Non-Executive Board Members
The Commission’s Non-Executive board meets on a bi-monthly basis and consists of:
Sir Bert Massie CBE, Commissioner for the Compact
Sir Bert Massie CBE has been a disability rights campaigner for almost 40 years. He has wide experience of voluntary organisations and of working with government and governmental agencies.
From January 2000 to 2007 he was chairman of the Disability Rights Commission, now part of the recently created Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which brought together the work of the Disability Rights Commission, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality. Sir Bert is currently a commissioner for the EHRC in conjunction with his new role at the Commission for the Compact.
Prior to that, he was chief executive of RADAR, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation.
Sir Bert has served on a number of government advisory committees concerned with disability including the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee and the National Advisory Committee on Employment of Disabled People. In addition, he was deputy chair of the National Disability Council, a member of the Disability Rights Task Force, and a trustee of the Institute for Employment Studies (IES). At present, he is a governor of Motability, the leading car scheme for disabled people, and a trustee of Habinteg Housing Association. He is vice president or patron of a number of disability charities.
Sir Bert has been disabled since he was three months old. He was created a Knight in 2007 in recognition of his services to disabled people. He has honorary doctorates from the Universities of Bristol and Staffordshire and is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) from where he graduated in 1977 with a Social Studies degree. He is currently a governor of LJMU. Sir Bert was born in Liverpool in 1949 and, after living in London for almost 30 years, now lives in the Aigburth area of Liverpool.
Helen Baker, Non-Executive Director
Helen Baker is a registered social worker and has worked in executive and non-executive roles both in the statutory and voluntary sectors across social care, health, housing and education.
Before taking up the chair of the Group Board of Advance Housing and Support, Helen was chair of Oxfordshire Community Health NHS Trust and then Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust. She was a founder council member of the General Social Care Council, the non-departmental public body which regulates the social care workforce and social work training and is currently a member of the governing council of the National College for School Leadership.
Helen is also a trustee with the Foundation for Conductive Education, a national charity working with children and adults with physical disabilities. Within Oxfordshire she was a founder, then chair of the Clive Project, which supports adults with early onset dementia and their families. She is also on the advisory group of Oxfordshire Common Purpose and a previous member of the Art Room, a charity that works with children at risk of exclusion from school.
Helen was appointed Interim Commission for the Compact from September 2007 to March 2008.
David Cutler, Non-Executive Director
David Cutler has been the director of the Baring Foundation since 2003. One of the UK's best known independent grant makers, the Foundation has a strong focus on the impendence of the third sector as well as programmes for the arts and international development.
For the past 20 years, David has worked in the voluntary and public sectors. He was director of the Carnegie Young People Imitative, a major research and advocacy initiative to involve young people in public decision making, and ran Divert, the National Charity for Youth Crime Prevention. From 1988-96, David was head of the Hammersmith and Fulham Community Safety Unit which pioneered work on a number of areas including domestic violence and coordinated strategies between local authorities and the police. Before this he worked in racial equality.
Among other roles in the voluntary and public sectors he was a non-executive director of Hammersmith and Fulham Primary Care Trust until 2004, is deputy chair of the British Institute for Human Rights, and was vice chair of the UK section of Amnesty International.
Fred Heddell, Non-Executive Director
Fred Heddell is a qualified teacher and spent most of his early teaching career teaching in Special Education in the East of London. For many years he was also the Head Teacher of an innovatory
Following a period working with the BBC as a writer and advisor on some ground breaking programmes for people with disability he joined Mencap, initially as Director of Education and subsequently as Chief Executive. During his 13 years as Chief Exec Mencap not only grew nearly ten fold in size but also became a far more inclusive organisation. Much of the expansion was the result of partnership working between the charity and local and central Government.
Following his retirement from Mencap in 2003 he founded the Rix Centre for innovation in technology at the
In addition to his work in the
Fred was appointed as a non executive Director of the Commission for the Compact in September 2007.
Richard Corden, Chief Executive
Richard has been employed as Chief Executive since June 2007. His previous posts in the Treasury, the Office of the Third Sector, the Home Office, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and the Charity Commission have given him extensive experience of working with the voluntary and community sector at all levels.