our board
Our board members are "non-executive" - they have no involvement in individual complaints. Their job as "public interest" directors is to ensure that the ombudsman service is properly resourced and is able to carry out its work effectively and independently.
Sir Christopher Kelly KCB
- chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life
- chairman of NSPCC
formerly:
- permanent secretary at the Department of Health
- head of policy at the Department of Social Security
- director of monetary & fiscal policy and director of the budget & public finances at HM Treasury
Alan Cook CBE
- managing director of Post Office Ltd
- a non-executive board member at the Department for Transport
formerly:
- chief executive of National Savings and Investments (NS&I)
- chief operating officer at Prudential
John Howard
- a non-executive director of National Counties Building Society
- a non-executive director of the Board of the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority
formerly:
- chair of the Financial Services Consumer Panel
- principal presenter of BBC Radio 4 You and Yours
- a member of the Mortgage Code Compliance Board
Elaine Kempson CBE
- professor and director of the Personal Finance Research Centre at the University of Bristol
- a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee
- a member of the Financial Inclusion Taskforce
- a member of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) advisory group on over-indebtedness
formerly:
- a member of the Banking Code Standards Board
- independent reviewer of the Banking Code
- a member of the DTI taskforce on over-indebtedness
- a member of the DTI foresight sub-panel on personal financial services
- a member of a Treasury policy action team about access to financial services
Kate Lampard
- an associate of Verita Limited, consultants in incident investigations and inquiries
- a trustee of Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
- a non-executive director of RHS Enterprises Ltd
- chair of NHS South East Coast
formerly:
- chair of Kent and Medway Strategic Health Authority
- chair of the Independent Housing Ombudsman Limited
- chair of the Invicta Community Care NHS Trust
Julian Lee
- interim chair of NHS Surrey
- a commissioner at the Legal Services Commission
- a non-executive director of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency Advisory Board
- Justice of the Peace to the North Sussex Bench
- crisis & change management consultant
formerly:
- chair of Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals Trust
- chair of NHS Brighton & Hove
- a non-executive director of the South East Coast Ambulance Trust
- chairman, then chief executive, of the Allied Carpets Group
- joint managing director of British & Commonwealth Holdings plc
Roger Sanders OBE
- head of employee benefits, Helm Godfrey Partners Ltd
- chairman of the financial services committee of the Insurance Institute of London and a council member of the Institute
formerly:
- joint chairman of the FSA's Smaller Businesses Practitioner Panel
- deputy chairman of the Association of Independent Financial Advisers
- a member of the Financial Services Practitioner Panel
- a director of the Personal Investment Authority (PIA) Ombudsman Bureau
- a PIA board member
Maeve Sherlock OBE
- a commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
- a non-executive director of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission
- chair of the National Student Forum
- currently doing research for a doctorate at Durham University
formerly:
- chief executive of the Refugee Council
- chief executive of the charity One Parent Families
- a member of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Treasury
The directors also form a number of sub-committees of the full board:
The board of the Financial Ombudsman Service meets formally around ten times a year, to consider a wide range of strategic issues. The minutes of their meetings are available to download in PDF format.