Who we are

Staff

Maurice Frankel the Director of the Campaign for Freedom of InformationMaurice Frankel has worked for the Campaign since it was set up in 1984 and has been its Director since 1987. He previously worked on access to environmental and safety information issues for the corporate accountability group Social Audit. He drafted the successful Private Members’ Bills which became the Access to Personal Files Act 1987, the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988, the Environment and Safety Information Act 1988 and the Access to Health Records Act 1990. He was a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Group on Implementation of the Freedom of Information Act and the Commonwealth Group of Experts whose Freedom of Information Principles were adopted by Commonwealth Law Ministers in 1999. He received an OBE for services to open government in 2004.

Board

Russell Levy the Chair of the Campaign for Freedom of InformationRussell Levy (chair) is a solicitor who was formerly a clinical negligence and healthcare specialist as a senior partner at law firm Leigh Day, but now acts as a consultant and occasional expert witness. He has a keen interest in openness, transparency and accountability in government.

Jonathan BlochJonathan Bloch studied law at the University of Cape Town and the London School of Economics. He was politically involved in South Africa in the worker and student movement and remains active in human rights circles in the UK. From 2002 until 2014 he chaired the Canon Collins Educational and Legal Assistance Trust, one of the largest scholarship awarding organisations in South Africa. He was a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey 2002-14. He has co-authored several books on intelligence. He owns and runs a worldwide financial information business across four continents.

Lee EdwardsLee Edwards is a retired Data Architect with a passion for properly curated information that is open and can be trusted. She has previous experience of volunteering in a not for profit environment having served at UK and International board level with DAMA, the Data Managers Association, and is a Certified Data Management Professional at Master level. She currently provides business input to and manages social media communications for SOBBS, the Save Our Brine Baths campaign in Droitwich Spa.

Patsy HoPatsy Ho Patsy started her career as a journalist in Hong Kong and Beijing and later joined Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) as a consultant in Singapore, building data solution for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues. Later she led product development at Citymapper, a London-based startup, working with government agencies to make data available for the public and put them into practical use in day-to-day life. Patsy is now a founding member of Step, a mobile app for sharing travel recommendations.

Andrew LownieAndrew Lownie was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh before going on to the College of Law. He has been a journalist, publisher and since 1988 run his own literary agency. He is the author of biographies of the writer John Buchan, spy Guy Burgess and the life of Lord and Lady Mountbatten. He is a former committee member of EnglishPen, the President of the Biographers Club and a former visiting fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.

Neil McIntoshNeil McIntosh has been a director of the Campaign since it was established in 1984 and was its longstanding chair until 2014. Before retiring, he was the Chief Executive of the CfBT Education Trust, a top 50 UK charity providing education services for public benefit in the UK and internationally. He was previously Director of Voluntary Service Overseas and before that Director of Shelter.

James MichaelJames Michael is a Senior Associate Research Fellow at the University of London Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. He was the editor of Privacy Laws & Business’s International Report until 2011. He wrote ‘The Politics of Secrecy‘ (Penguin 1982) and ‘Privacy and Human Rights‘ (UNESCO 1995), and was special advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Freedom of Information Bill in 1999. He has degrees from Northwestern and Georgetown universities in the US, the London School of Economics and Stockholm University, and has taught in the UK, Sweden, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Claire MillerClaire Miller is an award-winning investigative data journalist. She has worked across national and regional newspapers in the UK, including the Mirror, Manchester Evening News, and Western Mail. While working at WalesOnline, she launched the datastore, a repository for the data and graphics and the first of its kind in regional newspapers. This led her to be involved in setting up the Reach Data Unit, which produces in-depth data journalism projects and innovative interactive content that is published across Reach’s national and regional titles. In her work, she is a regular user of the Freedom of Information Act, including winning a Data Journalism Award for investigative journalism for a story using FOI to find the number of children being placed in foster care away from their home area, and as a result is a strong supporter of the Act, and its importance in promoting transparency and accountability.

Moosa QureshiMoosa Qureshi is an NHS consultant in two busy NHS Trusts, treating patients with blood cancers but also engaging in service development. He studied Law with European Languages at the University of the West of England, Medicine at St George’s University London and completed a doctorate at Cambridge University, along the way he also worked at Fujitsu-Siemens as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. His interest in public accountability and data transparency was sparked by his work on legal campaigns supporting Dr Chris Day and Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, and more recently by leading the “CygnusReports.org” campaign for which he won the British Medical Journal’s annual award after working with Leigh Day Solicitors to uncover secret pandemic reports including Exercise Cygnus and Exercise Alice.

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