Andrew Bennington is an independent educational consultant with over 10
years experience in the further education and work based sectors. Andrew has
experience of across college coordination of key skills and skills for life,
embedding courses into other curriculums and sharing good practice. Andrew
started out with a degree in Pure Physics and industrial experience that has
given him a methodical and analytical approach to problem solving and
utilisation of staff and resources.
Andrew is a consultant specialising in housing and mortgage markets, regulation, governance and European issues. In a senior policy role at the Council of Mortgage Lenders for ten years Andrew had specific responsibility for lending for social and affordable housing, for low-cost home ownership (LCHO) products and for the private rental sector. Andrew led CML work on European issues, focussing particularly on regulation.
Andy Snowden is a performance and leadership consultant and coach, with direct employment experience in private, public and ‘third’ sectors. He has worked with the Public Sector and its partners, as a senior executive in local government over 20 years. His last full-time work in local government was as Programme Director of the huge Hull Recovery Programme after Audit Commission and DCLG intervention in 2003. Andy’s professional background is in social housing, both housing management and programme delivery, where he is a longstanding Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Andy is also a non-executive Director of the NHS, for Hull Teaching PCT.
Brenda Harvey is a dynamic and enthusiastic former Chief Executive. A qualified town planner with a career embracing regeneration, environmental and corporate services Brenda combines an analytical mind with an ability to work calmly and decisively under pressure. She uses exceptional communication and negotiation skills to build strong working relationships with members, with colleagues at all levels and with partners. She has a strong reputation as someone who listens and communicates.
Brenda is a consultant with 20 plus years experience gained in ten London Boroughs, all relating to various aspects of service and performance improvement at service, corporate, and strategic levels.
Brian has 20 years experience working in the housing sector in both public and private sectors. He has spent 10 years as property director for a number of housing associations. He has worked for the last 6 years as a freelance consultant and interim manager.
Brian is an experienced general manager with skills in public sector inspection, evidence-based assessment and evaluation, performance management , improvement planning, interviewing and facilitation. He has worked right across the public sector: in local government, for the Audit Commission and for the Civil Service.
Carole has experience of working in both the public and voluntary sectors which spans 30 years. She has worked in the public sector for over 20 years as a senior manager her last permanent post being Assistant Chief Executive / Head of Strategy for Doncaster MBC. She has been working as an Interim Manager for 7 years and was most recently employed as Assistant Chief Executive (Performance) for Manchester City Council. Her professional background is in Housing but for 20 years her work in both the public and voluntary sector has been primarily focussed on corporate governance, performance management, service improvement, corporate planning, management of partnerships and improvement planning. She also sits as a management committee member on various voluntary and community bodies and school governing bodies.
Celia is a professionally trained journalist with more than 25 years' experience working with the private, public and third sectors. She moved from a successful career in journalism where she edited a number of weekly newspaper titles to a role as internal communications editor with an international chemical company. Following a period at the BBC as a senior programme publicist, she set up her own communications consultancy in 1999 and has worked extensively within the public sector advising and delivering on a wide range of communications initiatives including brand development, national profile-raising and stakeholder engagement. She is passionate about using communications tools and techniques to shape business development and growth.
Cheryl has worked over the last 10 years as a lecturer and trainer within the public sector and was the Employee Development Officer in adult social care for Leeds Social Services until 2006. From that date Cheryl has worked in Adult Social care in a number of different roles including National Pilot Project Leader and Project Manager. She is a highly skilled and respected trainer and was Awarded Training Journal's 'Trainer of the Year' in 2006.
Chris has held a series of executive appointments in both the public and
private sectors, including acting as Chief Officer. His roles have included
managing multi-disciplined matrix teams working at multi-site locations. He is a leading expert in providing advice on leading, managing and
designing alternative models of service delivery such as the Strategic Shared
Service Operating Models for Public-Public and Public-Private partnerships as
well as Trust status. He is credited by one authority as having “successfully led the largest transformation
and risk project the authority had undertaken in its history’. His work has been described by a peer review
team as “exemplar”.
Christina is a
coach, mentor and consultant who focuses on developing the potential of
individuals, teams and organisations. She believes in enabling and facilitating
clients to build their own skills and capacity to sustain them over the longer
term. She draws on a wealth of
experience in the private and public sector to quickly establish rapport, trust
and respect and to understand each client’s unique perspective. She applies
coaching and mentoring techniques with individuals and teams to provide a safe
yet challenging environment for problem solving.
She
is a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, and she coaches
private and public sector clients with a refreshing
style that is both compassionate and inspirational.
Dave is a vastly experienced and successful consultant and interim manager specialising in customer service and customer management. Dave has worked across sectors including public private and charity, bringing the commercial acumen of some of the worlds leading telco’s to these operations. Dave has over 20 years experience of driving operational and customer experience improvements and efficiencies; he brings a wide knowledge of high quality multi channel customer access operations.
A qualified trainer and member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) Debbie is an experienced trainer and consultant with over 18 years sales and management experience working for and with SME’s, public and corporate sector organisations mainly in the communication, local government and media sectors. Debbie specialises in the design, delivery and evaluation of learning and development programmes which include such subjects as Time Management, Delegation, Improving Motivation and Performance, Customer Services, Gaining Buy In to your Objectives, Presentation and all aspects of Interpersonal Skills and Sales as well as Workshop facilitation. Debbie is currently undertaking a CIPD qualification in HR. Debbie is fully committed to ensuring a programme is tailored to the specific requirements of customers; her experience, high energy and passion for her work and support for delegates is clearly demonstrated in the excellent references Debbie receives.
Diane is a highly qualified and experienced organisational psychologist and change management consultant. She worked as a senior manager in HR, IT, and OD roles at Manchester City Council and the British Council before setting up her own consultancy company in 1995. She specialises in strategic thinking and planning, culture change, service improvement and re-design, team and individual coaching, community involvement and engagement and partnership working. Diane is also a founder member and trustee of the Bacup Consortium Development Trust a local charity/social enterprise in Rossendale, East Lancashire and is a community representative on the Rossendale LSP.
Gillian is an interim manager with great experience and a high level of emotional intelligence. She has successfully developed and delivered organisational change within the public sector over a 20 year period. She is a consummate project manager delivering council comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) preparation, service improvement and peer reviews. An experienced Audit Commission Inspector Gillian carried out nine corporate assessment inspections and has undertaken numerous service inspections. She is a Non Executive Director for a Primary Care Trust (PCT) with a professional background in Environmental Health.
Helen has more than 25 years’ experience as a public relations specialist and journalist and has excellent contacts across the media both nationally and regionally. She trained as a journalist and her work includes proactive and reactive media work, media training, fundraising PR, cause-related marketing, website editing, awareness-raising projects and product launches. Helen has worked with public, private sector, and third sector organisations. She is highly skilled in directing communications activity at all levels and has had extensive exposure to crisis and media management, primarily working as a senior press officer for a number of high-profile London NHS trusts.
Ian Simpson provides specialist
performance improvement and organisational development services to the public
sector. He is an experienced Strategic Director of Local Government Services
and a Performance Improvement Specialist. He has driven significant improvement
at a corporate level and across public sector partnerships with proven
abilities to direct and manage strategic change such as the creation of Unitary
Authorities in Cheshire, developing a Joint Venture in Oldham and setting up
Shared Services in Wales.
Ian is also skilled in programme
and project management and an advocate of systems thinking. He is a
professionally qualified Manager of Regulatory Services with success in leading
multidisciplinary teams to service excellence in District, Unitary,
Metropolitan and County Councils.
Jackie has over 25 years experience working in urban regeneration from involvement in the Priority Estates Programme and Estate Action, City Challenge and SRB, to current Neighbourhood Renewal programmes. Jackie has a track record of both commissioning and successfully tendering for programme and project delivery and is experienced in identifying and securing ‘cocktails’ of public and private sector funding.
Jenny specialises in working with
teams and across organisations to deliver sustainable efficiency savings and
improve front line services. Her approach is to gain rapid understanding of
complex issues and build relationships and influence to galvanise change
through others. She has worked across the public sector, in local authorities, housing
associations, a regional partnership and the police.
Jerry has many years experience working at executive level within insurance and banking, and more recently has undertaken strategic assignments within the public sector. Jerry’s passion is developing both powerful teams and individuals, a lever he has used on numerous occasions to ‘fix broken businesses’ and drive forward strategic and cultural improvement. He has a track record of delivering and driving change across multiple functions and disciplines both from within the line and as a Programme.
Joan Hearne brings 15 years experience in service improvement gained as a Senior Director with Housing Associations, ALMOs, LSVTs and Local Authorities. Joan’s fields of expertise are governance, mainstream housing management knowledge and information management and social and community research. Joan works with people at all levels to inspire customer focus as the foundation for organisational change. Joan has a strong understanding of excellent housing services and has led successful transformational change programmes in major LSVT’s. As part of her commitment to develop excellence, Joan has developed an active business role for customers, training social housing tenants to do social research work and carry out mystery shopping and service reviews.
Joanne Drew is an experienced housing leader and consultant with a successful track record:
As a Director/Managing Director in a range of different housing organisations – permanent roles include Housing and Communities Director at West Kent HA;
For developing and advising on national housing policy and of supporting improvement in Government Monitoring situations – roles include lead advisor (ODPM CHTF), Sustainable Communities Advisor (GOL) and Chair of Northampton Housing Sub-Board (GOEM);
Providing effective consultancy advice and carrying out interim management assignments – particularly around change management and inspection.
Joanne is professionally qualified in housing, personnel and coaching and has strong skills to lead organisations and multi-disciplinary teams. She is a determined, committed individual who leads with energy and enthusiasm to engender a culture that focuses on performance and better outcomes. She is a collaborative leader able to develop and maintain strong partnership relationships. Wide knowledge of the housing sector and ability to think into the unknown means Joanne brings strong strategic capability and the ability to identify and develop new opportunities.
Julia is an experienced Change Management consultant
with extensive experience of working for clients in the public and private sectors.
She has worked on a range of innovative and complex projects,some of which have been pathfinders in their field.
Julia has worked at all levels – from Central
Government, Local Authorities, Government agencies, University senior leaders,
school leadership teams as well as staff, pupils and the local community. Her specialist interests are in personal
coaching; stakeholder engagement; organisational and cultural change. She
provides change management consultancy, interim management and coaching within
the public and private sectors.
Julia’s approach is people centred and client
focused, she encourages and helps organisations and individuals to make lasting
changes by giving them the confidence and self belief to achieve their goals.
Julie is a mature business woman with many years of successful
business experience gained working within the public, private, financial
services and retail sectors. She began
her career in financial services in a training environment and eventually left
her senior management role within Risk Management to fulfill her love of
helping others reach their potential in the self employed arena. She has gained substantial experience in
the areas of business skills training, team development, appraisal and
performance management, communications, change management and has a particular
interest in developing new managers and leaders.
Julie
Taylor is an experienced senior manager with over 19 year’s extensive
experience of working in the public and the third sector. She specialises in outcome based
methodologies, performance and change management, partnership working and
service improvement. She has proven
experience in delivery and project control and management of complex public
service initiatives for local government and the private sector. Julie has led a busy local authority team
which contributed to wider partnership outcomes therefore has a clear
understanding of how to manage and strike the right balance to achieve
successful solutions for all partners through collaborative approaches. Julie firmly believes that partnership
approaches deliver value for money and quality outcomes for all and is
motivated by the pursuit of tangible improvements at all stages of problem
analysis and solution delivery through using performance information to drive
improvement. She has a collaborative
approach to management with a track record of supporting innovation and
staff/user involvement in delivery and recognises that the success in achieving
positive outcomes relies on changing and positively challenging behaviours.
Kate is a Supporting People specialist, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, an affiliate audit commission inspector, a qualified coach and a certified NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) practitioner.
A Member of the Chartered Management Institute and Association of Business Psychologists, Laura is an experienced consultant and qualified trainer with over 20 years wide-ranging experience in public, private and third sector organisations encompassing health, social care, education and employment. Used to operating in a trouble-shooting role, her experience of mergers, externalisations and reconfiguration of services means that Laura has considerable experience of facilitating major change and managing projects. She specialises in Organisational Development, partnership working, community engagement, coaching and neuro-linguistics. Laura is dedicated to unlocking potential in an organisation and its people.
Linda is a self motivated and well qualified TRAINER and CONSULTANT, with extensive generalist knowledge of both the Private and Public Sectors. An accomplished policy and procedures writer and analyst, with excellent communication skills and a proven track record of best practice initiatives. Experienced practitioner in the areas of Health and Safety, Training and Development, Retail Operations, Investors in People, and Customer Service Management. Linda is a National Training Award Winner for Individual Achievement.
Lynn is an accomplished housing consultant and business coach with over 25 years experience at a senior level in both the private and public sectors, with roles ranging from area manager, development and maintenance director in housing associations to senior operations manager in a housing IT company. Lynn has a BA honours degree in business and management, is a certified coach, Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner, an affiliate member of the CIH and a board member of OGL housing (member of the orbit group)
Lynne is a skilled and experienced individual with exceptional organisational and problem solving skills. She is able to work on her own initiative and under pressure with no compromise to quality. Lynne has worked in the Housing sector for 11 years and then moved to work with the Strategic Procurement Team and Family Service commissioners at Wakefield District Council to further Third Sector Engagement whilst employed at Fit4Funding. She has been volunteering herself since the age of 16 with a range of community groups. Her community consultation and engagement skills are excellent – she has been working with a diverse range of communities and volunteers for a significant length of time.
Lynne Duval is an experienced consultant with over 7 years experience in consultancy.. She provides housing management consultancy to a wide range of agencies operating within the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. LynneÙs back ground is as an experienced housing management professional. Lynne has assisted a large number of organisations with their preparations for inspection across the full range of housing management activity but particularly in the areas of allocations, rent collection, resident involvement and tenancy management. She has more recently specialised in allocations and homelessness.
Martinette has worked at a senior level for over 7 years within
the public sector, latterly within the housing sector. During that time she has been responsible for
supporting the set up of an ALMO, including TUPE arrangements and policy
alignment, Strategic Planning, Health and Safety, Quality and Performance,
Human Resources, Organisational Development, Media/Communication and
Governance.
Martinette has great interpersonal skills and works well with all
stakeholders, Councillors, Board members, senior managers and front line staff.
Neil Hind is an experienced project and programme manager with extensive procurement knowledge within both the public and private sector. Neil has excellent interpersonal and communication skills with experience of managing stakeholders within all levels of organisations. Neil also has a proven track record of successful project and programme delivery, undertaking and managing procurement activities, eProcurement system implementation and business process re-engineering. He is MBA qualified and an affiliate to the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS).
Nigel Lowther is an award-winning communications expert. He is a journalist with 20 years experience and currently owns and edits a weekly newspaper. He also runs a successful public relations business, built by working with the private, public and third sectors. Nigel has also headed up a busy local authority public relations team. He offers an insight into both sides of the communications fence: he knows what a journalist is looking for and how to protect and enhance reputation. He believes communication plays a vital role in the Government’s agenda to improve the perception of the public sector and its value and effectiveness.
Peter is a highly experienced senior manager to Director level and substantially within the local government environment. Peter has highly developed inter-personal skills and has particular expertise in leading multi-disciplinary teams, both inside and outside his organisation. Peter is highly skilled at working with new teams to introduce cultural change and rapid delivery of service improvement.
Phil Gardener is highly experienced (15 years+) and versatile goal driven procurement consultant, project manager and Interim Manager. His key areas of expertise are Local Government and third sector procurement and category manager. He has a substantive knowledge of supply chain transformation including procurement and tendering portals, (eProcurement, eSourcing and eTendering), hands-on experience of back office transformation, business case development, benefits realisation, change management, strategic sourcing, spend analysis and stakeholder management.
An
experienced manager and trainer with skills and knowledge developed across a
wide range of service areas and specialism including children’s services, adult
social care, adult guidance, community and stakeholder engagement, marketing
and communications and equality and diversity. A project manager with
experience of supporting the implementation of national policy initiatives,
leading organisational development interventions, designing and delivering
training programmes and implementing stakeholder management and engagement strategies.
Now running his own company offering interim management solutions, change management
consultancy, leadership development and diversity training to local
authorities, social housing providers and the voluntary sector.
Russell has substantial experience in the Financial Services sector running small and large sales teams. He has a proven senior management track record with first-hand experience of performance management and implementing change. He is strongly focussed on individual and team development and embedding culture change within teams.
Steve is a fully experienced Local Government Officer having held senior positions since 1978 and for the last 10 years has been a Head of Service and a Member of the Senior Management Group for a major Northern Metropolitan Council. He is also a trained and experienced Project Manager to PRINCE 2 standards and a qualified coach.
With twenty-five years experience of
working in the public and voluntary sectors, Theresa is a highly motivated
trainer, facilitator, coach, leader and manager with proven delivery within
complex environments. She brings to her
work a wealth of experience gained from roles in training management and
delivery, organisational development, customer service improvement, staff and
organisational effectiveness, talent development, public sector regulation,
performance improvement, and equality and diversity.
Andrew is a consultant specialising in housing and mortgage markets, regulation, governance and European issues. In a senior policy role at the Council of Mortgage Lenders for ten years Andrew had specific responsibility for lending for social and affordable housing, for low-cost home ownership (LCHO) products and for the private rental sector. Andrew led CML work on European issues, focussing particularly on regulation. 
Andy Snowden is a performance and leadership consultant and coach, with direct employment experience in private, public and ‘third’ sectors. He has worked with the Public Sector and its partners, as a senior executive in local government over 20 years. His last full-time work in local government was as Programme Director of the huge Hull Recovery Programme after Audit Commission and DCLG intervention in 2003. Andy’s professional background is in social housing, both housing management and programme delivery, where he is a longstanding Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Andy is also a non-executive Director of the NHS, for Hull Teaching PCT.
Brenda Harvey is a dynamic and enthusiastic former Chief Executive. A qualified town planner with a career embracing regeneration, environmental and corporate services Brenda combines an analytical mind with an ability to work calmly and decisively under pressure. She uses exceptional communication and negotiation skills to build strong working relationships with members, with colleagues at all levels and with partners. She has a strong reputation as someone who listens and communicates.
Brenda is a consultant with 20 plus years experience gained in ten London Boroughs, all relating to various aspects of service and performance improvement at service, corporate, and strategic levels. 
Brian is an experienced general manager with skills in public sector inspection, evidence-based assessment and evaluation, performance management , improvement planning, interviewing and facilitation. He has worked right across the public sector: in local government, for the Audit Commission and for the Civil Service.
Christina is a
coach, mentor and consultant who focuses on developing the potential of
individuals, teams and organisations. She believes in enabling and facilitating
clients to build their own skills and capacity to sustain them over the longer
term. She draws on a wealth of
experience in the private and public sector to quickly establish rapport, trust
and respect and to understand each client’s unique perspective. She applies
coaching and mentoring techniques with individuals and teams to provide a safe
yet challenging environment for problem solving.
A qualified trainer and member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) Debbie is an experienced trainer and consultant with over 18 years sales and management experience working for and with SME’s, public and corporate sector organisations mainly in the communication, local government and media sectors. Debbie specialises in the design, delivery and evaluation of learning and development programmes which include such subjects as Time Management, Delegation, Improving Motivation and Performance, Customer Services, Gaining Buy In to your Objectives, Presentation and all aspects of Interpersonal Skills and Sales as well as Workshop facilitation. Debbie is currently undertaking a CIPD qualification in HR. Debbie is fully committed to ensuring a programme is tailored to the specific requirements of customers; her experience, high energy and passion for her work and support for delegates is clearly demonstrated in the excellent references Debbie receives. 
Gillian is an interim manager with great experience and a high level of emotional intelligence. She has successfully developed and delivered organisational change within the public sector over a 20 year period. She is a consummate project manager delivering council comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) preparation, service improvement and peer reviews. An experienced Audit Commission Inspector Gillian carried out nine corporate assessment inspections and has undertaken numerous service inspections. She is a Non Executive Director for a Primary Care Trust (PCT) with a professional background in Environmental Health.
Jackie has over 25 years experience working in urban regeneration from involvement in the Priority Estates Programme and Estate Action, City Challenge and SRB, to current Neighbourhood Renewal programmes. Jackie has a track record of both commissioning and successfully tendering for programme and project delivery and is experienced in identifying and securing ‘cocktails’ of public and private sector funding.
Jerry has many years experience working at executive level within insurance and banking, and more recently has undertaken strategic assignments within the public sector. Jerry’s passion is developing both powerful teams and individuals, a lever he has used on numerous occasions to ‘fix broken businesses’ and drive forward strategic and cultural improvement. He has a track record of delivering and driving change across multiple functions and disciplines both from within the line and as a Programme.
Joan Hearne brings 15 years experience in service improvement gained as a Senior Director with Housing Associations, ALMOs, LSVTs and Local Authorities. Joan’s fields of expertise are governance, mainstream housing management knowledge and information management and social and community research. Joan works with people at all levels to inspire customer focus as the foundation for organisational change. Joan has a strong understanding of excellent housing services and has led successful transformational change programmes in major LSVT’s. As part of her commitment to develop excellence, Joan has developed an active business role for customers, training social housing tenants to do social research work and carry out mystery shopping and service reviews. 
Julia is an experienced Change Management consultant
with extensive experience of working for clients in the public and private sectors.
She has worked on a range of innovative and complex projects,some of which have been pathfinders in their field.
Julie is a mature business woman with many years of successful
business experience gained working within the public, private, financial
services and retail sectors. She began
her career in financial services in a training environment and eventually left
her senior management role within Risk Management to fulfill her love of
helping others reach their potential in the self employed arena. She has gained substantial experience in
the areas of business skills training, team development, appraisal and
performance management, communications, change management and has a particular
interest in developing new managers and leaders. 
Kate is a Supporting People specialist, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, an affiliate audit commission inspector, a qualified coach and a certified NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) practitioner. 
A Member of the Chartered Management Institute and Association of Business Psychologists, Laura is an experienced consultant and qualified trainer with over 20 years wide-ranging experience in public, private and third sector organisations encompassing health, social care, education and employment. Used to operating in a trouble-shooting role, her experience of mergers, externalisations and reconfiguration of services means that Laura has considerable experience of facilitating major change and managing projects. She specialises in Organisational Development, partnership working, community engagement, coaching and neuro-linguistics. Laura is dedicated to unlocking potential in an organisation and its people. 
Linda is a self motivated and well qualified TRAINER and CONSULTANT, with extensive generalist knowledge of both the Private and Public Sectors. An accomplished policy and procedures writer and analyst, with excellent communication skills and a proven track record of best practice initiatives. Experienced practitioner in the areas of Health and Safety, Training and Development, Retail Operations, Investors in People, and Customer Service Management. Linda is a National Training Award Winner for Individual Achievement.
Lynne is a skilled and experienced individual with exceptional organisational and problem solving skills. She is able to work on her own initiative and under pressure with no compromise to quality. Lynne has worked in the Housing sector for 11 years and then moved to work with the Strategic Procurement Team and Family Service commissioners at Wakefield District Council to further Third Sector Engagement whilst employed at Fit4Funding. She has been volunteering herself since the age of 16 with a range of community groups. Her community consultation and engagement skills are excellent – she has been working with a diverse range of communities and volunteers for a significant length of time.
Nigel Lowther is an award-winning communications expert. He is a journalist with 20 years experience and currently owns and edits a weekly newspaper. He also runs a successful public relations business, built by working with the private, public and third sectors. Nigel has also headed up a busy local authority public relations team. He offers an insight into both sides of the communications fence: he knows what a journalist is looking for and how to protect and enhance reputation. He believes communication plays a vital role in the Government’s agenda to improve the perception of the public sector and its value and effectiveness. 
Russell has substantial experience in the Financial Services sector running small and large sales teams. He has a proven senior management track record with first-hand experience of performance management and implementing change. He is strongly focussed on individual and team development and embedding culture change within teams.