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Who We Are

Frontline Consulting was established in 2007 by Ann Reeder. Our focus is on the role of elected members and good governance. We work with all types of council and specialise in developing relationships between councillors and across tiers and across the publicly funded sector in England. We work with police (fire) and crime panels in England and Wales.

We include experienced leaders, chairs, executive and non-executive councillors and officers who understand the politics of local government and the wider public sector. Our expanding work with town and parish councillors is led by an experienced town and parish clerk. Our Associates have worked in local authorities, the civil service, the NHS, business and the third sector.

We also have worked with the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, East Midlands Councils, Grant Thornton UK LLP, Hoey Ainscough Associates, Local Government Association, Local Government Information Unit and South West Councils and organisations who support the Non-Executive Academy.

Ann Reeder, Associate; Founding Director

A

ann@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Ann Reeder established the consultancy, Frontline Consulting Associates, in 2007 to work with councillors in fulfilling their frontline roles and responding to changes across the publicly funded sector in England and Wales. It expanded to include work with Police and Crime Panels and the non-executive academy

Ann transferred the business to Dave Burn in April 2021, prior to retirement and only fulfils outstanding projects up to June 2021.

Ann has been an adviser with the Centre for Public Scrutiny, an associate tutor and Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO) regional assessor with South West Councils and a consultant with the Local Government information Unit (LGiU). Ann has worked with the Local Government Association, the former IDeA and the Leadership Centre for Local Government and for East Midlands Councils.

Ann was an active ward councillor, a cabinet member and in the leadership of a London borough. Ann also had experience in a minority administration on a hung council. She was been on the board of a regeneration project and chaired a town centre partnership. She was a parish councillor in Somerset.

Ann focused on governance issues in councils, having served on the working group for new structures in her authority and having worked in both the committee system and the leader, cabinet and scrutiny model. She specialised in local democracy, community engagement and overview and scrutiny, having conducted reviews across the country. Ann is interested in the political management of groups, having been the national head of local government for a political party. In that role, Ann worked closely with ministers and local government agencies.

Ann has been an agent at numerous local and parliamentary elections, so she has broad experience in local democracy, electoral registration and representation.

Ann has been a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Natalie Ainscough, Ethical Governance

nataliea@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Natalie Ainscough is a specialist in understanding parliamentary procedures and advising senior figures on how to influence political and civil service thinking at senior levels.

Natalie is particularly skilled in analysing complex issues from all sides, analysing risks, helping people develop solutions and consensus while ensuring the issues are understood and clearly communicated.

She has nearly 10 years’ experience working on public policy development for government agencies. This includes nearly six years at Standards for England in a key policy role developing and implementing an evolving local standards framework where she led a multi-disciplinary team in the development of statutory guidance. She also developed and implemented entity risk management systems designed to identify, assess and prioritise risks to local authority governance from standards issues.

She has experience working with senior politicians and officers at national and local level and extensive knowledge of negotiating at the highest political levels across parties. Her particular areas of expertise are in understanding policy intentions behind legislation, production of clear and focused briefing and guidance materials and organising events. This includes responsibility for management of content for Standards for England’s national stakeholder conference.

Natalie is also a director of Hoey Ainscough Associates Ltd.

Dave Burn, Director; Lead on Police (Fire) and Crime, Officers, Overview and Scrutiny

Dave Burn is an independent consultant with over 30 years of local government experience. He works with a variety of clients, commissions and public bodies and is also an associate with SOLACE, the Local Government information Unit (LGiU) and the Centre for Public Scrutiny.

Dave was head of Democratic Services and Scrutiny at the London of Borough of Lambeth from 2008 to 2016. He was vice chair of the Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO) from 2015 to 2019. He was an active member of the London Member Development Network, which he chaired from 2010 to 2013. Dave was also a peer officer at the Local Government Association.

Dave has developed excellent networks and has assisted a variety of organisations during his career. He has worked extensively with members across the political spectrum and with officers from different types of authorities. He has been a speaker at a number of conferences, chaired sessions and facilitated workshops on a range of matters. Dave has provided support with scrutiny activity, including approaches, governance, member officer relations, mentoring, problem solving and mediation. Dave has assisted officers from the Department of Communities and Local Government on new developments as well as the recent review of scrutiny. He has also assisted international delegations in discussions on the functions of local government and how to ensure community cohesion.

To contact Dave, ring

07732 331000 or email dave@frontlineconsulting.co.uk.

Cllr Richard Cotton; Chairing and the Mayoralty, Political Assistants

richardc@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Richard Cotton was elected onto Camden Council in May 2014 and was re-elected with an increased majority in May 2018. He was the mayor of Camden from 2017 to 2018.

Before becoming an elected member, Richard worked in local government for 30 years, including 24 years advising four successive leaders in the London Borough of Brent.

While working full-time, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Contemporary British Politics at the University of London and was awarded a distinction for his dissertation “Modernising Local Government: Will It All End in Tiers?” (2002).

Richard has taught local government to further education students and trained councillors and council staff on the political history of local government, electoral reform, ethical standards, political publicity, casework and campaigning. He has received a number of local government delegates from abroad, informing them about British local government.

He has written speeches, organised press conferences and was responsible for media strategy. He produced and drove through the group’s strategy for opposition between 2006 and 2010 and the successful election strategy in 2010.

An expert psephologist, Richard wrote the council’s submission on Brent’s external boundaries in advance of the City and London Borough Boundaries Order 1993 and assisted with Brent’s submissions to the parliamentary boundary reviews prior to the 1997 and 2010 General Elections.

Cllr Susan Dungworth, Political Management

Cllr Susan Dungworth, Associate

susand@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Susan Dungworth is a member of Northumberland County Council and the leader of the Labour Group. She has been the policy board member for Adult Care and Public Health and a member of the Health and Wellbeing Board. She is on the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust Governing Body and the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust.

Before unitary local government was introduced in the county, Susan was a councillor on Blyth Valley Borough Council for 12 years. In that time, she chaired the overview and scrutiny management board, the arts and leisure trust and the community assembly. She was vice chair of the housing services committee and the economic and community services committee.

She has been an IDeA regional lead peer and worked on CPA inspections for the Audit Commission. Her work with the IDeA included member development, reviews, top team development and mentoring of individuals and political groups. Susan is an associate with the Centre for Public Scrutiny.

Susan is keen to recruit more women into local government and to challenge the ways in which councils work in order to ensure that there is more diversity within groups.

Dr. Helen Findlay, Communications

helenf@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

As a communications professional with over 25 years’ experience operating in a range of working environments covering broadcasting, business, industry, the public sector, including trade unions, local government, political parties and the voluntary sector, Helen brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Frontline Consulting Associates.

She also has an extensive practical background in local campaigning and electioneering that includes standing as a candidate in local council elections, seeing service for a time as a town councillor as well as being approved at one time as a parliamentary candidate.

Helen’s particular skills cover writing, editing and art direction, including the production and development of targeted communications such as leaflets, booklets, newspapers, magazines and websites. She is also experienced in developing local and national strategic communications and campaign planning plus event management, including conferences, seminars, exhibitions, dinners and large outdoor events.

Helen has two degrees in politics, including an MSc from Strathclyde University where she majored in public policy making and was awarded a doctorate by Brunel University for studies into service user involvement in palliative care. She is a communications consultant and works extensively on a voluntary basis in the areas of social and palliative care.

Zöe Godden; Town and Parish Councils, Working Across Tiers

Zöe has almost ten years’ experience as a clerk and is a principal member of the Society of Local Council Clerks. Having worked for parishes and towns of varying sizes, from 250 residents to over 5000, Zöe has a strong working knowledge of the various and many policies and procedures governing the sector. Her aim has always been to use policies and procedures to enable robust and transparent achievement of the goals of the parish and town councils she has served.

Zöe has experience in managing allotments, burial grounds, play areas, recreation grounds and various council buildings as well as dealing with sector specific accounting software.

With a strong focus on continuing professional development, Zöe has helped smaller parishes to comply with the Transparency code as well as achieve Local Council Award Scheme Gold status for one small parish in Somerset.

Zöe feels strongly that democracy and transparency are as important for small parishes as they are for the largest towns and has always strived to ensure that the taxpayer gets the best value for their precept as much as possible.

Paul Hoey, Ethical Governance

paulh@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Paul Hoey has worked extensively for central government nationally and internationally for over 20 years in a range of policy roles, including over 10 years as the director in charge of strategy and stakeholder relations at Standards for England.

He has been the acknowledged national expert on the local government standards framework for the last decade and has worked with individual authorities and groupings of authorities on implementation and development of local standards arrangements as well as advised the Standards for England, the government and key national regulators and representative bodies on standards issues. He has given expert evidence to both the Parliamentary Select Committee and Committee on Standards in Public Life enquiries into local government standards.

More generally, Paul has wide experience in operating in a political environment, working with senior politicians across the political spectrum on policy development and implementation and strategic negotiations, covering a diverse range of areas, including housing policy, environmental policy and latterly, a range of issues relating to local authority governance, constitutions and political management.

He has particular experience in working closely with ministers and understanding their needs and developed particular expertise in ministerial speech writing and policy statements, ensuring they were targeted effectively to ensure maximum clarity of message and political buy-in.

He has similar experience working alongside senior officers at national and local level as well as within the political parties and has a deep understanding of the workings of Whitehall and Parliament.

Paul is skilled at developing consensus across a wide range of stakeholders, building effective alliances and facilitating events and discussions. His particular expertise lies in developing and testing policy solutions to problems and then ensuring effective delivery through consensus and team building.

Paul also is a director of Hoey Ainscough Associates Ltd.

Cllr Neil Nerva, MSc; Health and Social Care

neiln@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Neil brings extensive experience in managing and commissioning health and adult social care services. Neil has served as an NHS non-executive director and was, for eight years, an elected member of Brent Council in London where he chaired the Overview Committee and led the introduction of health scrutiny.

Neil worked until recently at the Department of Health where he established and led London Social Care Transformation Leads and the London Links Networks.

Neil is skilled in bringing a wide range of stakeholders together, including users and statutory organisations, and facilitating events and discussions, steering people to a consensus. He is proficient at enabling organisations and services to identify a desired future state and then back-engineering delivery plans using skills in challenge, risk assessment and problem-solving.

A registered social worker, Neil lives in London and is a governor of the local Pupil Referral Unit. He is a member of the RSA Connected Communities Steering Group and the Jewish Care Community Services Advisory Group.

Neil was re-elected onto Brent Council in northwest London in May 2018.

Su Turner, FRSA; Education, Children and Safeguarding

Su Turner is the founder and director of Insight to Impact Consulting Ltd. She has over 25 years’ experience in strategic, policy and partnership roles. This has enabled her to acquire a wealth of knowledge as well as an informed and deep understanding of the challenges facing many sectors, including:

● Education, schools and academic institutions

● Local, regional and national government, departments and programmes

● NHS and health commissioners, patient groups and providers

● Third sector and charities

Su is a highly experienced governance expert with a track record for improvement. She is a national leader of governance for the NCTL, qualified executive coach and mentor and skilled trainer and appreciative inquiry facilitator.

Su delivers training in safeguarding and children’ services and works with us on the #R29 campaign, “It’s About Governance,” being delivered through the non-executive academy.

Tim Young, Senior Associate: Overview and Scrutiny, Police (Fire) and Crime

timy@frontlineconsulting.co.uk

Tim has worked as an independent consultant since 2006, carrying out assignments for a wide range of local authorities and other bodies. In doing so, he draws particularly on his experience as the former head of scrutiny at the London Borough of Camden (a council which earned a national reputation as a leading-edge authority for Overview and Scrutiny) and on extensive networks built up during 16 years in local government.

Tim has worked extensively with members across the political spectrum and with officers from different types of authority across the country. His projects have included policy development, evaluations, facilitated meetings, action learning sets and skills training and development in a range of fields. Tim also has extensive experience in the voluntary sector through working in a policy, research and campaigning capacity for regional and national organisations. He holds postgraduate research degrees in politics from the University of Sussex and has written on a wide variety of topics, including a range of toolkits, protocols, guides and reports.

Tim also works as an expert adviser with the Centre for Public Scrutiny and a consultant with the Local Government information Unit (LGiU).

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