Profile : Ros Hepplewhite
Despite admitting to being a Francophile, spending much of her spare time at her house in France with her husband and their three beloved dogs, Ros Hepplewhite is proud of the UK's administrative justice system and optimistic about the future changes that will improve the system further and put users at the heart of the administrative justice process. As a member of the Council she is passionate about improving the whole user experience and making sure that both users and state feel satisfied that justice has been done, no matter who wins.
Ros Hepplewhite was appointed to the Council in 2002, whilst she was chair of the Leicestershire and Rutland Area Probation Board and a Justice of the Peace. She was interested in pursuing a career in a non-executive rather than an executive role and to be more involved in administrative, rather than criminal, justice.
Her interest in systems of administrative justice and redress stem back to her long career working across a range of public services, in both the voluntary and government sectors. And this has influenced her approach to Council work, putting user involvement and experience at the heart of the tribunal process.
Ros says, "I'm not an expert in tribunal procedure, but I don't think that the Council's role is just to be an expert on procedure. It needs to take a more rounded view of the system; looking how it impacts not just on users, but government too. I try to bring my experience of taking a user perspective to bear in my approach to observing tribunals, questioning what I would expect to find and what I'm actually observing and asking if the balance is right between state and user."
Ros started her career in the National Health Service (NHS) and went into the then "less fashionable" area of mental health. For the next 10 years she found herself at the forefront of the momentous changes that were to radically alter mental health services. Through the 1980s, working for Hammersmith and Fulham and Brighton Health Authorities, Ros was instrumental in a programme of closing down the old Victorian, long stay, mental institutions and developing schemes to support mentally ill and handicapped people within the community.
In 1989 she was appointed national director of MIND, the mental health charity. Once again at the forefront of change, Ros's involvement with MIND brought her close to service users. MIND's way of involving users was considered a rather high risk strategy at the time. But soon other, similar organisations were following suit and pursuing programmes of increased user involvement.
Ros's next move provided what was probably her biggest challenge to date when she was appointed chief executive of the much maligned Child Support Agency (CSA).
She says, "It was a huge learning experience and very tough. The CSA had a formulaic approach to administrative justice, which failed to deliver the service expected by users to the extent that the relationship between user and provider was irreparably damaged. Although a difficult three years, it did help me to understand the complexities of government legislation and the need for policy makers to take more account of the human factor when thinking through policy decisions and the impact of their implementation."
From the CSA, Ros went onto become the chief executive of the General Dental Council, the body that regulates the dental profession. She worked closely with government to bring all members of the dentistry profession under the auspices of the Dental Council, not just the dentists.
She says, "It's so important that we look at things holistically, taking account of the entire experience of administrative justice, not just a single aspect. The emerging Administrative Justice Council has got to look at the broader picture, at all possible systems of redress and dispute resolution. I very much welcome future changes and was pleased with the thoughtful nature of last year's White Paper that recognised the need to look at the wider landscape. "
She concludes, "Whilst recognising the real need for change, I think we do have a very sophisticated system of redress in the UK; one to be proud of. Improvements are already in place and the Council has a key part to play in ensuring that we keep heading in the right direction so that both citizen and state feel that justice has been done, whatever the outcome of their case and whichever method is used to resolve the dispute."
Ros chairs the Council's Social Affairs Committee and sits on the User Issues Group
(July 2005)