Regulatory Tribunal

Greg Hammond - Independent Tribunal member

Greg Hammond's professional background was in the Royal Air Force, which he left in the rank of Group Captain. After ten years' operational flying on the E-3D AWACS aircraft, his later appointments included Station Commander of RAF Fylingdales, Deputy Commandant of the RAF College Cranwell and Head of Intelligence for a deployable headquarters, in addition to a number of jobs in and around the centre of government. He currently also sits as a Lay Panel Member and Panel Chair for the Nursing and Midwifery Council's Fitness-to-Practise Committee; is a volunteer facilitator for the Windsor Leadership Trust charity; and is Councillor for Courtfield ward in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Alison Sansome - Independent Tribunal Chair and Tribunal member

Alison was Chief Operating Officer at the Nursing and Midwifery Council until April 2017, with overarching responsibility for regulatory functions, especially registration and fitness to practise. A former Senior Civil Servant, she led transformative change programmes and delivered support services to Veterans of the Armed Forces and subsequently gained private sector experience in technology provision.  She now has a non-executive portfolio with a standards or regulatory focus, which includes Non-Executive Board Member roles at the Office of the Public Guardian, the Office for Legal Complaints and the Fire Standards Board, as well as Panel/Committee roles at the Phone-paid Services Authority and the General Optical Council. She is also a non-legal member of the Employment Tribunal (England & Wales).

Nick Hawkins - Independent Tribunal Chair and Tribunal member

Nick served in the Royal Navy for 22 years at sea and ashore, qualifying as a barrister mid-career. He prosecuted, defended and sat as Judge Advocate at Courts Martial. He then spent 15 years in the Crown Prosecution Service as a Chief Crown Prosecutor, appearing in all Courts personally prosecuting every type of offence from murder to minor motoring offences. After a year in the IPCC he finished his public sector career with two years as Chief Executive of the Legal Ombudsman. He is now a member of Normanton Chambers and undertakes criminal justice consultancy in the UK and overseas. He is a Legally Qualified Chair for Police Misconduct Hearings.  He is a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee for Warwickshire and the West Midlands.

Patrick Bligh-Cheesman - Independent Tribunal member

Patrick spent some thirty years in the Trading Standards profession culminating with ten years as Head of Service with one of the larger local authorities. After taking early retirement, he was asked to set up a regional trading standards team serving London, the East and South-East of England to tackle rogue trading. Later, similar schemes were rolled out across other regions. He was an inaugural member of the Surveyors Ombudsman Service Member Board when RICS set up the service in 2007 and later a lay member of the Ombudsman Services Property Liaison Panel. He was an Independent Director and Interim Chair of Cilex Regulation throughout the period when they applied for and gained the authority to issue practice rights in reserved legal activities and to regulate entities.

Patrick is a former director of Bournemouth and Poole Citizens Advice, now Citizens Advice Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. He is also a former Lay Member of the Investigations Panel of the Architects Registration Board.

Currently, Patrick is a Lay Member of the Professional Conduct Committee of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a member of the Consumer Panel for the Phone Paid Services Authority.

Ron Barclay-Smith MA MPhil MBA - Independent Tribunal member

Ron Barclay-Smith served for 20 years in the Royal Air Force Regiment in command and staff appointments in the UK and overseas in light armour, parachute and Rapier specialisations until he left ithe Service in 1992. Subsequently, he held a number of CEO and chair appointments in the Public, private and third sectors before retiring in 2017. Ron is currently Chair of the British Transport Police Authority, which holds the British transport Police (BTP) to account.

Sue Heads - Independent Tribunal member

Sue Heads spent 25 years working in professional regulation with the Solicitors Regulation Authority before leaving in 2015. She now sits as a magistrate for the Coventry and Warwickshire Bench, as a member of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Fitness to Practice Panel and as a member of the Bar Standards Board Conduct Committee. She has also undertaken a number of voluntary roles in the community.

Angela Brown - Independent Tribunal Chair and Tribunal member

Angela has a scientific background and over 20 years’ experience working for a local authority and a range of NHS Trusts across the North East and Yorkshire, covering learning disabilities, community and mental health and ambulance services. Her involvement in clinical negligence and patient safety led her to become a trustee of Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA) in 2012, and she is now Treasurer and chairs their Finance and Investment Committee.  She is a Lay Panel Member of the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) Professional Conduct Panel, a Lay Member of the Registration, Conduct and Fitness to Practise Committees of the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), and a Lay Panel Member of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).  She is also a lay school appeals panellist for Newcastle and does occasional work for the College of Policing as an external assessor for senior appointments.

Jane Bishop - Independent Tribunal member

Jane lives in Queensland, Australia. She has formal qualifications in law, psychology, philosophy and nursing. She worked in various mental health settings before joining the Australian Public Service in 2000. In 2004 Jane was admitted as a lawyer of the Supreme Court of Queensland and in 2007 she was appointed as a Member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal. In 2012 she was appointed as a Member of the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunal. Those Tribunals were amalgamated into the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in 2015 and Jane sat as a Member on that Tribunal until 2017. In 2014 Jane was appointed as a Legal Member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal (Queensland) and was reappointed in 2017.

Richard Bayly - Independent Tribunal member

Richard Bayly is a former senior police officer with considerable experience in strategic leadership and change management through a range of operational and organisational roles. Richard is a Trustee for the Albert Kennedy Trust, a national charity supporting LGBT 16-25 year olds who are made homeless or who are living in a hostile environment.  Richard undertakes regulatory roles for a number of organisations and was appointed to the RICS Tribunal in November 2017.

Rosalyn Hayles - Independent Tribunal member

Rosalyn Hayles is the Chief Executive and Registrar of the General Chiropractic Council.  Having qualified as a solicitor originally, Rosalyn has worked in the regulatory field for several years, principally in senior roles overseeing the investigation and adjudication of disciplinary (fitness to practise) cases within various statutory regulators.  Prior to joining the GCC Rosalyn worked for nearly six years as the Director of Scrutiny & Quality at the oversight body for the regulation of health and care professionals, the Professional Standards Authority.

Sally Ruthen - Independent Tribunal Chair and Tribunal member

Sally is a qualified mediator.  She worked as a civil litigation solicitor for a number of years, but is now non-practising.  Since 2005, she has been involved in regulatory work in various fields, including chairing fitness to practise hearings for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and lay membership of the Audit Registration Committee for the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales.  As well as working as a mediator, commercially and in the field of Special Educational Needs, Sally is currently a lay chair for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (disciplinary, membership and complaints hearings) and a Court of Protection Visitor for the Office of the Public Guardian. 

Ben Davies BSc (Hons) MSc FRICS CMIRM MBCI - Professional Tribunal member

Ben Davies is Group Head of Risk & Compliance at Dar Group. Dar Group is a leading professional services group internationally recognized and regularly placed in the top 10 of Engineering News Record’s Top 225 International Design Firms. Dar Group operates from 297 offices in 60 countries and has approximately 18,000 staff. Before taking up his role in Dar Group, he was Group Risk & Compliance Director at Currie & Brown, a member of Dar Group. Previous roles include Governance, Risk & Controls Manager at EDF Energy Nuclear New Build, Programme Risk Manager on the London 2012 Olympic Games with Mace and Corporate Risk Manager at WS Atkins. Ben originally qualified as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor, is a Fellow of the RICS and holds an MSc in Risk Management from Southampton University.

Dr Stephen Moore DBEnv MSc DipProjMan FRICS FCIOB MCIArb - Professional Tribunal member.

Stephen is a quantity surveyor, project manager and academic with professional and industry experience spanning over 50 years. He has expertise in private practice, consultancy and board-level executive roles alongside professional training and research. His academic research focuses on the scope and effect of professional training for surveyors and the changing demands of professional practice in construction. Currently Stephen is a regulated sole practitioner providing commercial and contract support advice to a variety of organisations in the built environment sector. As a Fellow of RICS and the CIOB, Stephen has contributed to upholding professional standards as a past member of RICS Governing Council and a current CIOB examination marker. Also for over 20 years now he has been an RICS accredited APC assessor, mentor and trainer.

Mark Griffin - Professional Tribunal member

Mark Griffin is a Chartered Land Surveyor with a strong project management background in Land Administration, Land Surveying and Geographical Information Systems. Mark thrives on diversity having gained most of his work (and life) experience in an international, multi-cultural environment in both the public and private sectors.

Mark has worked in several senior management and international board roles and as an independent consultant. He has over 35 years’ experience influencing the oil & energy, real estate, and government industries in Europe, the Near East, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Often operating in intense, highly political, and unpredictable environments, Mark combines his technical expertise with political shrewdness and a pragmatic approach.

Mark was a founder member of the Deutscher Verband Chartered Surveyors in 1994 and RICS Bermuda in 1997 serving as Chair of RICS Bermuda from 2002 to 2004 and as a RICS Americas Director from 2002 to 2004. He was one of the first cohort of RICS Licensed Assessor Trainers. Mark was a member of the RICS Geomatics Global Professional Group Board from 2008 until it was dissolved in 2019.

Mark is currently Director and Principal International Consultant at Griffin GEO Ltd providing strategic and technical advice and project management services worldwide.

Nick Turner FRICS - Professional Tribunal Chair and Tribunal member

Nick Turner is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).  Having qualified in 1981 he was a member of Council of the Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers, chairman of its Estate Agency committee and Professional Practise committee. A former Chairman of its Junior Members Organisation and founding member of the Young Professionals Group, which brought together Solicitors, Accountants, Actuaries, Barristers, Surveyors, Valuers and Auctioneers. He assumed RICS membership in January 2000. He currently serves as a member of the Exeter RICS association and is a past chairman. A West Countryman through and through, born in Somerset he studied Estate Management in Southampton. Following qualification he practised in Gloucestershire with a leading firm of would now be called a multi disciplinary firm of Chartered Surveyors dealing with weekly livestock markets, surveys and valuations, together with country house sales and conducted property auctions. A move to a major international surveying company in London preceded his appointment as area director for a national firm of Estate agents, Surveyors and Auctioneers in Exeter.

In 1994 Nick set up his present Property Search, Buying & Relocation Company as he was conscious that there were very few if anybody doing it that was professionally qualified. The aim was to give clients a first class service with the ability to look at the property holistically and advise clients accordingly. In 2021 Nick became a consultant to his firm  passing the mantle to his colleagues.

Nick Gray FRICS - Professional Tribunal member

Nick Gray is a chartered Quantity Surveyor with over twenty-five year’s post-qualification experience. He commenced his career in the construction industry with a leading UK construction group followed by a period in private practice before joining one of the ‘big 4’ accountancy firms. Nick joined Faithful+Gould limited in 1997 and is now Managing Director of its North; Scotland and Ireland business. Nick has worked extensively in the field of project finance particularly PFI/PPP where he has advised investors on a number of major projects across the UK and in Scandinavia; Canada; Singapore and Australia. He has given evidence to the High Court as an expert witness in relation to construction disputes and has undertaken multiple Adjudications whilst a member of the RICS DRS Adjudication panel. Nick served for five years on the RICS UK and Ireland regulatory sub-board and is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Chartered Institute of Building.

Paul Watkinson FRICS - Professional Tribunal Chair and Tribunal member

Paul is an Executive Director at CBRE responsible for business development and client care in the UK and EMEA valuation business. He works closely with teams in the US and Asia Pacific to manage and support some of the largest global clients for the business. A chartered surveyor with 25 years of commercial real estate experience Paul originally trained as a valuer at CBRE before joining GE Capital  in several Risk Management roles. Prior to returning to CBRE in 2017 Paul was the Chief Risk Officer of the GE Capital Real Estate business in Asia Pacific based in Tokyo. Managing a team of around 30 professionals he had responsibility for overseeing a $12bn portfolio of equity investments and debt positions from a Risk Management perspective. With assets across Australia, Japan, Korea and South East Asia the role incorporated credit, underwriting, portfolio management, policy & procedure and audit management reporting into the Global board in the US. Following the strategic decision to divest of the real estate business Paul was part of a management team that executed the liquidation of the portfolio and dismantling of the businesses in Asia. He subsequently returned to the UK supporting the EMEA GE Capital business overseeing a Polish business disposition before leaving GE in 2017. In his time at GE he also held Risk Management and Underwriting roles in UK/EMEA prior to the move to Asia Pacific. While based in Japan Paul was an active member of the RICS, part of the working group that established RICS Japan and subsequently sitting as its Chair. He worked closely with the RICS Asia Pacific team through that period and maintained strong links with the executive team in London. Previously Paul has sat as an APC Assessor for the RICS and continues to be passionate around promoting the highest professional standards and ensuring that the RICS is relevant into the future.

Mohamed Shehata - Professional Tribunal member

Mohamed is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor (FRICS) with over 17 years of experience in real estate and construction strategy, development, and project delivery with experience managing internal and external resources.

Mohamed has significant international experience having operated in Europe (UK, Latvia, Romania, Malta), the Middle East & North Africa (Egypt, UAE) and North America. This sharpened his business focus, people skills, and gave him an awareness of cultural sensitivity, and ability to work in cross-cultural, multi-national, team-based environments.

In Mohamed’s current role as Vice President, he leads a high performing Cost Management team in New York, for Cumming Group, which is a Private Equity (PE) backed, international construction consultancy specializing in Project Management and Cost Management, where he works closely with all levels of team members, in a matrix work environment within the organization, to perform cost management and project management consulting services for Architects, Engineers, Lenders, Investors, Developers, and Owners, in multi-billion-dollar, high profile projects. This is a Regional leadership role (East Region) with P&L responsibilities.

Mohamed is a strong believer that Quantity Surveying is one of the most rewarding professions in the Real Estate and Construction Industry, that's why he founded W6 Partners (www.w6partners.com) which is a 100% online learning platform, that is focused on supporting Quantity Surveyors to become successful in the first years of their Career.

Mohamed is also an Assessor with RICS North America for Assessment of Professional Competence, ensuring that only those who fulfil the RICS ethical standards and professional competency requirements become qualified professionals.

Peter Scott - Professional Tribunal member