The Natspec Awards is judged by an independent panel of judges. The main judging panel is as follows:
- Jim Aleander (Chair)
- Nigel Evans
- Lorraine Mulroney
- Tim Coughlan
- Laura Davis
- David Holloway
- Richard Caulfield
- Megan Kenny
Meet the Judges
Jim Aleander
Jim Aleander is a former college principal and governor of further education colleges. He served Portland College, near Nottingham, as a trustee and governor for many years. In his professional work he has supported governors of specialist colleges in their strategic and improvement planning. He was also a National Leader of Governance for the Association of Colleges throughout the time the AoC provided that service.
Jim is currently a Public Governor at NHS Nottinghamshire Healthcare Foundation Trust, a large and diverse mental health, learning disability and community health provider.
Nigel Evans
From 2007 until 2018 Nigel was one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors for learning and skills, he was also Ofsted’s national lead for learners with high needs. During his time at Ofsted he worked on many projects relating to learners with learning difficulties including leading Ofsted’s survey report Moving Forward, on how well the Children and Families Act was being implemented. Before becoming an inspector, Nigel had extensive experience in further education. He developed and managed a range of innovative programmes for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities, young people excluded from schools, those in need of social, emotional and behavioural support and adults with mental health difficulties and people returning to, or entering employment. Since 2018 Nigel has worked with a wide of learning and skills providers supporting these organisations with quality improvement, restructuring and capacity building. When not working within the education sector Nigel works for the Bristol International Jazz and Blues Festival.
I am very excited about being involved in the Natspec awards; Natspec has always been at the forefront of encouraging and supporting the best educational practice for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities, and these awards are a fantastic way of celebrating innovation and excellence in specialist further education
Lorraine Mulroney
Lorraine Mulroney is the Head of SEND in NHS England. She leads the National SEND team and programme.
Lorraine is passionate about joint working across education, health and care, she works closely with colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education and many other stakeholders from National to local level.
2025 is classified as Lorraine’s 34th year in the NHS. As a graduate of the Nye Bevan Executive Leadership Programme Lorraine is proud to work in the NHS.
From 2016 to 2021 Lorraine worked as the Senior Nurse for Children and Young People in NHS England and held SEND in her portfolio. She has previously held clinical nursing roles across hospitals and community settings. Prior to moving to her national role she focused her career on improvement and commissioning at a local and regional level.
Tim Coughlan
Dr Tim Coughlan is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University. He has extensive experience in teaching and research around accessibility and support for disabled learners. Tim chairs the Open University’s Securing Greater Accessibility (SeGA) Coordination Group, which provides a pan-university forum for enhancing accessibility, and the Tuition Accessibility Group. He also led the creation of the postgraduate microcredential: Accessibility and Inclusive Learning.His research has explored how to design new technologies that remove barriers and enhance learning. This has included Our Journey, a platform to support students to represent and reflect on their study journeys, and ADMINS, a project that created and evaluated a first-of-its-kind virtual assistant to support disabled students to share information and learn more about support for their studies. Other recent research projects explore the experiences of online and open learning for disabled students, using artificial intelligence to guide staff in colleges to enhance their assistive technology provision, the uses of open data and open educational resources for learning, and the ways in which virtual reality simulations can support healthcare education. Prior to his current role, Tim was a Horizon Research Fellow and Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, where he was involved in a range of research projects exploring how we enable participation and creativity through new technology.
David Holloway
Laura Davis
Laura Davis has been working to improve the employment outcomes for individuals who are excluded from the workforce for over 20 years. Passionate in the belief that employment should be for all, Laura has been the CEO of the British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) and Inclusive Trading CIC since May 2022.
She’s committed to widening the participation of disadvantaged people in the workforce and raising the visibility of inclusive recruitment and the benefits it brings for individuals, community and society.
Richard Caulfield
Richard is Senior Policy Manager for Greater Manchester Colleges and works for the nine general further education colleges, helping to drive collaboration between the colleges and partner agencies including Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Richard has led on the delivery of the Local Skills Improvement Fund and also the ground-breaking Greater Manchester Further Education Innovation Programme, the first major investment by InnovateUK aimed at driving business innovation through the FE infrastructure in place.
Prior to joining GMColleges, Richard was NW Area Director for the Association of Colleges and National Lead for Mental Health, introducing the first FE Mental Health Charter. Prior to that he worked in the voluntary sector with nearly ten-year’s experience as a chief executive at Salford CVS and Voluntary Sector NW.
Richard is a committed volunteer and, as well as his role as a judge for the Natspec Innovation Awards, he is a trustee of The Mustard Tree in Manchester and mentor for a care leaver through Pure Insights in Stockport.