WHEN Yorkshire County Cricket Club were rocked by allegations of racism, they called in one person who is known for taking tough decisions and effecting change through consensus. That man is Lord Patel of Bradford.
Few will forget the words of their former club captain, Azeem Rafiq, when he appeared in front of the media and sport select committee. In tears at times, Rafiq told the world what happened to him and how he as ignored by the club. Patel knew what was at stake, and he told a packed news conference at Headingly, “Racism or any form of discrimination is not banter.” Gentle, mild-mannered and polite he might be, but never, ever underestimate him.
He is much in demand, and my Lord Patel of Bradford, rarely says no to a request which would make the world a better place. Even on New Year’s Day 2021, at 11.57pm, this professorial fellow of mental and public health, engaged with the GG2 Power List. When we asked why he was still working at this time of night when most of us are in bed asleep, he responded “Old habits…!”
After 40 years of public service, anyone else would be thinking of retiring. Not Baron Kamlesh Kumar Patel of Bradford. You just have to read his back story to understand why.
If 2020 was a big milestone, then 2021 was such a huge moment it could change the face of sport in this country. This humble Yorkshireman, and he is fiercely proud of his county, had the previous year stepped down as deputy-chair and senior independent director of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB); celebrated his first term as chair of Social Work England (SWE); and took on some influential roles in the health and mental health sector, on top of being a much sought-after change management consultant and academic, as well as having duties as a working lifetime peer. We must also not forget he loves his movies, so being the deputy chair of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) may be more of a passion than a job? And he is patron to dozens of charities. Finally, he is an active hands-on grandfather. Now he was working 24-7 to save his club.
While most of us will spend seven hours a day in our job, this former ambulanceman and social worker will undertake regular 12-hour shifts.
He admits to easing up – it used to be 18 hours a day. Some concession.
“Hard work has never been an issue. That’s come from my mum and dad, the 24-seven-365 work concept,” he says. “They did their best to look after their children, and now, I hope, I’ve done my best to look after my children. I went on my first ever holiday, and I was forced on that, at the age of 30. I’ve never been one of those to lie on the beach for two weeks. If I go abroad, my laptop will be coming with me. I don’t advocate this for other people in terms of good mental well-being or a good balance of family life and work. I can give everybody all the best advice, but I just need to take some of it myself.”
That humble sense of humour is Patel’s trademark. His easy-going nature – he does not stand on ceremony – belies a steely resolve. He may remain ‘Kamlesh’, who came to the UK from Nairobi, Kenya, aged one-and-a-half, on a plane ticket which cost just over nine pounds, but he knows when and how to be serious. He saw his parents struggle when they left east Africa soon after Kenya’s independence leader, Jomo Kenyatta, came to power.
“The early 60s were a tough, tough time in the UK. My two brothers, my two sisters, my mum, dad and I lived in fairly difficult circumstances. A one-bedroom back-to-back terrace. No bathroom, a kitchen that was about two-foot-by-two-foot and an outside toilet.
“My dad really struggled to find work in those early years. There were lots of discrimination, blatant racism, and that made you look at the world through those, for want of a better word, migrant eyes, and the social inequality they faced.”
“My father was previously a maths teacher,” remembers Patel. “He was also a Brahmin priest, and he was quite talented actually. He was a master chef, and he used to cook some phenomenal meals. My mum looked after us when we came here, he could do none of that, and he spent his life cleaning buses. He got us out of poverty by actually using the skills he had as a priest as lots more Asian people came to the country, and he cooked for wedding parties.”
Seeing his parents work ethic, it is no surprise that Patel too began earning money early.
“I’ve been working since I was 16. Sweeping floors, working at the bar, a silver service waiter, sold life insurance, second-hand cars, a betting office manager and even did some accountancy for an employment agency. I worked hard in all of those jobs, and I wanted to be the best that I could be. I worked in the ambulance service which, like now, was difficult to manage on those salaries at that time.”
But it was his passion for social justice which marked Patel out. Eventually, at 27, he went to university and qualified as a social worker. He was a professor at three universities, and he has numerous honorary doctorates from esteemed higher education institutions. Patel set up the Centre for Ethnicity and Health, and the International School for Communities, Rights and Inclusion at the University of Central Lancashire. There he brought in more than £30 million in grants and employed 100 staff. Remarkably, he does not have a first or any kind of degree.
It was the peer’s pioneering work in drug use among south Asians, mental health and community engagement which propelled him to where he is today. Patel has been appointed to many government bodies and led a number of reviews. He persuaded the Blair administration to introduce an annual census on mental health patients, in 2005 for example.
The Patel report: Reducing drug-related crime and rehabilitating offenders in 2010 remains influential and cited as best practice in its field. So, it is little wonder the prime minister reappointed him for a second term, months before his old contract ended, to chair the body which regulates social workers.
“I was appointed in April 2018 to establish a brand-new specialist regulator whose duty includes registering everyone in England who uses the protected title of social worker. The protected title of social worker became legal in 2001. It’s had a chequered history, in terms of the regulation of the profession and, for a number of reasons, it didn’t work out. So, I think the social work profession, not only felt that it was on the backfoot for the last couple of decades, but also
experienced a number of childcare scandals.
“It was really important that we try to bring something to the social work profession in terms of raising standards, raising public awareness of the work they do. But most importantly, the regulator’s job is about protecting the public. We protect the public by ensuring the right quality of qualifications for people who want to become a social worker, that they continually develop their skills, continue to learn and remain fit to practice.”
Over the following 18 months, Patel engaged stakeholders, social workers, employers, unions, students and other regulators to create a new entity. Along with the appointment of a new board, a CEO, around 170 full time staff and 200 partners, they set about establishing and implementing its new professional standards. Patel’s team also had to build a new computer system from scratch, which went live on December 2, 2019, registering around 100,000 social workers in England.
“We’ve established processes which are very different to any other health and social care regulator. We did this by using our unique legislative powers to good effect and have developed an effective regulator in collaboration with the profession and those with lived experience. Our powers enable us to deal with fitness to practice cases far more efficiently involving professional social workers every step of the way, as well as independent people. The ultimate sanction is of course the ability to strike a social worker off the register, if it’s proven that they are not fit to practise.”
Covid-19 and the lockdown have not made SWE’s task any easier; despite the hurdle, it has employed, welcomed and supported 40 new staff since March 2020.
“We’re a little bit different. Very early on, we employed a team of people to work in each region of England. It was so important that we’re pro-active and not only work from our base in Sheffield, but that we also operate out in the regions, engaging with the networks of social workers, networks of students, networks of employers, picking up issues and helping develop answers and solutions.
“There is a fine balance. We’re not there to represent the professionals as a trade body. We’re there to regulate. But we believe by sharing good information, sharing good practice by working together, we can help improve the standards of social work practice. Social workers deliver an almost a hidden service. It’s easy to see nurses and doctors and the fantastic job they do, they’re on the frontline. Social workers are working with very, very complex human relationships in very trying circumstances.”
Patel also took on two influential roles in 2020, which can have huge ramifications for mental health services in the UK. He was appointed as senior independent board director and chair of Cygnet Health Care, a private provider of mental health care services across the UK. The organisation has 8,800 staff working across 150 services. He was also appointed as the first ever independent chair of the Independent Health Providers Network (IHPN). It represents over 80 of the key private and independent healthcare providers in the country.
“My way of working is never to say jump. It’s about saying, ‘I think we should probably cross that bridge, we should do it together, and these are reasons why we should do it’. I believe that it’s important to work with people and go on a journey together. It’s really important people recognise that what we need to do is the right thing, not simply about ticking boxes.
“With Cygnet, I’ve been pleasantly surprised in what is a difficult environment to work in. Cygnet looks after some of the most vulnerable and complex individuals in our society. It’s a tough job, and they’ve been very open to being challenged, to be questioned, and to work with me. In a very short space of time, by going on the journey with me, we’ve developed a whole suite of new procedures and processes.”
Anyone who knows Patel will tell you that he is a cricket-nut. Before the lockdown, he played, despite a plethora of injuries, and umpired. Speaking to the Power List, you sensed the wrench in stepping down from the ECB in August 2020.
“Looking back at the last five and a bit years spent at the ECB, they were phenomenal, I really enjoyed it,” he says grinning. “It was almost a childhood dream from wanting to be a cricketer – like most young people do, they think they’re good enough, and we’re obviously not – entering an organisation of the game that I am passionate about. And you could do something about it – improving grassroots cricket, you can improve access for young girls, young boys, people from different, communities, that was simply phenomenal.”
What legacy did he leave after so many years? “It’s not just my legacy, it’s the organisation’s legacy, and I played a part in it.
“Our idea was that cricket should be a game for everyone, no matter what your background, race or gender. I did a huge amount of work with a lot people to develop our south Asian action plan. It wasn’t simply a moral and ethical case. It actually was a business case when you consider over a third of all recreational cricket players in this country come from five or six per cent of the population.
“If you had a corner shop, and you’ve got thousands of people walking past your shop, looking through the window, some not coming in, some coming in, but not buying anything, and going back out again. Now, if you own that corner shop, you’d make sure you get those people in and sell something to them that they want to and can buy, and we were just not doing that. So, I think the engagement with the communities working with them, and this was going to be a long-term project, would be a legacy of sorts.”
Even when he has put things right at Yorkshire, you sense he will not go away. “I very much hope we’ll see more south Asians being trained and being selected to play for England. The talent is clearly there, and when a third of your players in recreational cricket are from a particular ethnic group you would imagine, simple maths would say, a third of them should be hitting the highest ranks at international level.
“Of course, it’s not as simple as that. There are lots of barriers and challenges, but I think it’s a long-term process of overcoming some of those barriers, challenges, perceptions, and changing that so we can see many more people, reflective of the society we live in."