Anthony Douglas has been Chief Executive of Cafcass, the specialist national agency representing children and families in family courts throughout England, since 2004. Cafcass supports more than 100,000 children in public and private law cases every year.

Prior to this he was Director of Social Services in the London Borough of Havering, where he was also Director of Housing, Leisure, Libraries and Neighbourhood Services, and in Suffolk, where he was Director of Social Care and Health Services.

He was an Economist and then a Journalist prior to becoming a Social Worker. He has written four books on UK social care and is writing a fifth on resilience. He has led on many specific national programmes, including at present the implementation of the Public Law Outline, aimed at improving family court-based services to vulnerable children in England and Wales, and as a member of the Expert Group advising the Government’s Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children.

He is a Visiting Fellow of the University of East Anglia and Chair of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Anthony was awarded a CBE in 2008 for services to family justice and adoption.