Nigel Richardson

Director of Children’s Services
City of Leeds, England

Nigel Richardson joined Leeds as director of children’s services at the end of September 2010.  Over the following years he has led the service through a period of significant improvement, putting children and young people at the heart of the city’s growth strategy.   Leeds’ 2015 Ofsted report highlighted ‘outstanding’ ‘inspirational’ and ‘confident’ leadership and significantly improved outcomes for children, young people and families. Before joining Leeds, Nigel was director for children’s services in Hull where he helped the city pursue its position as the world’s first Restorative City.

Nigel’s career in public service began over 30 years ago working with young offenders. Since then he has held a wide variety of roles across a number of social care and local government settings. He has also held a range of key leadership roles including director of social services and director of social and housing service.

Nigel has advised on national policy and practice development in England and Wales as well as internationally.  He spent 18 months working with Lord Laming on the Victoria Climbie inquiry.

Over a number of years and throughout his different leadership and advisory roles, Nigel has been consistent in applying three key approaches to his work: putting the child at the heart of everything we do; working restoratively with families, doing things with them, not to them or for them and practically applying Mark Friedman’s outcomes based accountability methodology to test what difference is actually being made to families and ensure a relentless focus on improving outcomes.

Nigel is married with four sons aged 18–25 who keep him on his toes, he became a proud grandfather for the first time in 2014!  In his current leadership role he has set out his ambition for Leeds to become a Child Friendly City to make a positive difference to the lives of over 180,000 children and young people.