Ross Mackay

Advisory Board Member

Principal Advisor
Social Development Policy and Knowledge Group
Ministry of Social Development

Ross has worked for the Ministry of Social Development, and its predecessor organisations, for 30 years, including ten years as Director of Research. In 1997, he was seconded to the International Social Security Association in Geneva, where he organised an international research conference on social security in Jerusalem. The secondment led to his involvement in a cross-national study of welfare reform, from which three books have been published.

In his role as Principal Advisor, Ross provides consultancy advice to Ministry staff across a range of work areas, focusing on research and evaluation work and how knowledge deriving from this can be utilised in policy. In recent years, he has published papers on a range of topics, including welfare reform, patterns of family formation and change, family functioning and the impact of family change on child outcomes. He is a long-standing member of the Editorial Board of the Social Policy Journal.