The Board

Graham Jones, Chairman of the information authority

Graham Jones is the former Principal and Chief Executive of Sutton Coldfield College. He has more than 20 years experience in senior further education roles and is a former schools and colleges Chief Inspector; a regional head of the Further Education Funding Council and an occasional columnist with the Times Educational Supplement.

His appointment as independent Chairman of the information authority was recommended by an interview panel comprising senior representatives from the Department for Education and Skills, Learning and Skills Council, the Association of Colleges and an independent assessor.

John Landeryou, Director of Learning, Quality and Systems, Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS)

Originally a teacher, John has been involved in post-16 work throughout his career, including curriculum development, advisory services and planning and funding. He has held senior positions in local authorities, the Trading Standards Council and the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI).

Immediately prior to joining BIS, John worked for Ofsted, where he led their post-16 and learning and skills work. He acted as Project Director for ALI's merger with Ofsted.

John has also chaired the governing body of a secondary school and served on a local authority education committee.

Jon is Operations Director of National Training Resources and prior to becoming one of its founding directors, was involved in training for some 24 years previously as chairman and board member of Fylde Training. With a broad knowledge of Government, TEC and EU funding policies, he has been involved with design and implementation of some conceptual programmes for small and medium enterprise (SME) business managers and employee development models.

Jon also oversees the Excellence in Learning division, and is the point of contact for major projects and LSC liaison.

Julian Gravatt, Assistant Chief Executive & Director of Research and Development, Association of Colleges (AoC)

Julian has been at the Association of Colleges (AoC) since 2003. Prior to his current role, Julian was the Director of Funding and Development at AoC, where he worked closely with principals, governors and finance directors to ensure that government and Learning and Skills Council decisions take accounts of the needs of colleges and the people they serve.

Julian has worked in the college sector since 1992, including eight years at Lewisham College and three years at the City Lit. He contributed to the transformation of Lewisham College in the 1990s and to the redevelopment of City Lit in the early 2000s.

Martin Lamb joing the Hampshire and Isle of Wight LSC as Area Director in May 2006 after working as Executive Director for the LSC in Berkshire. He has also served as Director for Young People's Learning at LSC National Office and was a Regional Director for the Further Education Funding Council.

Martin was originally trained as a teacher after studying chemistry at the University of Leeds, and then went on to work in education administration in local government.

Mario Ferelli, Head of Funding and Analytical Services, Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) 

Mario’s academic background is in Maths, Statistics and Operational Research and prior to joining HEFCE in 1991 he worked for Unilever Research modelling markets and the University of Lancaster in their Computing Department supporting their mathematics and statistics software.

He joined HEFCE as a principal analyst/statistician responsible amongst other things for designing and implementing the infrastructure to support data collection systems and funding models. Mario became the Head of Funding and Analytical Services at HEFCE in 1999.

Robert Pike, Chief Statistician, Ofsted

Robert Pike is Chief Statistician at Ofsted, with responsibility for ensuring that its statistics are produced to high standards. He is also Divisional Manager for Ofsted's Inspection Data and Information team, providing information to support inspection across the range of remits, including Learning and Skills.

Before joining Ofsted, Rob worked at the Office for National Statistics, where he was responsible for producing and disseminating the Consumer Prices Index and Retail Prices Index.

Robert Spano, Head of Research and Policy, GoSkills 

Robert Spano is Head of Research and Policy at GoSkills, the Sector Skills Council for the passenger transport sector, where he leads the research and policy functions. Having spent his career in market, media, opinion and social research with a variety of blue-chip employers and consultancies, including ITV and Honda (UK), he joined Automotive Skills at its formation and fulfilled skills research and policy roles at the Engineering and Technology Board and, since March 2009, at GoSkills.

Robert is also a member of the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils' LMI Strategic Group, and represents the Alliance on the board.

Mary Joyce, Director of Planning, Standards and Performance, Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK)

Mary Joyce is Director of Planning, Standards and Performance at LLUK, where she is now applying her experience of organisational and leadership development to broader workforce development issues in higher and further education. As part of the Centre of Excellence in Leadership, she designed and developed the ground-breaking Principals Qualifying Programme - a national leadership development programme for chief executives of FE colleges, which is now a successful part of the government's initiatives to increase the leadership capacity within the FE system.

Mary has held senior posts in both the health and eduation sectors, and has more than 13 years' experience at executive level as an education management practitioner, and was Director of Postgraduate Studies for eight years at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Tim Allen is Programme Director for Analysis and Research at the Local Government Association. Prior to that, Tim headed Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Rural Strategy and Research functions, worked in Treasury on the 2002 Comprehensive Spending Review, headed Corporate Strategy, Research and Corporate Governance for the former Countryside Agency, and was Regional Director East and West Midlands for the Countryside Commission leading work on environmental regeneration.

Earlier in his career, Tim led a number of pioneering experiments and programmes to ‘green’ agriculture, before which he worked as a property professional in public and private practice.

Tim is a Chartered Surveyor and a visiting professor at Birkbeck, London University.

Ian Pryce, Principal and Chief Executive, Bedford College

Ian Pryce has been Principal and Chief Executive of Bedford College since 1998, having joined the College in 1996 as Finance Director. 

He was previously a regional Finance Director at the Further Education Funding Council and has also worked as a Director or Senior Manager in retail, electricity generation and local government in Liverpool, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Northamptonshire. He is a member of the Institute of Directors, the accountancy body CIPFA, a member of the CBI Regional Council, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Councillor of City & Guilds.