Shokat joins the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) from Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council where he has worked since May 2020 as Executive Director of Core Services, Deputy Returning Officer and Senior Information Risk Owner.

Overseeing a directorate of nearly 900 people, he is responsible for IT, Customer Services, Human Resources and Organisational Development, Legal, Elections, Governance Services, Finance, Revenues and Benefits, Audit, Commercial, Communications and Marketing – in addition to overseeing the council’s transformation programme.

For the previous four years, Shokat was Assistant Chief Executive at Rotherham Council where he was part of the senior leadership team responsible for bringing the council out of intervention. This followed three years at Coventry City Council as Assistant Director for Human Resources and Workforce Services.

Shokat also worked as a lay member and non-executive director for various NHS boards and was most recently Vice Chair and Lay Board Member at Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group from 2013 to 2019.