Understanding ModernGov Our Speakers
Our courses bring delegates face to face with prominent Parliamentarians, civil servants, Ministerial advisors and other highly experienced individuals from the front line in Parliament, Whitehall and the wider public sector. This ensures that the learning environment is interactive and that the information presented is grounded in the broadest range of experience, expertise and knowledge.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Lab)
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale was educated at the University of Glasgow and the Graduate Institute for International Affairs, Geneva. She served in the British diplomatic service from 1969 to 1991. As a Case Officer with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6), she served with distinction in Stockholm and in Helsinki where, as the SIS Head of Station...Read More
Rt. Hon Sir Menzies Campbell MP (Lib Dem, North East Fife) - Former Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Sir Menzies Campbell has been the Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife since the 1987 General Election which he won on his fourth campaign for Parliament. He was made Liberal Democrat Chief Spokesman on Foreign Affairs and Defence in 1992. He considered standing for the leadership of the Party in 1999 but ultimately decided against it...Read More
Stephen Pound MP (Lab, Ealing North)
Stephen Pound was elected as MP for Ealing North in May l997. Stephen is an active parliamentarian and his main interest areas are housing, Europe, Ireland, transport and local government. He was a member of the Greater London Authority Select Committee and gave his maiden speech on the bill...Read More
David Cairns MP (Lab, Inverclyde) – Former Minister of State for Scotland
David Cairns became a Labour MP for Inverclyde in 2001 after parliament reversed a law that prevented former Catholic priests from taking up a seat in the House of Commons. In the early 1990s he served as a Catholic priest for three years at churches in Scotland and London. He left the priesthood to become a director of the Christian...Read More
Rt. Hon Michael Meacher MP (Lab, Oldham West and Royton) - Former Minister of State for the Environment
Michael Meacher has been the Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton since the 1970 General Election. During his time in politics he has served in the Governments of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan as Under Secretary for Industry and Under Secretary for Health and Social Security. In 1983 he became a member of the Shadow Cabinet,...Read More
John McTernan - Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Scotland
John McTernan is special adviser to the Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP, Secretary of State for Scotland. From 2007-8 he was special adviser to the Rt Hon Des Browne, Secretary of State for Defence and Scotland. Prior to this he worked at 10 Downing Street for three and a half years. Until July 2007 he was Political Secretary to Prime Minister Tony Blair. From January 2004 until April...Read More
Rt. Hon Kim Howells MP (Lab, Pontypridd) - Chair, Intelligence and Security Committee
Howells entered the House of Commons 1989. He excelled in the Labour opposition, becoming opposition Spokesman on Trade and Industry, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Development and Co-operation. He had ministerial posts in various departments from the 1997 election until October 2008, including a spell as Minister of State at the Department for...Read More
Rt. Hon Kevin Barron MP (Lab, Rother Valley) – Chair, Health Select Committee
Kevin Barron has been a Labour MP for Rother Valley since 1983. In 1985 Kevin was made a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock, a position he held until the 1987 General Election. Kinnock gave Barron a frontbench job in 1988 as an opposition spokesman on Energy until 1992. John Smith returned...Read More
Lord Norton of Louth (Con) - Professor of Government, University of Hull
Lord Norton of Louth is Professor of Government, and Director of the Centre for Legislative Studies, at the University of Hull. When he was appointed to the chair in 1986, he was - at 35 - the youngest professor of politics in the country. He is author or editor of 26 books, including Parliament in British Politics,...Read More
Dr. Phyllis Starkey - Former Chair, Communities and Local Government Select Committee
Dr Phyllis Starkey was elected to Parliament in 1997. Between 1999-2001 she was a member of the Modernisation of the House of Commons Select Committee. In 2002 she became PPS to Denis MacShane, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In 2005, she was made Chair of the Select Committee for Communities and Local Government - a post she still holds...Read More
David Gauke MP (Con, South West Hertfordshire) - Shadow Minister for the Treasury
David Gauke read law at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University. He qualified as a solicitor in 1997 and worked for a leading City firm until his election as MP for Hertfordshire South West on 5 May 2005. David has been an active member of the Conservative Party since 1993 as a council candidate, association officer and campaign organiser. He was appointed to the Conservative frontbench...Read More
Baroness Harris of Richmond (Lib Dem) - Whip
Angela Harris is a Liberal Democrat Life Peer and has been since 1999. Since entering the House of Lords she has chaired the European Union Select sub-Committee F and has been a member of the European Union Select Committee, Offices Committee and Refreshment Sub-Committee. She is a Whip for the Liberal Democrat group of Peers,...Read More
Sue Calthorpe - Media and Communications Specialist
Susan is an experienced communications professional who now also lectures on a range of issues including effective briefing and policy skills. She trains a number of high-profile public and private sector organisations in effective internal and external communications' strategies, including, in Government, the Crown Prosecution...Read More
Alan Waters - Policy Analyst, Local Government Information Unit
Alan Waters is a Policy Analyst working in the Centre for Service Transformation. He has extensive experience of delivering training and development programmes for councillors on a wide range of topics including - community leadership, local government finance, partnership working, scrutiny and the impact of the community empowerment...Read More
Cllr Henry Smith - Leader, West Sussex County Council
Henry Smith has been a County Councillor since 1997 and became the Leader of the Council in 2003 when at 34 he was the youngest county leader in the country. He is currently Chairman of the South East County Leaders grouping which represents all county councils across the greater South East of England...Read More
Jane White – Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments
Currently one of two advisers to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments, which publishes a weekly commentary on all the orders and regulations laid before Parliament by the Government (approx 1200 per year). Her role is to investigate the policy behind this "secondary legislation" for the information...Read More
Fergus Reid – Clerk, Justice Select Committee
Fergus Reid has had a longstanding career in the civil service. For 15 years he has been a House of Commons Clerk. He has worked on the Health, Foreign Affairs and Standards and Priveleges Committees. He also had a leading role in the creation of the Environmental Audit Committee and in the running of the Culture, Media and Sports...Read More
Denis Arnold – Clerk, Bills Office, Northern Ireland Assembly
Denis Arnold is the Clerk of Bills in the Northern Ireland Assembly, responsible for dealing with primary legislation. He has had a long career in the Northern Ireland Civil Service in various management and policy role. In 1996 he was transferred to the newly established Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue in 1996 during...Read More
John Torney – Principal Clerk, Northern Ireland Assembly
John Torney is the Principal Clerk of Statutory Committees in the Northern Ireland Assembly, a post which he first took up in 2001. Over the course of a long career in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, John was involved in with the Assembly from its creation in 1998. He has been Clerk to the Education Committee, the Further and Higher...Read More
Simon Hamilton MLA (DUP, Strangford)
Simon Hamilton was elected to represent the Strangford constituency in the Northern Ireland Assembly in March 2007. He is also currently Deputy Chairperson of the Finance & Personnel Committee and a member of the Enterprise, Trade & Investment Committee and the Public Accounts Committee....Read More
Tony McCusker – Former Senior Civil Servant
Tony retired early in 2005 following a career in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, the last 20+ years as a member of the Senior Civil Service. During his career he has undertaken some of the most complex and politically sensitive jobs in government including legislation, strategic and policy analysis/development, negotiations,...Read More
Dermot Nesbitt (UUP) – Former Minister of the Environment, Northern Ireland Executive
Dermot Nesbitt was educated at Queen’s University of Belfast. Before becoming a full-time politician in June 1998 had been a Senior Lecturer in Finance at Queens and also head of the Department of Accounting and Finance. In 1998, Dermot was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly representing South Down. In 2002 he served as Minister...Read More
Sheree Dodd – Media and Communications Consultant
Sheree Dodd is a communications consultant with extensive senior level experience in government. After a career in journalism with many years as a political correspondent based in the Westminster lobby, she joined the civil service as Head of News in the Northern Ireland Office just in time for the Good Friday Agreement. Posts as Head...Read More
Linda Screen - Former Head of Policy and Performance at Dorset County Council
Linda is an experienced speaker on local and regional government, the third sector and Local Strategic Partnerships. A former Head of Policy and Performance at Bridgnorth District and Dorset County Council with interim experience in South Gloucestershire Unitary Authority and working with Penwith and Bath & NE Somerset Council, Linda's experience includes senior management,...Read More
Cllr Keith Moffitt (Lib Dem) - Camden Borough Council
Councillor Keith Moffitt became Leader of the Council following the local elections in May 2006, a post he held until the May 2010 election. He was first elected as a Liberal Democrat Councillor for West Hampstead in 1994 and has been a resident of the area for over 30 years. In his role as Leader of Camden Council he identifies key priorities as sustainability, improving the responsiveness of the Council...Read More
Dr Theresa Crowley - Head of Strategy and Research, National Audit Office
Dr Theresa Crowley is Head of Strategy and Research at the National Audit Office. Previously, she was Research Director at NESTA , the UK innovation catalyst organisation. Her earlier career was in evaluation of public policy and programmes at the Policy Studies Institute, the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury...Read More
Ian Fifield PhD CPFA
Ian is a CIPFA qualified accountant and an experienced trainer and facilitator, with more than 20 years experience of financial management in the public services. Ian specialises in financial management training for local authorities and other public service organisations and has also worked as an accountant in local government and an external auditor for both local government...Read More
Dr Jennifer Dixon - Director, The Nuffield Trust
Jennifer Dixon has researched and written widely on health care reform in the UK and internationally. She trained originally in medicine, practising mainly paediatric medicine, before a career in policy analysis. She has a Masters in public health and a Ph.D. in health services...Read More
John Howell OBE MP - (Con, Henley)
John Howell OBE is a British politician and the Conservative Member of Parliament for Henley, having won the seat with an increased share of the vote in the 2008 Henley by-election. Howell holds a doctorate in archaeology and worked as a Tax Inspector (1982-1985) for the Inland Revenue before moving into the world of accountancy and consultancy as a tax adviser..Read More
Lembit Opik MP (Lib Dem, Montgomeryshire)
Lembit Opik has been Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire since 1997. On election he became the party spokesman on Northern Ireland and for young people. In 2001 he became spokesman for Wales and joined Charles Kennedy's shadow cabinet. In July 2007 Lembit became the Party’s Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform spokesman,...Read More
Sylvia Thomson - Former Senior Civil Servant
Sylvia worked for 18 years at HM Treasury, including spells advising on the Aid Budget and a variety of other public expenditure roles. During this time, she led a Cross-cutting Review of Government Services for Small Business in 2002. She also spent 3 years working on the Sure Start programme to help young children and their parents in severely disadvantaged areas...Read More
Robert Syms MP (Con, Poole)
Robert was elected MP for Poole in 1997. In December 1999 he was appointed as Frontbench Spokesman for environment, transport and the regions. In September 2001, he was appointed as Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party. In March 2003...Read More
David Furness - Head of Strategic Development, Social Market Foundation
David joined the SMF as Health Project Leader in January 2007. His work on health policy has included a number of research reports such as "Local control and local variation in the NHS: what do the public think?" and "From feast to famine: reforming the NHS for an age of austerity". ...Read More
Stephen Leach CB - Former Senior Civil Servant
Stephen Leach CB is a retired senior civil servant. He was Director of Criminal Justice in the Northern Ireland Office and Chair of the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice Board from 2000 to 2009. Before that he held a range of other posts in the NIO, covering areas which included political and economic development ...Read More
Dr Scott Kelly - Chief of Staff to John Hayes MP
Scott Kelly works in parliament as Chief of Staff to John Hayes MP, the Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills. He also lectures in British Politics at the Centre for Parliamentary Studies ...Read More
Sir Bruce Liddington - Director General, EACT
Former Schools Commissioner Sir Bruce Liddington has enjoyed a successful teaching career, during which as Head of Northampton School for Boys, he transformed the performance of the schools before leaving to join the Department for Education and Skills in 1999. ...Read More
Ruth Thorlby - Fellow, The King's Fund
Ruth Thorlby's current interests include inequities in access to health care, particularly those experienced by some ethnic minority groups. She recently completed a study of the way that patients choose HIV units in London, and contributed to the King's Fund Independent Audit of the NHS ...Read More
John Hayes MP - Shadow Minister for Lifelong Learning, Higher Education and Skills
John has been Member of Parliament for South Holland and The Deepings since 1997. He is currently Shadow Minister for Lifelong Learning, Higher Education and Skills, a position he has held since December 2007..Read More
Rachel Wolf - Director, New Schools Network
Rachel Wolf is the director of the New Schools Network, a London based charity she founded in 2009. The Network aims to improve the quality of education - particularly for the most deprived - by increasing the number of independent, innovative schools within the state sector...Read More
Lord David Freud - Shadow Welfare Minister
David Freud spent the first eleven years of his career as a journalist, working at the Financial Times for eight years.In 1984 David joined the leading UK investment bank, S.G. Warburg, now known as UBS. He specialised in flotations and privatisations around the world and successfully built strong investment banking franchises in Transport, Infrastructure, Leisure and Business Services...Read More
John Pugh MP (Lib Dem, Southport) - Treasury spokesman
John has been an MP since 2001. He graduated in philosophy from Durham University before becoming a teacher. He taught in secondary modern, comprehensive and independent schools and prior to his election as MP was head of philosophy and religious studies at Merchant Taylors' School in Crosby...Read More
Anna Fazackerley - Head of Education Unit, Policy Exchange
Anna is head of the Education & Arts and Culture units at Policy Exchange, responsible for defining research priorities and managing all projects in these areas. Before joining Policy Exchange, Anna worked as a journalist for several years and most recently spent two years as the director of Agora...Read More
Anders Hultin - Chief Executive, GEMS UK and co-founder, Kunskapsskolan
Anders is an educational professional with more than 18 years experience of marrying together pioneering approaches to education with cutting-edge business thinking.Anders joined GEMS in August 2009 and is the Chief Executive of GEMS UK. GEMS Education has been in the education sector of nearly 50 years and has a global network of international schools catering to all segments of society that spans Europe, North America...Read More
Julian Wood - Director of Strategy, National Audit Office
Julian Wood is the Director of Strategy at the National Audit Office. Julian trained as a Chartered Accountant at the NAO and was responsible for value for money reviews of major government departments and programmes...Read More
Dawn Mongaham - Senior Manager, ICO
A graduate of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Dawn spent 20 years with the BBC; she joined the Information Commissioners Office in 2002 as a Senior Policy Manager. She has responsibility for developing and maintaining key stakeholder relationships in ....Read More
Jonathan Morgan AM (Con, Cardiff North) - Chair, Public Accounts Committee Services
Jonathan Morgan AM was elected to the Welsh Assembly in 1999. He served as education spokesman during the first assembly term and was then handed the health brief in 2003. He was the Shadow Minister for Health and Social Services in the Assembly...Read More
Dale Bassett - Senior Researcher, Reform
Dale Bassett has been a Senior Researcher at Reform since 2008. He leads the think-tank’s work on education, skills and criminal justice policy, advancing ideas on restoring academic rigour to schools, freeing up the post-18 skills market and reforming the delivery and accountability of policing in England and Wales. He previously worked for a start-up e-commerce company and as a senior-level City headhunter....Read More
Sophie Taylor - Private Secretary to Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, DCSF
Sophie has been Private Secretary to Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families for 2 years. She works on all aspects of the schools portfolio for the Secretary of State, including primary and secondary school standards, testing...Read More
Professor Robert Hazell - Director, Constitution Unit University College London
Professor Robert Hazell is Director of the Constitution Unit. He founded the Unit in 1995 as an independent think-tank specialising in constitutional reform. Before that he was Director of the Nuffield Foundation for six years, and before that a senior civil servant in the Home Office...Read More
Catherine Staite - Director, OPM
Catherine leads the OPM Organisational Development and Policy Team. Her main areas of interest asupporting Local Strategic Partnerships; Local Area Agreements; performance management; supporting organisations through change; integration of organisation and services and; efficiency...Read More
Cllr Keith Moffitt (Lib Dem) - Leader of Camden Borough Council
Councillor Keith Moffitt became Leader of the Council following the local elections in May 2006. He was first elected as a Liberal Democrat Councillor for West Hampstead in 1994 and has been a resident of the area for over 30 years. In his role as Leader of Camden Council he identifies key priorities as sustainability, improving the responsiveness of the Council...Read More
Professor David Myddelton - Chairman, Institute of Economic Affairs
Professor David Myddelton has been Professor of Finance and Accounting at the Cranfield School of Management since 1972 (Emeritus since retiring in 2005). He has written books on the British tax system, inflation accounting and accounting standards...Read More
Graham Garbutt - Former Chief Executive, Commission for Rural Communities
Graham was regional director at the Government Office for the West Midlands for about 5 years from 2001, during a period that saw the rise and fall of national debate about elected regional assemblies but also substantial development of GO roles....Read More
Cllr Peter Golds - Leader of the Opposition, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Cllr Peter Golds has served on both Brent and Tower Hamlets Councils where he is currently leader of the Conservative Opposition. Whilst on Brent he chaired the Environmental Services Committee and represented the borough on a number of regional and national organisations...Read More
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Speakers
