The Nuffield Foundation has appointed Mark Franks as Director of Welfare.
Mark will lead the development of the Foundation’s welfare research portfolio and contribute to the organisation’s strategic direction as part of the senior management team. He will join the Foundation on 25 June from the Office of Manpower Economics where he is Chief Economist.
The Nuffield Foundation funds research across three core domains of Education, Welfare and Justice, totalling around £10 million a year. Mark will take responsibility for development of the Welfare domain, which includes the role of family dynamics, employment, and the welfare of older people, as well as relationships between generations and geographical inequalities in the UK.
As part of the senior management team at the Office of Manpower Economics, Mark has played a central role in supporting the UK’s independent public sector pay bodies, whose recommendations affect the pay of 2.4 million workers, involving a paybill of more than £100 billion. He is also responsible for the Senior Salaries Review Body, which is concerned with the pay of the most senior public sector workers, and a current review of the judicial pay and grading structure.
Mark has occupied a number of economist and policy roles across Government, with a particular focus on the labour market. He has worked in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Home Office, HM Treasury and the Department for Education and Skills and also in economic consultancy.
Between 2012 and 2015, Mark was responsible for leading analysis for the government of science policy, innovation and the graduate labour market. Previously, he set up a new public sector body, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and led its secretariat for five years. The MAC’s advice was highly influential in developing policy in areas issues including criteria for economic migration, family migration and permanent settlement.
Mark Franks said:
“I am delighted to be joining the Nuffield Foundation and hugely looking forward to helping it to deliver its ambitious strategy and tangible and lasting impact in the welfare area.”
We are very pleased that Mark is joining us as Director of Welfare. Our five-year strategy sets out an ambitious programme of work to advance social well-being in the UK and we believe that Mark is the ideal candidate to lead our work in Welfare, one of the three core domains of that strategy.”Tim Gardam, Nuffield Foundation Chief Executive
