Janet was appointed in May 2006 as the inaugural Director of the SPA Programme, the UK’s leading, independent and objective voice on fair admissions to higher education. Janet leads a small team providing a central shared source of expertise and advice for higher education providers on strategy, policy and practice on a wide range of admissions issues. The programme is mainly publicly funded and its services and resources are free to institutions.

Janet leads the SPA research on contextual data and has worked on key areas including the applicant experience strategy, feedback, admissions tests and admissions policies. As Director, Janet’s strategic position brings SPA’s objective voice and expertise on fair admissions to the attention of leaders in HE and government. Previously, Janet was Head of the University of Cambridge Admissions Office, worked at the University of Leicester as Director of Admissions and Student Recruitment and in the 1980s at Leicester Polytechnic in a variety of posts including Head of Admissions.

Janet was a member of the HE sector led Delivery Partnership on improving the HE applications process and Professor Steven Schwartz’s task group that published the Fair Admissions to Higher Education report in 2004.