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Omar Faruk

Being able to contribute to the public good was a strong motivating force for Omar Faruk to become a GLS lawyer.

“By having an input to public law you’re making a real difference to society,” he says. “The GLS is one of the most professional legal services in the world and it’s a privilege to be part of it.”

Omar started legal life as a self-employed barrister before joining the GLS in April 2000. Since October 2003, he has been an adviser on various areas of the law for the Department for Work & Pensions and Department of Health. He currently advises on employment law.

“My job is very intellectually stimulating,” he says. “I work on employment contracts for top civil servants and NHS staff from abroad, I advise Ministers and Government Law Officers, and I liaise with colleagues across Government Departments. I also deal with everyday employment issues like redundancy and ill health retirement. It’s given me a strategic overview of how Government works. Not many lawyers get such breadth and quality of experience.”

Omar’s first GLS job was with the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate, where he gave legal advice to inspection teams investigating local authorities’ compliance in such areas as social security legislation.

“There were just two lawyers there, and we had a lot of authority,” he recalls. “The work was very interesting and I liked having a good work/life balance. My first son had been born four months before I started the job, and I was able to review reports at home on a regular basis. I couldn’t have done that in my two-and-a-half years at the Bar, where there was less security of work and income.”

While he was at the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate, Omar’s Director pointed him towards the Pathways Leadership Scheme run by the Cabinet Office, which identifies promising ethnic minority high fliers through a rigorous assessment process. “My application was successful and I was assigned the Home Secretary’s Principal Private Secretary as my mentor,” he says. “I also spent three months on secondment at the Home Office Race Equality Unit.”

In 2002, Omar also took up the opportunity to do a Government-sponsored MBA at Cranfield University, which he completed in June 2004. His thesis was the development of race relations law, and he is now one of the experts on this area of the law within the GLS. He is also an active member of the GLS Ethnic Minority Network Committee.

Undertaking the MBA helped Omar become a Non-Executive Director of the Homerton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where he has chaired the Audit Committee since April 2002. “It has given me an understanding of the practical context in which NHS trusts operate,” he says, “and it will hopefully help me move into more senior areas of GLS work weighted towards policy and operational management.”

At the time of writing, Omar was about to be seconded to the Department of Health as Manager of the National Leadership Network. “The Network is a key leadership forum for the next phase of NHS modernisation and reform,” he says. “I will be working to the Director of Development and Sir Nigel Crisp, Chief Executive of the NHS. It’s my first pure policy job and I am looking forward to the challenge of delivering this key initiative. One of the great strengths of the GLS is that it offers so much variety and scope, as well as the opportunity to diversify if you want to.”