Ian Briggs is an HR and management development professional with over 30 years' experience in the public and private sectors. He has worked for many years in central and local government bodies, with a focus on HR processes and management and leadership development. Through his many years of consultancy, he is familiar with many different public and private sector organisations and their approaches to organisational development, organisational structure and human resources.

Ian's major interests are centred around leadership development processes, with over a quarter of a century in leading, designing and delivering national development programmes for senior managers in local government and the broader public sector. In support of the Top Managers Programme, Ian co-authored with R Mohoney the national guidance on action learning in support of the programmes, and has subsequently facilitated action learning approaches in a variety of settings and for various groups of managers, including those in the social care sector and for chief executives.

Currently, Ian is pursuing an interest in linking our understanding of the development process and its linkages to senior careers in local government. He is called upon to advise on senior appointments in local government. Current areas of interest are pursuing understanding of the new emergent leadership role in public services in light of significant macro-economic changes and the interdependence with organisational development issues. He has a specialist interest in the interrelationships between political and occupational leadership and has contributed to international practice conferences on this issue.

In addition to the above, Ian currently takes the lead for INLOGOV on the expanding agenda around public service commerce through directorship of the MSc in Strategic Commissioning.


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Clive Betts MP began his political career in 1973 and in 1976 was elected as a member of Sheffield City Council. He became Leader of the Council in 1987, having served on the Housing and Finance Committees for several years. He remained on the council until his election as Labour Member of Parliament for Sheffield Attercliffe in 1992.

Clive was appointed a government whip in 1997 and held the post until 2001. In June 2010 he was elected as Chair of the Department for Communities and Local Government Select Committee.

Since becoming a Member of Parliament, Clive has been a key member on several select committees (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Department for Communities and Local Government). His political interests include economic policy, local and regional government and housing. He is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Arms Length Management Organisations and is also Chair of the Netherlands Group in Parliament.

Clive can frequently be found in the stands at Sheffield Wednesday FC and is Captain of the UK Parliament football club.

Presentation: Embracing the challenge

In the wake of the Localism Act, local government is faced with the challenge of implementing the raft of reforms set out by the government. Embracing the challenge of delivering the social and economic reform so badly needed is a daunting prospect.

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Steve Robinson is the dynamic and inspirational leader of the new unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester. He has positioned the organisation as one of the country's most progressive and forward looking councils.

The council launched in 2009 and Steve has stamped his mark on the local government landscape by creating an energetic and innovative council that is making people sit up and take notice.

He sees this role as a rare and unique opportunity to make his vision of delivering truly customer-centred services a reality.

Presentation: Community budgets: a public service revolution

Cheshire West and Chester has been selected as one of four showcase areas to run a Community Budget, focusing on 'ways to create local growth and reduce dependency on the state'. The authority plans to review over 150 local services that have the potential to pool a single budget of £3-4bn.

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John Craig is Managing Partner of Innovation Unit where he leads their health and social care work. Before joining Innovation Unit, John was a policy advisor at the Cabinet Office. He led work on innovation at the Office of the Third Sector, and worked at the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit under the Labour Government. He has also worked as a senior researcher at Demos, the independent think-tank, where he focused on policy relating to communities and public services.

Presentation: Delivering different, better, cheaper public services at scale

Transforming individual public services is extremely challenging, but more difficult still is ensuring examples of innovation aren't restricted to the margins of practice. What does it take to design different, better, cheaper public services and once in place, how can you bring these from the margin to the mainstream?

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With over 15 years experience of leading and managing change, Chris Moore helps organisations meet their strategic objectives through the design and implementation of business change programmes and projects. Originally involved in developing the PRINCE 2 and MSP guidelines, Chris is a practitioner in both and recognised as a leading expert in portfolio, programme and project management. Chris is also an accredited Prosci® Practitioner, using this methodology to ensure "the people side of change" is addressed effectively within his customers' business change projects. The positive impact of using Prosci has been recently demonstrated at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, where Chris engaged with the in-house project team to successfully design and implement an e-Procurement business change programme. Chris is currently providing advice and support to the xchangewales collaborative procurement programme, supporting the roll-out of an e-Procurement purchasing system targeted to deliver up to £200million future savings across the Welsh Public Sector.


A 20-year veteran of the IT and Consultancy industry, Michael Campbell joined CMC Partnership in 2010 from Gartner, where he was Group Vice President Worldwide for Events and Benchmarking Analytics.

Now, as CMC Director of Sales and Marketing, Michael focuses his time on helping private and public sector Executive, Senior and Middle Managers improve their Return on Investment from the appropriate use of Portfolio, Programme and Project Management support. As a Certified Prosci® Change Management Practitioner Michael is adept in demonstrating the value of effective Change Management, which often involves systematically identifying and managing employee resistance to change and developing Executive Sponsorship competency.

Presentation: Localism, localism, localism – how hard can it be?

The Government is overseeing a fundamental shift of power away from Westminster to councils, communities and homes across the nation. For this to work we need to give people the power to improve our public services, through transparency, local democratic control, competition and choice. Local authorities also have a crucial role to play in ensuring that day-to-day services to their communities are efficient and effective, offer good value for money and deliver what people actually want. We are right beside you - helping to create the conditions in which positive change, change that you decide, happens. And creating the right conditions for growth is key to that. Growth requires ambitious and forward thinking leaders and communities.

CMC Partnership is here to talk about how great leaders deliver effective change and poor leaders don't...

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Berni has wide experience in helping public sector organisations define and decide upon their mobile strategy. As a founding Director of Abavus Ltd. he has been working with Local Authorities and a range of other types of public service bodies to ensure that their approach to re-designing services, to incorporate mobile technology, is completed efficiently and successfully.

Over the last 18 years Berni has been involved with the successful implementation and adoption of an array of technologies ranging from primary research tools, advanced analytics and modelling, geographical information systems and, in the last five years, mobile and Web 2.0 platforms.

The advent of the truly mobile technology age is having a dramatic, significant and overwhelmingly positive impact on the way service delivery can designed and implemented. Berni will share an example from a recent project with New Forest District Council.

Presentation: Developing a self service mobile channel – New Forest District Council

New Forest District Council has been working with Abavus Ltd over the last few months to set up and integrate the foundation platform for their own mobile, self service channel based on the proven, nationally enabled My Council Services platform. This case study will share the shape of the project, what specifically has been delivered and what the early results show. The session will also show the next phases of development that are planned and how this broadens the scope of how New Forest can leverage the power of mobile technology.

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As manager of the ICT departments of the two East London Boroughs of Newham and Havering, Geoff Connell is responsible for delivering ICT and information management services to enable transformational change to the councils' operating models. Since responsibility for Havering's ICT services was added to his existing Newham role in late 2009, Geoff has successfully managed the alignment of technology roadmaps while simultaneously achieving significant cost savings and service improvements.

Geoff is active in partnership working and ICT professional bodies including chairing the London branch of the Society of ICT Managers (SocITM). The society shares best practice and knowledge amongst London's local public sector organisations and also coordinates and commissions joint ICT projects through the associated Transformation Board.

He also leads the ICT work stream of East London Solutions (ELS), which supports a group of six councils to develop shared services in the North East London region.

Another notable role is board membership of the Local CIO Council that shadows the central government CIO Council and seeks to align relevant policies, standards and activities.

Presentation: Delivering digital public services

ICT has a key role to play in service redesign, with the shift towards online service delivery gaining momentum and technology being used to make governance more transparent and accountable.

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David Finch is currently the Deputy Leader of Essex County Council and Cabinet Member for Finance and the Transformation Programme.

In June 2009, he was re-elected as the Conservative Member for the Hedingham Division, a term of office he has held since June 2001.

Over the last four years David has held the Cabinet Portfolios for Adults, Health and Community Wellbeing (2009 – 2010), and Finance and the Transformation Programme (2005 – 2009 and February 2010 to date), alongside being elected by the local Conservative Party as Deputy Leader since 2010.

As Cabinet Member for Finance and Transformation, he has overseen the delivery of over £187m of savings by personally selecting the most appropriate projects and approving business cases that will produce the efficiencies required, drawing on his significant business experience in a wide range of industries, and significantly contributing to the philosophy and vision for Essex to become a commissioning organisation.

In February 2012 David was awarded the 'Outstanding Contribution to Finance Performance' award at the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) Councillor Achievement Awards 2012.

Presentation: The benefits of a diverse marketplace

The Open Public Services agenda heralds a diverse new market place, with opportunities presented by close working with the private and third sectors, harnessing the business acumen, flexibility and entrepreneurship to deliver outstanding public services for less.

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Campbell McDonald joined Baxi Partnership from Luther Pendragon, where he led teams providing communications and public policy support to the John Lewis Partnership and the Employee Ownership Association. Other clients included Central Surrey Health, the Department of Health, local authorities and large charities. Before that, Campbell was at the Cabinet Office for five years (including a brief stint in the No. 10 Press Office), and left as Chief Press Officer and Press Secretary to Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP. Prior to government, Campbell was a journalist for three years. He has a BA in Politics from Durham University, an MA in Transnational Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a CIPR Postgraduate Diploma.

Presentation: Pursuing new models of service delivery: a spotlight on public sector mutuals

Shared ownership models have the potential to improve levels of engagement, productivity and service quality – but are they a viable option? This session will share learning from the Cabinet Office Mutual Pathfinders and Mutuals Information Service, as well as procurement and contractual considerations.

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Lord Victor Adebowale is Chief Executive of Turning Point, a leading health and social care organisation that provides services for people with complex needs, including those affected by drug and alcohol misuse, mental health problems and those with a learning disability.

Victor began his career in Local Authority Estate Management before joining the housing association movement. He spent time with Patchwork Community Housing Association, was Director of the Alcohol Recovery Project and Chief Executive of the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint.

Victor divides his time between a range of influential policy-making bodies. He is involved in a number of taskforce groups, advising the government on mental health, substance misuse, learning disability and the role of the voluntary sector. He is an audit commissioner and sits on the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.

In 2000, Victor was awarded the CBE for services to the New Deal, the unemployed and homeless young people and in 2001 was appointed to the House of Lords where he sits on the cross benches.

Presentation: Leading public service reform

For change to be effective, there has to be radical new thinking about the design and delivery of services. The public sector is traditionally perceived as being rather resistant to change, and particular challenges in getting around this include those of dealing with complexity, constraints, culture and conflict.

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