Insider know-how

Francine Bates’s voluntary sector career has spanned more than 20 years. But the knowledge she brings to her latest role as chief executive of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID), has been bolstered by a three-year spell “on the inside” of Whitehall, as special adviser to former Children’s Secretary Ed Balls.

Sitting in a meeting room of her central London offices on a warm spring afternoon, Bates recalls her first meeting with Balls in 2004, when she was chief executive of the disabled children’s charity, Contact a Family.

“I had originally lobbied Ed before he became an MP, when he himself had just finished his stint as special adviser to Gordon Brown,” she explains. “He was speaking at a Daycare Trust conference but didn’t mention the issues facing parents of disabled children in relation to childcare, so I took the opportunity to lobby him after the speech. To his credit, he said he absolutely wanted to understand the issues more fully. He asked me to organise a meeting between himself and parents of disabled children, which we managed to do.”