He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, both since 2002.
He is a Trustee of the (Desmond) Tutu Foundation UK with responsibility for research and evaluation, and a Trustee of Community First Yorkshire, an umbrella NGO focusing on rural development work in Yorkshire.
He was, till its recent closure, Trustee of Unchosen, an NGO dedicated to making short educational films about aspects of modern slavery.
He is co-convenor of the Modern Slavery Research Consortium (modern-slavery-research@googlegroups.com), a network of more than 500 organisations and individuals working through research, practice and policy change to address modern slavery; and Chair of the North East Regional Race Equality Forum (NEREF) a network of 350+ organisations and individuals addressing issues of racism in the North East region.
He is Vice-Chair of the North Yorkshire and York Modern Slavery Partnership and a member of the Human Trafficking Foundation advisory group.
He has been a keynote speaker and/or Chair at very many national and international conferences, and has had spells working abroad in Ghana, Uganda, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.
In 2000, he was awarded with a ‘Man of Yorkshire’ award by Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency, for his significant contribution to researching economic and social issues in the region.
In 2014 he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award by the Social Policy Association and, at a ceremony at the Foreign Office, with the Marsh award for his ‘outstanding individual contribution to the fight against modern slavery’, presented by then-Home Secretary Theresa May.
He was Chair of Newton on Ouse Parish Council, North Yorkshire from 2010-2014.
