ward. She is also a parish councillor representing Sefton and Lunt. As a Councillor, Judy’s responsibilities include sitting as a member of the Licensing Committee and the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Children’s Services, and she has recently taken up the role of observer on the Board of Sefton CVS. 

Judy is a registered social worker and during her working life has worked with adults and children. She began her career in Liverpool Catholic Social Services where she was a research assistant on a project for people with learning disabilities, and she has maintained an interest in learning disability and in evaluation of services. Judy was an Assistant Director with Action for Children, a national charity, between 2000 and 2010 and during this period developed an understanding of delivering commissioned services and reporting to different Boards.

Since 2010 Judy has worked independently in a range of roles, which have predominantly involved carrying out service reviews, audits and training for different local authorities. She is an accredited Safeguarding Peer Reviewer with the Local Government Association. Her particular passion is helping social workers and managers demonstrate and measure quality outcomes. Judy hopes to use her interest in evaluation and quality to support the work of New Directions.

BIOGRAPHY FOR NEIL DALY

(who calls himself Dil).

Dil has lived and worked in Aylesbury, Sheffield and London before returning to the North-West 20 years ago. He has worked in the private, public and the third sector. For the majority of his career, Dil has been the CEO of charitable organisations working with older people in London and Merseyside. Dil has also been the CEO or Chair of a number of social enterprises including a national social enterprise called advant~age, which helped charities to trade in commercial products and financial services. Latterly Dil has become the Lay Member for Public & Patient Engagement for Southport & Formby CCG.

Dil is passionate about innovation in health and social care, and ensuring that users of services are central to all aspects of service design and implementation.
Dil lives in Southport with his wife, daughter and a Wheaten Terrier called Roy. His leisure interests are watching Liverpool FC, listening to music (in particular attending as many live gigs as possible) and role-playing.

Paul Cummins

Paul holds a number of positions for Sefton in addition to his Cabinet role. He is Sefton’s Mental Health Champion and Older Person’s Champion. He is a member of the Health and Wellbeing Board, Co-Chair of the Transforming Care Partnership Board for people with Learning Disabilities, Deputy Chair of the Corporate Parenting Board, Chair of the Special Education Needs and Disabilities Continuous Improvement Board, Chair of the Adults Forum, Chair of the Dementia and Carers Strategy Groups, Chair of the Liverpool City Region Health and Social Care Portfolio Holders Group, and a member of the Sefton Coastal Partnership Board. In addition, he is a Local Authority appointed School Governor at St Edmund and St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School, and Rimrose Hope Church of England Primary School, where he has been Chair of Governors over many years.

Away from Sefton Council, Paul is a Non-Executive Director at Primary Care 24 (Merseyside), and a Trustee/Director at Sefton Council for Voluntary Service, Waterloo Community Association and Waterloo Town Team. Paul had an extensive career in teaching, social care and community safety and is now retired from full-time employment, having been a Senior Manager in the voluntary sector and local government, having worked for Nugent, National MIND, Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council and Sefton Carers Centre in addition to working for himself as a Consultant and Trainer, including working for Futurebuilders England. Paul was educated at St Mary’s College, Crosby, Liverpool John Moore’s University, Manchester University and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Paul is married to Carol, who has worked extensively as a Manager in Adult Social Care, for many years for Sefton Council, and currently Halton Borough Council. They have three grown up children and nine grand children who keep them busy. Paul is an avid birdwatcher, lover of real ale, ardent Liverpool Football Club fan, and is active in his Church.

Paul acts as Sefton Council’s Shareholder Representative for Sefton New Directions, and is passionate about the delivery of high quality and personalised Adult Social Care. He believes that Sefton New Directions has a vital role to play in the delivery of Social Care, and has the potential to extend its portfolio of services and meet the needs of many more people, through innovation and initiative.

Mark Fox

Mark joined New Directions in 2018. He was previously Head of Service for Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council. He led on major Adult Social Care change and transformation programmes to redesign services to improve outcomes for local people, exploring alternative delivery models and empowering staff to take on new ways of working.
He holds a post graduate diploma in Business, a post graduate diploma (with distinction) in Health and Social Care Management and an Institute of Directors certificate in Company Direction.
Outside of work Mark enjoys spending time with his family, keeping three boys entertained – which usually involves a football and is proud to be the undefeated fantasy football champion. When feeling active he can be seen on the local tennis court or golf course.

Contacts:
mark.fox@ndirections.co.uk
Managing Director
Address:
New Directions, 3rd Floor, Burlington House, Crosby Road North, Waterloo L22 0PJ
Telephone : 0151 705 0300
www.ndirections.co.uk

ELAINE DAVIES

As Head of Human Resources Elaine leads a HR team in reinforcing a strong company culture. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team her role is to support the Company to meet its strategic aims through its people. With 20 years local authority HR experience, latterly in housing and social care, Elaine volunteered to be seconded from Sefton Council to temporarily cover the HR Manager role in 2009. She loved the job so much she decided to stay and is proud to still be a part of the New Directions team and  play an instrumental part in its future.

 Outside of work she loves to travel, spend time with family and friends, theatre and keeping active.

Larry Ball

Larry joined New Directions in 2022. His previous roles have included working for Merseycare as a Mental Health Act Commissioner – he has been a bank inspector in adult social care for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) since 2012 and also, Head of Quality and Compliance for several providers around the North West region. He has been involved in several voluntary projects and has recently been invited to become a governor at a local junior school.

His educational background includes a PhD in Mental Health Studies from the University of Birmingham – a Masters in Social Work and Social Policy from the University of Liverpool, and a BA (Hons) in Disability and Community Studies from Edgehill University.

Larry is passionate, and a strong believer and supporter of involving service users in the planning of their individual care and support needs – `without their input, how do we know we are providing the right support` – he believes people`s lived experience should be a key driver for us all.

He also emphasises the importance of staff inclusion, through empowerment, as being fundamental if aims and objectives are to be reached – this approach results in staff feeling valued, increased job satisfaction, greater influence and better opportunities for development. He wants staff to reach their full potential and will actively support them to get there.

In his spare time, he likes nothing more than to spend time with his family and catching up on all that has happened in the previous week. His wife continually encourages him to `join the gym` with her but he says he is very good at finding an excuse why he cannot `make it today`.

Adam Drury

I have worked in adult social care for over 20 years. My background is in Human Resources and in 2008 I was outsourced from Sefton MBC to a private company called Arvato. During my time with Arvato I registered for an in-house management development programme and gained a range of new skills in a variety of areas to enable me to progress my career. This involved extensive training in project management, general business and mentoring by various senior managers across the Company. The transition from working in the public sector to the private sector was challenging, however it was a real ‘eye-opener’ in terms of how commercial companies operate. I changed job roles during this time and moved into project management. This was a very interesting job role and I was able to work on several exciting world-wide projects, travel to different places and meet new people. This exposure helped me to gain a wider understanding of the daily operations of a multi-national organisation. I was very grateful for the opportunities provided by Arvato and I was able to complete a master’s degree in Human Resource Management in 2014. 

I joined New Directions in November 2016 and I was fortunate that I had some pre-established relationships from my time in Sefton MBC. This enabled me to hit the ground running as I already had a good understanding of the services provided and the challenges we faced. When appointed as the HR Manager for New Directions, I worked very closely with the Operations Team to gain more in-depth knowledge of the services we provide. In March 2021 I applied for a post as Operations Manager and I was delighted to be appointed. The reason I changed job roles, apart from a new challenge, was that I felt I could have a bigger influence on the Company in this team and that I could potentially enhance our services for the better. In the limited time I was in Operations I feel as though I achieved aspects of this and was heavily involved with the ‘recovery’ of several key services. The relationships I established during this time remain strong and I will sincerely miss most aspects of the job. 

I have recently been appointed as Interim Head of HR and given my time in Operations; I believe I am well-placed to implement the Company’s strategic objectives. With my understanding of Operations, plus my extensive HR experience I aim to deliver a responsive and customer-focussed HR service to all in New Directions. I will be working closely with all services to ensure HR solutions implemented meet our immediate and future requirements.

To say I love the work we do in New Directions would be an understatement. To have the ability to enrich someone’s daily life is not something you can put a price on. I am passionate about our company, our values and the people we support.

No one could have predicted what has happened across the world in the previous two years and I am immensely proud of the way we have responded to the pandemic. Hopefully, brighter days are ahead as lockdown restrictions have subsided and we can return to some form of normality.

On a personal note, I am a passionate Liverpool FC supporter and enjoy playing and watching various sports. I also participate in a range of outdoor activities, but with these limited during lockdown I turned my hand to gardening. I find this a very therapeutic activity that enables me to switch off from the outside world. I also appreciate the reward of the hard work later in the year when the flowers, vegetables and fruits make all the physical work of gardening worthwhile. Sharing the fruit and veg amongst family and friends has whet the appetite for some of them to start gardening.

ANDREA WOODS

The most important thing to know about me is that I am the mother of two very special girls. We live in Sefton and we are very proud to belong to such a close-knit and supportive community.
I believe people should all be afforded opportunities to lead lives worth living. This philosophy has guided my practice since I joined New Directions in 1986 as a Care Assistant. I progressed into my current position as Head of Operations through lots of hard work and the successful completion of various in-house vocational qualifications. The support of a range of colleagues across different teams was critical to this progression. I have worked with many, many wonderful people, through hard challenging times and equally through good times. Some of my most enjoyable moments have been at parties and celebrations with the people we support. Along the way, I also acted as UNISON Branch officer for New Directions, which afforded me opportunities to develop my understanding of the challenges staff face working in social care, and equally, provided me with a skills-set to strengthen New Directions commitment to being an employer of choice.
My goal going forward is to ensure that New Directions functions as a social care provider of choice in Sefton, leading on innovative best practice to support the most vulnerable in our community. I am passionately committed to supporting New Directions staff. I am very proud of the work they do, and the general contribution we all make to the wider community of Sefton.
Every decision I make, in my work or in my personal life, is based upon an agenda to promote social justice and community solidarity locally, nationally, and internationally.
Looking to the future, I am confident that New Directions will continue to act as the catalyst for all that is good and positive about social care provision in Sefton.