Alan Billings

Alan Billings is a member of the Youth Justice Board and is a retired Anglican priest. He was also the director of the Centre for Ethics and Religion at Lancaster University. He contributes regularly to the programme Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4. Active in local government, he was a member of the Home Office Community Cohesion Panel, served as a schools adjudicator and was Chair of the Cumbria Courts Board.

Alan Billings was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge University and subsequently trained to become a teacher while attending Bristol University. After time spent teaching in Leicester and Barnsley, he trained to become a priest and following ordination served at several churches including St Silas Leicester and St Marys in Sheffield. While in Sheffield he was Deputy Leader of Sheffield City Council and was a contemporary of David Blunkett. At this time in the late 1980s, Sheffield city council was engaged in infamous disputes with Margaret Thatcher. During this period he gained a doctorate by carrying out research that ultimately contributed to the controversial anti Thatcherite report Faith in the City. For a period, he was the Principal of the West Midlands Ministerial Training Course, a part-time course for ordinands of the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, based at The Queen's College, Birmingham. Latterly he was the vicar of St George's Kendal in Cumbria, England.

Alan Billings has written several books: Dying and Grieving, Secular Lives Sacred Hearts and God and Community Cohesion

Police and Crime Commissioner

In 2014, Rev. Dr Alan Billings was selected as the Labour candidate for the South Yorkshire Police and crime commissioner by-election, to replace the former PCC and Rotherham councillor Shaun Wright. He was elected to the position with just over 50% of first preference votes.^[1]

References

External links

• Youth Justice Board