After graduating in Law at Trinity College, Dublin, Bernadette came to Edinburgh in 1986 to study Criminology at Edinburgh University. She completed her M.Sc in Legal Studies (Criminology) in 1987.

She began her career in January 1988 working on multi-agency crime prevention and community safety initiatives: Firstly as Co-ordinator of the Craigmillar Crime Prevention Initiative, and then as Assistant Co-ordinator of the Safer Edinburgh Project, one of 5 demonstration projects in the Scottish Office's Safer Cities Programme.

She then worked as a researcher in the Criminology branch of the Scottish Office Central Research Unit and Research Fellow in the Centre for the Child and Society at Glasgow University.

She became a Senior Manager with Sacro in 1998 and took up her current post as Chief Executive of Apex Scotland in March 2002.

Bernadette had nine years experience as a children's panel member - from 1989 until 1998 and was a member of the Visiting Committee for HMYOI Polmont.

She is a member of the Sentencing Commission for Scotland, the Criminal Law Committee of the Law Society of Scotland and the Secretary of the Edinburgh branch of SASO(Scottish Association for the Study of Offending).

She also represents Apex Scotland on:

• The National Advisory Board for Offender Management
• Advisory Group for Edinburgh University Study of Youth Transitions and Crime
• Edinburgh Common Purpose Advisory Group
• Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector Forum
• Scottish Consortium on Crime and Criminal Justice
• The Board of Families Outside
• Board of the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum

Mike McCarron from 2000 to 2005 was the Coordinator or Greater Glasgow Drug Action Team and Chair of the Greater Glasgow Drug Action Team Training and Employment Sub Group which brought together agencies involved in drugs, alcohol, homelessness, offending and mental health.

He helped coordinate applications for the Big Lottery New Opportunity Fund which resulted in a range of community projects assisting recovering drug users to access improved employability skills and employment.

He contributed to the development of the Glasgow Equal Access Strategy and the Scottish Executive Employability Framework.

Since summer 2005, he is employed as the National Officer for The Drug Action Team Association in Scotland where he leads development on issues relating to social reintegration i.e. education, training and employment.

Charlie Husband, OBE

Charlie Husband is the former Head of New Deal for Jobcentre Plus in Scotland. A career Civil Servant he spent some 35 years helping unemployed people of all categories but especially people at a disadvantage into employment. He joined the then Ministry of Labour in 1967 working in his local Labour Exchange in Bridgeton, Glasgow and worked his way up through its successor Departments at Jobcentre, Office for Scotland and Head Office levels until his early retrial in 2002. For much of that time he was involved in the development and implementation of programmes for young and longer term unemployed people including offenders beginning with the Job Creation Programme in 1978. In 1997 he was appointed the Head of the New Deal Team in Scotland to co-ordinate the introduction of firstly the New Deal for young unemployed, then long term unemployed and successive New Deals including those for women and for people aged 60+. His services to Education and Employment were recognised in the award of an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List 2000.

Ricardo Mobsby

Ricky retired from BT as a Human Resources Manager. He was responsible for the delivery of BT’s internal HR delivery for a major part of the organisation. He has been involved with Apex Scotland for more than ten years. He became aware of the organisation when in his capacity as redeployment manager for BT Scotland when asked to assist in the assessment of individuals who had few basic skills and helped Apex Scotland with the development of an aptitude test for their clients. He became a member of the NAC and latterly chaired the committee until it was dispersed. He has assisted the organisation with the development of HR practices and procedures and performance measures - internal and external.

David Coulter

As a geographer/planner, David has experience of local government, new towns and economic development agencies.

In 1973-74 he worked in the Planning Department of Aberdeen City Council and from 1974- 1976 he worked for East Kilbride New Town Development Corporation.

In 1976, he joined the Scottish Development Agency (SDA) and from then until 1986 worked on the Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal (GEAR) project - at that time, the largest concentration of multiple deprivation in Western Europe.

Between 1986-90, he worked on various area-based projects including Inverclyde and the Vale of Leven - areas which had experienced major economic restructuring.

In 1990, he joined the Scottish Enterprise network as Property/Environment Director with Dunbartonshire Enterprise. His responsibilities included property development, environmental renewal and the development and implementation of the company’s Community Regeneration Strategy.

In September 96, he was seconded to Scottish Enterprise National to undertake a review its Access to Opportunity objective. In 1999, he became Head of Inclusion within SE’s Skills Directorate responsible for strategy formulation and policy development in relation to Economic Inclusion.

Chris Hawkes

Chris has worked in the field of Criminal Justice since 1972. He has been employed in three jurisdictions as a Probation Officer, Senior Probation Officer, Acting Chief Probation Officer and as a Criminal Justice Group Manager since moving to Scotland in 1991. Chris is currently employed by Scottish Borders Council.

Chris served for five years on the APEX National Advisory Board before joining the Board of Directors in 2005.

David Strang, QPM BSc MSc

David Strang has been Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary since August 2001 and was President of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) from 1 July 2004 to July 2005. He is now the Chair of the ACPOS Criminal Justice Business Area and the ACPOS representative on the National Criminal Justice Board.

Prior to taking up his post as ACPOS President, Mr Strang was the Chairman of the ACPOS General Policing Standing Committee. He was a member of the McInnes Committee reviewing summary justice in Scotland.

He is strongly committed to community policing and to building relationships at all levels. In Dumfries and Galloway he chairs the Alcohol and Drug Action Team and the Youth Justice Strategy Group. He is an active member of a number of region-wide partnerships.

Before his appointment as Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, he worked in Edinburgh as Assistant Chief Constable in Lothian and Borders Police. There he was responsible for all policing in the city of Edinburgh, including a number of high profile events such as the Millennium Hogmanay Street Party celebrations.

He was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal in Her Majesty’s Golden Jubilee Birthday Honours in 2002. He is currently a member of the Sentencing Commission, which was established in November 2003.

Mr Strang was brought up in Glasgow and began his police career with the Metropolitan Police in London in 1980. He served in a variety of posts, in uniform and in CID, working mostly in North and Central London. His final post there was as Divisional Commander (Chief Superintendent) of Wembley Division in North West London.

He holds a BSc degree in Engineering Science from the University of Durham and an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Birkbeck College, University of London.

Sheriff Brian G Donald

Educated at St Andrews University and qualified as a solicitor in Edinburgh (1967); taught English in Rome for two years before resuming practice as a solicitor in Edinburgh (1972); partner in J&A Hastie SSC Edinburgh Glasgow and Galashiels from 1974 specialising in civil litigation (medical negligence specialist for Law Society of Scotland); member of the Government's Stewart Committee on Alternatives to Prosecution 1978 to 1983; taught civil advocacy and was course administrator Edinburgh University 19881 to 1991; founder member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board 1986 to 1991; Recreations feature music, travel, food and wine and foreign languages (fairly fluent French and Italian and fair German); part-time Sheriff from 1984 to 1999 and then resident Sheriff Kirkcaldy 1999 to date; presiding over Drug Court pilot in Fife courts since 2002 and over permanent Drug Court from 2006; resides happily in Edinburgh's New Town but also, as often as possible in his house in Provence!

Elizabeth Carmichael (Observer)

Elizabeth has worked in policy posts in Education, Health, Finance and on Voluntary Sector issues before taking up her present post in the Justice Department 6 years ago.

As head of Community Justice Services Division, she is responsible for the policy on community sentences and community supervision of offenders and for the framework for delivering criminal justice social work services. Elizabeth has just taken over responsibility for operation of the 8 new Community Justice Authorities, for the National Advisory Body and for the national strategy for reducing reoffending and she chairs the Reference Group which has helped to steer through the new arrangements in the Management of Offenders etc. (Scotland) Act 2005. She developed the new enhanced throughcare policy, is responsible for co-ordinating the Executive’s programme of work to reduce the risk from sex offenders and set up and chairs the Tripartite Group which encourages partnership working between local authorities and the Scottish Prison Service. In all of these matters, she is responsible for policy development, funding the service and ensuring delivery. In her time in this post, she has overseen the establishment of the Glasgow and Fife Drug Courts, the Hamilton and Airdrie Youth Courts, the setting up the Accreditation Panel and she manages the programme to develop programmes for accreditation as part of the programme to promote effective practice.