New Directions was formed in January 2007 and is wholly owned by Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council.
The organisation is governed by a Board of Directors with strong backgrounds in social care, health, local authority, and business.
The role of the New Directions’ board is to contribute and drive the strategic direction of the organisation, ensuring the company remains financially sustainable, whilst meeting the needs of the people and families its supports, providing high-quality services.
Board Members
Councillor Liz Dowd
Non-Executive Director
Councillor John Joseph Kelly
Non- Executive Director
Dil Daly
Chair
Sandra Palmer
Non – Executive Director
COUNCILLOR JUDY HARDMAN
Non – Executive Director
Glen Williams
Union Observer
John Graham
Non-Executive Director
Councillor Paul Cummins
Shareholder
Representative
Please see the profiles below for our Senior Leadership Team
Click on the relevant persons image to see more about their background and experiences within New Directions.
Our Senior Leadership Team
Mark Fox
Managing Director
ANDREA WOODS
Head of Operations
Adam Drury
Head of HR
David Lill
Finance Manager
Paul Sheron
Head of Learning & Development
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 GRAHAM
John has almost 30 years of NHS experience having worked for a variety of organisations – and is currently the Chief Finance Officer – at Tameside and Glossop IC NHS FT & Stockport NHS Foundation Trust and Deputy Chief Executive – of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust
John Paul is married to Tricia they have three grown-up children.
John is Chair of Lydiate Learning Trust and has been involved in school governing bodies for some 25 years and is an ardent Liverpool Football Club fan.
John Joseph Kelly
Janis Blackburne
As a councillor I am a member of the Planning Committee, the Committee for Overview and Scrutiny for Regeneration and Skills and a Governor for Meols Cop High School.
I was delighted to be on the Board of New Directions and began to learn about how the company provides much needed services of a very high standards to the residents of Sefton. I attended the launch of Rapid Response in early March but since than Covid has prevented me from further visits.
For many years I was a teacher of English and Drama for eleven to sixteen-year-old pupils. As Drama co-ordinator I enjoyed taking pupils on trips to the theatre and producing plays and talent shows. I later taught pupils with Special Needs and also worked in a Pupil Referral Unit. I have had a particular interest in Inclusion and diversity.
I have lived in Sefton for most of my life. First in Maghull and then from 2015 I moved to Southport with my husband. We have two grown children and three grandchildren. I have a sister who has an acquired brain injury and needs care 24/7; therefore, I have a personal understanding of how important finding the best care is for our vulnerable adults. New Directions is an exciting and forward looking company and I am pleased to be a small part of its future.
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.
David Lill
I am a Management Account (ACMA) with twenty-plus years of qualified experience working in a variety of commercial and not-for-profit organisations. I joined Sefton New Directions after spending three years heading up the finance function of the Brothers of Charity Services in Lancashire, another provider of essential Adult Care Services operating for the benefit of the residents in Chorley and beyond.
Previously I have worked with Knowsley MBC within its Sure Start Programme (aimed at improving the well-being of children aged four and under and their families) and, for six years with Liverpool Vision Ltd, the City’s Urban Regeneration Company, tasked with leading the City’s physical transformation in the new millennium. I worked there at a time of unprecedented progress – a period which saw the huge Capital of Culture programme in 2008 and the funding and opening of the Arena and Conference Centre among many notable successes.
Other positions included commercial roles working within the Chemicals industry in Runcorn and almost ten years as Financial Controller with the largest independent Reprographics companies in the country.
I aim to bring the combination of expertise and experiences gained to help New Directions become the provider of choice within Sefton.
As a resident of Sefton, and after hearing of the excellent reputation and seeing the good work undertaken, I jumped at the opportunity to work with the talented Senior Management Team leading finance here at New Directions.
I join (December 2022) at a time of unprecedented challenges with the need to match excellent care and the support of some of our most vulnerable adults with budget constraints caused by pressures on our main funding partner (Sefton MBC) and rising staff and other costs caused by inflation.
However, against this challenging backdrop, I believe in the organisation’s core values: – People Focused, Big Hearted, Count on Us, Together as One and its desire to become the provider of choice and will work tirelessly to ensure the continued success of the organisation.
I lead a small but dedicated and experienced Finance Team but, just as importantly, want to be a visible member of the whole organisation, partnering with colleagues to help maximise funding and offering advice and expertise as required.
Away from work, I am a family man, with one teenage son and whilst I enjoy travelling, I can often be found on a Sunday morning cycling the paths and tracks of our borough and beyond. That, of course, assumes no home game and as a season ticket holder at Anfield (following in the steps of my father and grandfather who were born and raised in Bootle and were passionate football supporters since pre-war times) attend all home games of Liverpool FC.
Paul Sheron
My employment background is working within learning & development across three different learning providers. Initially employed as an IT Tutor, completing a Certificate of Education enabled me to develop my skill set in this field to focus on the principals of learning and applying them to practice. My principles to learning include:
-Put learning at the forefront of everything that you do.
-Embrace a top-down approach to learning.
-Ensure that learning supports business objectives.
-Provide learning in innovative way.
-Make learning a valuable experience.
For the last twenty years I have worked for a leading training provider linked to numerous health and social care providers. Throughout that time, I have held several positions including quality control, curriculum & compliance manager and Designated Safeguarding Lead. Skilled in operations management, coaching and mentoring. I am passionate about learning and strive to ensure the quality of training and development delivered to those who work in the adult care sector is exemplary.
I aim to bring my skills and expertise in the learning & development field to enable New Directions to fulfil their vision to be a learning organisation. Also, to complement the existing four core values and embed learning as the fifth value.
Outside of work I follow an active lifestyle. I enjoy running, and strive to get out a couple of times a week. I find that this is a positive way to clear my mind after a long day. I am married with two teenage children, and a Shih-Tzu dog. I recently hung up my football coaching boots after coaching my son’s team for 11 years. My weekends are now spent on the sports pitches of the North West watching my daughter play rugby and son football in a parent capacity.
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.