Meet the committee

DEAC is a Committee made up of 14 members, a special adviser on Trade Union issues and a Chair.

We feel it is important that there is a mixture of people on the Committee. This helps to ensure it gives advice that takes into account the many different ways that different people look at things and the experiences that they have had.

The Committee include representatives of:

• employers
• providers of services for disabled people
• self-employed policy analysts and consultants
• organisations of and for disabled people
• trade unions.

Initially the full Committee met four times a year across Great Britain. More recently, DEAC has engaged in project work – working in small groups focusing on particular issues. Because of this, the Committee has now agreed to have three main meetings a year in England, Scotland and Wales. This helps us to be informed of what is happening locally as well as in Great Britain as a whole.

Chair of DEAC

Elaine Noad, OBE

Prior to her appointment as Chair of DEAC, Elaine was a senior social work manager in local government and was seconded to the Scottish Government. She was also a commissioner with the Disability Rights Commission until September 2007. She is a member of the Parole Board for Scotland and a volunteer committee member for Sanctuary Housing Association (Scotland).

Committee members

Cheryl Cullen

Cheryl is Director of Employment, Training and Skills Service for the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID) and has strategic responsibility for the service. As part of this, she works with a policy and research team that contributes to DWP consultations. Cheryl's experience includes leading a team of RNID senior managers, working within RNID as an Employment Adviser, Co-ordinator, Manager, and Deputy Director; and developing links with Jobcentre Plus and its programmes.

Dr Mark Deal

Mark is Head of Research and Development for ENHAM, an organisation that provides employment, vocational training, social housing and care and support services to disabled people. Mark’s role includes researching and establishing new services to improve the social inclusion and employment opportunities of disabled people. Mark was awarded a PhD in Disability in 2006

Lorraine Gradwell, MBE

Lorraine is the Chief Executive of Breakthrough UK Ltd – an organisation majority run by disabled people providing training, independent living skills and employment support, as well as advocacy and a thriving training and consultancy arm . At Breakthrough Lorraine has developed a national ‘policy think tank’ on disability issues and in 2009 was a member of the Office for Disability Issues Advisory Group on the “Right to Control” and was Disability Advisor to the House of Commons Speaker’s Conference on Representation. She was also a previous member of the DTI Small Business Council taking on the role of ‘Disability Champion’.

Catherine Graham

Catherine is a former Supported Employment Development Manager for Dumfries and Galloway Council and past Chair of the Scottish Union of Supported Employment. She is now self-employed, dividing her time between Choose Life, Mental Health Awareness and Supported Employment.

Asif Iqbal

Asif is deaf and uses British Sign Language (BSL). He has a wide experience of deaf and disability issues and is Media/Project Manager for Deaf Parenting UK, securing winner of TFPL’s first social impact award 2008, one of 30 winners of Talk Talk Innovation Award 2008 and runner up in the Guardian’s Public Services Award 2008 for Equality and Diversity category. He is a board member of the Disabled Person Transport Advisory Committee under Department of Transport and Board Trustee of Royal Association of Disability and Rights. He has recently been appointed as a Public Appointment Ambassador for Government Equalities Office and Cabinet Office.

His recent work with local authorities and the NHS included representing and consulting with a large number of deaf, disability and ethnic minority organisations at a senior level. He has contributed to youth, deaf, disabled and black, minority and ethnic communities and has been heavily involved in a range of local and community projects for BSL service provision.

Christine Jess

Christine has extensive experience of working across the private and public sectors and is currently involved on the delivery of Glasgow's City Strategy. During her career – which has focused on issues relating to diversity and inclusion – Christine has worked as a Social Inclusion Manager, a Charter Mark Assessor and in a variety of roles within employment and education services.

Her current work, linked to the Welfare to Work Agenda, is an ambitious strategy to join up all agencies in the city around the issue of employability – including key services such as health, social care, housing, education, training and employers. She has been responsible for introducing 'Employability on Prescription' a new, mainstream social prescribing option for GPs and Allied Health Professionals and the development of an innovative 'Bridging Service' which provides a 'one-stop' point of referral for Health, Social Care and Housing Service clients. She is also a Public Appointments Ambassador for the UK Government.

Dr Rachel Perkins

Rachel’s background is in clinical psychology and she is also a long term user of mental health services, Vice Chair of Rethink, a member of the Department for Work and Pensions Disability Employment Advisory Committee and in 2009 was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to lead an independent review into how Government might better support people with mental health problems to gain work and prosper in employment. (“Realising ambitions: Better employment support for people with a mental health condition”. DWP, December 2009).

She has written and spoken widely about recovery and social inclusion for people with mental health conditions. She has also pioneered the UK development of programmes to help people with mental health difficulties to access employment and education based on the ‘Individual Placement with Support’ approach. This includes a programme designed increase employment opportunities within mental health services for people who have themselves experienced mental health problems. Her latest book, written with Julie Repper, is “Social Inclusion and Recovery: A Model for Mental Health Practice”(2003, Balliere Tindall).

Agnes Fletcher

Since becoming a consultant in 2007, Agnes has worked for public and voluntary sector clients, providing strategic advice, consultancy and training on implementation of equality legislation and on communications. Before that she was Director of Policy and Communications at the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), responsible for managing its research, policy and communications functions. Agnes has experience of communicating with diverse groups of disabled people, including those who do not identify themselves as disabled. She also has knowledge of inclusive communications, disability policy and mental health issues, having been lead officer for the DRC’s Mental Health Action Group. Agnes is also a member of the cross-government Disability Equality Delivery Board and a trustee of RADAR and Shape Arts.

Adam Gaines

Adam is Director of Prostate Scotland a voluntary organisation, aimed at increasing awareness and treatment of prostate disease. His previous roles include being Director Scotland of the Disability Rights Commission, before that he had been the DRC’s Head of Policy and Communications in Scotland. Prior to this he was Director of Public Affairs for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, where as well as responsibility for the Council’s public affairs, he acted as Secretary to the Working Group on Government Relations which developed the Compact between the Government and the voluntary sector. For four years he headed up the Royal National Institute for Deaf People’s Campaigns and Public Relations Division and prior to that was Director of Research and Information at the NUS.

Deborah Parker

Deborah is Chief Executive of Progress Recruitment, a third sector disability employment agency enabling disabled people and employers to benefit from working together. She created Progress Recruitment from a Local Authority service, which was incorporated as a limited company in November 2001. Her passion for inclusion through employment has spanned almost 20 years. She has remained faithful to a supported employment model that is based on respect for the human rights and dignity of all, the belief that all people can learn and all things are possible, a commitment to working collaboratively and always aiming for excellence. She reached the final of Businesswoman of the Year 2008 and won the Social Enterprise of the Year award 2008, and was also finalist for business woman of the year in 2009.

Liz Sutherland

Originally a teacher, Liz has worked in the voluntary sector since the early 1980s. Her roles have included: Director of LEAD Scotland (Linking Education and Disability); a 3 year project at the University of Edinburgh pioneering CALL Scotland centre; and Children in Scotland where she established the first multidisciplinary Special Needs Forum for children with disabilities.

Liz has also worked freelance with voluntary organisations, local authorities, further and higher education institutions across the UK in the field of education and disability. She was a member and team leader of the first HEFCE funded National Disability Team and worked with the Open University in Scotland as their adviser to disabled students. In her last full-time post she was a Policy Adviser with the Equality Challenge Unit and was responsible for disability and age issues. She has taken early retirement but is a lay member of the employment tribunal service and active in various voluntary organisations.

Niccola Swan

Niccola has a portfolio of roles encompassing mental health, disability, diversity and assisted dying. During her 25 year career with Barclays Bank she spent four years as Diversity Director and ended her career there as Regional Director for the North-East. When she left Barclays, she became Deputy Chief Executive for the Employers’ Forum on Disability. She is now a non-executive director of Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust (which provides mental health and learning disability care), the treasurer and a trustee of Rethink, a director of Dignity in Dying and is a magistrate in Bradford and a Leeds Home Start volunteer.

Stephen Cairns

Steve is Director of Information, Advice and Employment services for Scope, the national disability organisation. With 20 years experience in the voluntary sector working in community development and providing direct support services to disabled people and their families, Steve’s current responsibilities include strategic leadership of Scope’s Employment services, Scope Response, Scope Cymru, DIAL UK and the Face 2 Face national parent support service. He is based in Wales and has experience of working in Wales and with the Welsh Assembly on diversity.

Dr Peter Purton

Peter has been appointed as an adviser to DEAC on Trade Union issues.
Since 1998, he has been Policy Officer at the TUC, responsible for disability and LGBT equality. His work involves developing and promoting TUC policy on disability, especially in employment, organising TUC campaigns, preparing advice for the TUC General Council and affiliated unions, and organising and servicing the TUC’s democratic structures for disabled trade unionists, an annual conference and the committee elected by it. After obtaining a first degree and then a DPhil from Oxford, he spent many years working in the voluntary advice sector.