Jo Williams

Dame Josephine 'Jo' Williams, DBE, DL (born 8 July 1948, Fishpool, Bury, Lancashire) was the chief executive of Mencap until 1 November 2008. She was chairman of the Care Quality Commission between 2010 and 2012.^[1]

Williams was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours for "services to people with learning disabilities".^[2]

An article in The Independent accuses Williams of using her authority as head of the CQC to carry out a campaign to smear fellow board member and whistle-blower Kay Sheldon, including commissioning a taxpayer funded psychiatric evaluation of Sheldon.^[3]

On 7 September 2012, Dame Jo Williams announced her resignation as Chair of CQC.^[4]

The CQC chair was forced to apologise to MPs after she reiterated her allegations about Sheldon before a Health Select Committee reviewing CQC accountability.^[5]

In May 2014 it was announced that Dame Jo Williams had been appointed as Independent Chair of the East Cheshire Caring Together Executive Board. However, the move was criticised by local councillors at the Cheshire East Council meeting on 14 May after they learned that the Council’s Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee had not even been notified of the appointment.^[6] On 15 May, Caring Together announced that Dame Williams and the Caring Together Executive Board had jointly decided that she would not be taking up the role.^[7]

Formerly known as Jo Dillon she changed her name to Williams (the name of her partner) whilst working as principal officer for Cheshire Social Services Department in the 1980s.. She progressed in seniority to become second in command before being promoted to Director of Social Services in Wigan. She later returned to Cheshire as Director of Social Services. When she took early retirement from this position she was appointed as chief executive of Mencap.

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