'Over recent years I’ve been working as a lead for one of the national support programmes with nine different children’s services partnerships (Commissioning Support Programme) and contributing to national training and programme methodologies. This has included developing governance arrangements and organisational capacity and helping to develop local commissioning activity. Underneath it all has been a drive to work in collaboration with local authorities to support a better focus on improving outcomes for children, young people and communities. I’m delighted to have had an opportunity to work on successful projects with local authority colleagues which have made a clear, tangible difference in reducing obesity, reducing NEETs, reducing the cost of placements for looked after children and improving support for those on the edge of care. I guess my background, which includes OD, research and development around vulnerable people, commissioning to improve outcomes for vulnerable groups, and managing transitions and policy and performance for children services directorates, shows through a little bit!
My work requires me to think through the operational and strategic interface of organisations, recognising key policy drivers, to help leaders realise their aspirations. I also help middle managers assess associated challenges and find great solutions. Right now I’m working on improving approaches and tools to track the progress of vulnerable families, identifying ‘what works’ and looking at comparative costs of interventions at a number of levels. I’m also looking at whether new people’s departments can recognise and retain high value whilst reducing costs. I hope to make a real contribution through business development to a new research project about identifying key change levers for vulnerable NEET groups, so I’m talking to a range of partners including local authorities and apprenticeship providers to make this happen. In these tough times I think it’s more important than ever for us to share and transfer learning to do our best to work appreciatively with communities, building capacity between us all!'