Martin Narey
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Speaker Topics
- Youth Offending
- Youth Justice
- Voluntary Sector
- Safeguarding
- Policy Making
- Leadership
- Education Policy
- Early Years & Childrens Centres
- Diversity
- Childrens Social Services
- Childrens Services
- Childhood Safety
- Child Protection
- Child Poverty
Introduction
Martin Narey’s most recent position is that of Chief Executive of Barnardo’s, having previously worked as Director General of the Prison Service, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service and a Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.
Martin began his career in the Health Service and moved to the Prison service in 1982 working in a local prison, borstal and a top security prison before taking a number of posts in Whitehall. He was appointed as the youngest ever Director General of the Prison Service in 1998.
He has a passionate concern for disadvantaged young people hence his decision to join Barnado’s in 2005. Under his leadership Barnado’s has become the UK’s biggest children’s charity, working each year with more than 100,000 disadvantaged children and young people and with a staff of around 8000 and 14,000 volunteers.
As well as taking the charity through a period of sustained growth, Martin’s expertise and leadership has succeeded in significantly improving the charity’s influencing capacity with government while significantly raising public awareness of the organisation. There have been major achievements in changing government policy on issues such as child poverty, children in care, asylum seeking children and the supervision of child sex offenders.
He was chair of the independent commission on social mobility which reported in 2009.
Martin’s ability to talk about leadership, motivation and the management of change to a wide and varied audience is hugely appreciated.
Typical feedback can be viewed at the bottom of this page.
Personal Achievements and Awards
The 2004 Gold Medal for Leadership from Chartered Institute of Management
Honorary Doctorates from Sheffield Hallam University & Teesside University
Visiting Professor at Sheffield Hallam University since 2005
Inclusion in the Independent’s 2010 “Happy List” – 100 people who make the UK a better place
Author of various publications for New Statesman, The Guardian, The Times and Institute of Public Policy Research
Relevant Career and Professional Background
2005 – Date - Chief Executive of Barnardo’s.
2003 – 2005 – Home Office, Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service and Home Office Permanent Secretary.
1997 - 2003 – Prison Service – various Senior Management roles including Director General (Chief Executive)
1992 – 1997 - Leading work on prosecution policy. Wrote a major report that led to the so called Narey reforms and the introduction of the Narey Courts – leading to an unprecedented increase in the efficiency and speed of the justice system.
1991 – 1992 – Home Office, Private Secretary to the Home Office Minister of State responsible for Policing, Fire and Charities.
1982 – 1991 - HM Prison Service, Senior Management roles including Prison Governor.
1977 – 1982 – National Health Service.
Additional Information
FEEDBACK:
He was AWESOME. I'd seen him at your thing so knew he'd be good, but he exceeded even my expectations. He was bang on in terms of message, style, tone- everything. And he'd clearly thought hard about how to tie his experience in.
The acid test here was the power station guys- the shift supervisors and maintenance managers and even they thought he was fantastic.
The reason I wanted him, and the reason he was such a success is because he is so honest; his leadership style is refreshing in the contexts in which he's worked (but, importantly, not whacky) and he is very genuine. One guy even told me that Martin's presentation was mesmerising!