Baroness Warsi

Sayeeda, Baroness Warsi, Britain's first Muslim Cabinet Minister, is also a lawyer, businesswoman and racial justice campaigner and has consistently been listed as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world.
Appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer at the age of thirty-six, she served as Chairman of the Conservative Party, in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and as Minister for Faith and Communities.

She is an advisor at the Bridge Institute, Georgetown University Washington D.C, a member of the International Advisory Board on FORB, University of Notre Dame and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton.
She has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Aston, Birmingham City, and Bolton Universities, as well as from the University of Law.

Sayeeda is the author of two books; The Enemy Within , A Tale of Muslim Britain and Muslims Don’t Matter.
She is a regular daytime TV presenter and news commentator. In 2024 she launched the award winning Podcast ‘A Muslim and A Jew Go There’.

Paul Turner, Director of Legal and Assurance and Monitoring Officer at Essex County Council and LLG Vice President & Regional Director for the Eastern region

Paul is the Director of Legal and Assurance and Monitoring Officer at Essex County Council. He has spent the last 30 years working for all types of councils from Northumberland and Greater Manchester to the Eastern region (Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire); from a district with a population of 31,000 to Essex which has a population of 1.5m. He has been a monitoring officer or deputy since 2001.  Of his work at Branch level, Paul says “It’s been interesting and fun, and I’ve met so many people who are passionate about making a difference”. 

Helen Bradley, Head of Legal & Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer, Durham County Council. LLG's Monitoring Officer National Lead & LLG Deputy Vice President

Head of Legal & Democratic Services, Durham County Council, and LLG Monitoring Officer National Lead and LLG's Deputy Vice President.

Helen has nearly 20 years local government experience having worked in both district and unitary authorities. Initially specialising in criminal and civil litigation, all of Helen’s roles have included a focus on local authority governance, which reflects her interest in this area of expertise. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with elected Members and considers that strong working relationships with all members are essential to good governance and high standards of ethical conduct.

Having trained in local government, Helen is particularly interested in developing local authority lawyers and the Monitoring Officers in the future. She was appointed as National Lead for Monitoring Officers and Governance for Lawyers in Local Government in December 2016.

Rachel McKoy, LLG Past President and Director of Legal & Governance (Monitoring Officer), London Borough of Newham

Rachel is an experienced senior leader within the legal and governance space. She currently holds the position of Monitoring Officer and Director of Law & Governance at the London Boroughs of Newham and Havering (One Source).

She is also a public sector champion holding the following roles: Immediate Past President of Lawyers in Local Government (LLG); NED and Board Solicitor for the Society of Local Government Chief Executives (SOLACE); Chair of the Professional Conduct and Disciplinary Committee BCS (Chartered Institute for IT) and Lay Trustee (Legal & Governance) Westminster University Student Union.

Alexis Powell-Howard, Fortis Therapy & Training

Allison Cook, VWV

Allison has over 10 years' experience in advising clients on a wide range of emloyment law issues.  She has a special interest in advising publicly funded bodies on individual employment issues or situations where the organisation is dealing with its workforce from a more strategic standpoint, including wholesale organisational change and industrial relations.

Allison also advises businesses, charities, emergency services and the not for profit sector on all issues regarding their employees.

Amardeep Gill, Trowers & Hamlins

Amardeep Trowers & Hamlins National Head of Public Sector and advises government, public bodies and SMEs on transformation or business critical projects.

He is nationally ranked as an expert in local government (Legal 500 and Chambers UK) and has also been recognised for his market-leading expertise by legal research experts, Acritas, who have designated him as an 'Acritas star'.

Amardeep has extensive experience across a range of local government sectors including digital technology, leisure, transport, health, education, outsourcing, regeneration and waste.  He is currently engaged in a number of PFI expiry projects, LATC reviews, transport arrangements and assisting combined authorities – including the newly formed East Midlands County Combined Authority.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester

Andy Burnham was first elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester in May 2017, re-elected for a second term in May 2021 and a third term in May 2024.

Responsible for shaping the future of Greater Manchester, Andy’s priorities for his third term include continuing to build a London-style integrated transport system, ending the housing crisis by 2038, offering a new technical education pathway as an alternative to university and creating a new Live Well service, making Greater Manchester a great place to grow up, get on, and grow old.

Before being elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy was MP for Leigh from 2001. In government, Andy has held Ministerial positions at the Home Office, Department of Health and the Treasury. In 2008 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, before returning to Health as Secretary of State in 2009.

In opposition, Andy has served as Shadow Education Secretary, Shadow Health Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary.

Andy lives in Leigh, Greater Manchester, with his wife and three children.

Becky Walsh

Becky Walsh is a multifaceted comedian who effortlessly infuses her humour into the realms of personal development and mental health.

Becky is a sought-after speaker for her stage presence, comedy and profound insights. She has been a featured presenter both on stage, TV and in broadcasting having had her own show on LBC Radio. She served as a senior curator, coach, and script editor for TEDx Bristol.

Becky has made significant contributions as a trainer for The Society of Local Council Clerks, sharing her knowledge and expertise for the past five years. Her educational background includes a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Becky Walsh the author of five published books including 'You do know - Learning to act on intuition instantly' published by Hay House. 

Claire Gilbert, Capsticks

Claire is a Principal Associate in the Employment and Pensions team at Capsticks, and a qualified barrister.  Claire has a vast amount of experience in working with employers, including local authorities, across the full range of employment issues, and various areas of compliance, including investigations, data protection and managing whistleblowing processes.  Claire has a particular interest in industrial relations, equal pay, discrimination and the area of maternity and family-related rights.  Claire is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association, Industrial Law Society and The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

Claire Ward, Anthony Collins

Claire is a partner at Anthony Collins, supporting local authorities nationwide and acting as an important sounding board for council monitoring officers, chief executives and other senior officers on governance issues. She has extensive local government expertise having been a monitoring officer and director of governance and legal services at Herefordshire Council, where she also served as acting deputy chief executive. Prior to this, she worked for Cumbria County Council.

Craig Elder, Browne Jacobson

Partner, Browne Jacobson

Craig advises government bodies, and suppliers government clients, on projects, complex procurements and high-value contracts. He has particular experience of the waste, energy, leisure, education and social infrastructure projects. He was also named as “public sector person of the year” for delivering innovative partnering arrangements with our local authority clients.

Craig works with major government clients including HM Treasury, and Department of Health and Social Care and Natural England on some of their most high-profile projects. He also has experience of PFI arrangements, including some of the highest-value PFI projects to sign in the UK to date. Using this experience, he continues to advise on PFI variations and refinancing.

Craig also uses his experience of the public sector landscape to advise major national outsourcing, infrastructure and energy clients on public sector contracts

Daniel Purcell, Bevan Brittan

Daniel is a Partner at Bevan Brittan in the Litigation, Advisory and Regulatory Department.  Daniel has acted for the commissioners, providers and regulators of public services, handling some of their most complex disputes, investigations and litigation, including: 

• Commercial dispute resolution
• Fraud prevention, response and asset recovery, including injunctions
• Procurement and supply contract disputes
• Defamation and reputation management

His regulatory experience includes acting for statutory regulators, handling complex and high profile prosecutions, appeals and litigation.

David Kitson, Bevan Brittan

Partner, Bevan Brittan

David specialises in regulatory, governance and information law. He provides advice, training and support to various public bodies including local government, NHS Trusts, NHS CCGs, National Park Authorities, and Housing Associations, as well as to private and third sector bodies.

David's practice includes advising on vires and constitutional issues; conduct and ethical standards; complaints and investigations; information law (DPA/GDPR, FOIA, EIR and RIPA); governance and the democratic process (including technical elections issues); senior officer disciplinary and departures; and governance around shared services and outsourcing.

Prior to joining Bevan Brittan David worked for a local authority for almost 13 years, the latter 6 of which he was the Deputy Monitoring Officer and Senior Information Risk Owner. During this time he frequently delivered advice requiring a high degree of political awareness and sensitivity, and advised upon and resolved many technical and contentious issues.

Estelle Culligan, Wilkin Chapman

Partner, Wilkin Chapman

Estelle qualified as a solicitor in 2001. She was a family solicitor before working in local government for 18 years.  She has been head or director of law and monitoring officer for several local authorities.

Estelle moved to Wilkin Chapman in 2022 as a Regulatory Partner. She advises on a wide range of issues including constitutional matters, councillors’ conduct, decision making and powers, procurement, planning, housing and all aspects of local authority governance.

Estelle brings her personal experience and a pragmatic approach to the challenges that councillors and officers face in balancing their duties to the council and the public.

Gillian Duckworth, Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Gillian is the Group Solicitor and Monitoring Officer at Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transport for Greater Manchester and has been a local government lawyer for over 30 years working at District, Metropolitan and now Combined Authority level. Initially specialising in property development and regeneration her roles have been more latterly strategic, focussed on local government powers and governance.

Gillian’s passion is investing in people to make Local Government the best it can be for its communities, therefore training and development of officers and councillors formally but also through informal coaching and mentoring is always a feature of her leadership style.

Guy Clifton, Grant Thornton

A CIPFA qualified accountant who started his local government career in 1990, Guy joined Grant Thornton in 2007 where he has held a number of senior consulting, advisory and assurance roles.

Before joining Grant Thornton, he was a Managing Consultant within RSM Robson Rhodes public sector advisory practice for 5 years.

Prior to this he spent 12 years in local government holding a number of operational roles, including Head of Finance of a London Borough. He took up his current role as Local Government Value for Money Director in 2022.

Heather Wills, LGA

Jonathan Werran, Chief Executive, Localis

Jonathan has extensive experience in communications and journalism. After five years as a reporter, commentator and features editor for The Municipal Journal, in 2015 he became the first strategic communications officer for the District Councils’ Network.

Prior to The MJ, he edited an online government property and public estate magazine and helped run communications and marketing for anti-poverty charity Elizabeth Finn Care.

Juliet Oliver, Deputy Chief Executive and General Counsel, SRA

Juliet is responsible for legal advice and support on the development of strategic and regulatory reform as well as matters of governance and compliance. She also leads the SRA’s investigation and enforcement function, as well as the organisation’s dedicated anti money laundering directorate and thematic inspections.

Previously a partner at Fieldfisher she acted for regulatory bodies across sectors including healthcare and law. This built on her previous experience at the General Medical Council, where she advised on high profile disciplinary cases and matters, including the Shipman and Mid Staffordshire public inquiries. She is a non-executive board member at the Professional Standards Authority, the oversight regulator for the healthcare professions.  

Kisha Punchihewa, Deputy General Counsel, SRA

Prior to joining the SRA, Kisha was Head of Legal at the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, the oversight body for the healthcare regulators. She jointly led the team that reviewed all final fitness to practise decisions and worked on the regulatory reform programme for health and social care. She has also worked at frontline regulators such as the General Medical Council and General Optical Council, where Kisha headed up the fitness to practise function.

Laura Hughes, Browne Jacobson

Laura Hughes leads Browne Jacobson LLP's public law and insurance/public risk departments, advising on high-profile public sector matters. With 19 years of experience, she specialises in public law, environmental issues, and supports net-zero initiatives. Her clients include government bodies and environmental regulators. Laura excels in guiding clients through complex decisions.

Lisa Kirkman, VWV

Lisa is a Consultant in the public sector team. 

Lisa joins us after previously working at two ambitious Hampshire authorities. Having most recently been Strategic Director and Monitoring Officer at Winchester City Council she also brings unique insight having led teams beyond the legal sphere in areas such as audit, finance, procurement and contract management, policy, emergency planning and business continuity, communications, democratic services, elections, IT and HR.

Lisa trained and qualified at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, spending a further 17 years working her way up to Head of Law & Governance and Monitoring Officer before moving to Winchester City Council.

Lorraine Heard, WBD

Majid Iqbal, CEO of the Islamophobia Response Unit (IRU)

Majid is the CEO of the Islamophobia Response Unit (IRU), a charity dedicated to supporting victims of Islamophobic hate crime and discrimination.

He is a commercial litigation lawyer, with vast experience in the private and public sectors. He is a strong supporter of all social justice and an advocate of the pro bono sector. He has worked in the Legal profession for 25 years and has a proven track record of success. He has a strategic and effective leadership style and since joining the IRU in December 2023, has grown and developed the organisation significantly.

He has also established many new partnerships and is now focused on driving the IRU forward so that the IRU can represent many more clients and implement systemic change at government level.

Manisha Patel, Non Executive Director to the LLG Board for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Manisha Patel is an Inclusion and Culture Strategist, Non-Executive Director, Executive Coach, and Founder of the Female Executive Mentoring Programme.

Manisha is currently working with a range of high profile organisations as a strategic advisor on diversity, inclusion and culture.  In her role as Non-Executive Director at LLG, Manisha advises and supports the Board on ensuring all strategic decisions embed equality, diversity and inclusion.

Mark Cook, Anthony Collins

Mark is a partner at Anthony Collins, having been at the firm for over 25 years. He has a strong track record in enabling social, economic, and environmental well-being to be a core feature in the delivery of public contracts. Mark provides councils and their partnering organisations with strategic advice on models for transforming public services, using the law to create flexible routes for achieving change. He is particularly engaged in enabling organisations to collaborate in purpose-driven projects, through contracts and governance (e.g. doing business as members of a co-operative). He advises local authorities on procurement and corporate structures and is prominent in advising in areas of subsidy control, joint venture vehicles, and not-for-profit structures.

Mark Heath, VWV

Consultant, VWV

Mark Heath is a solicitor and consultant at VWV where he specialises in providing advice to clients in the public sector. He is also the Returning Officer at Southampton.

Mark has over 30 years' service within the public sector. Until December 2016 he held the positions of Solicitor to the Council (and Monitoring Officer) for 20 years and subsequently Director of Resources / Director of Place and finally Chief Operating Officer at Southampton City Council.

He became Southampton's Electoral Registration and Returning Officer in 1994, roles he still holds. He has served as Regional Returning Officer for the South-East Region of the UK in various elections and referendums as well as Police Area Returning Officer (PARO) for the Hampshire Force Area. He also sits on various bodies convened by Government and the Electoral Commission that look at electoral law, policy and practice as well as writing and lecturing on the topic.

Nick Alstrom, Wilkin Chapman

Solicitor, Wilkin Chapman

Nick is a solicitor in the Regulatory and Public Law team at Wilkin Chapman. With over five years' in-house experience at a local authority, he held various roles before qualifying within the commercial team, specialising in procurement and subsidy control. Nick now advises a range of public sector clients, including local authorities, schools, and internal drainage boards, on GDPR & FOIs, education law, and public law commercial matters.

Paul Clarke, Finance Director, London Borough of Islington

Paul's current role is Director of Finance in the London Borough of Islington, leading in the development and implementation of the Council’s financial strategy and the modernisation of the finance function.  Key successes in this role have been successively clean Value for Money assessments from external auditors, being the first London Borough to publish their 2023/24 statement of accounts and also the launch of the Country’s first Community Municipal Investment ISA. Paul has also worked with the LGA as a member of an Independent Improvement Board for a local authority in financial distress.

Peter Collins, Sharpe Pritchard

Peter is a corporate lawyer who specialises in advising clients on corporate law and public/private sector joint ventures across a range of assets.

Peter has considerable corporate finance experience, which he now harnesses to provide pragmatic advice to public bodies across a range of disciplines.  As well as advising local authorities on establishing corporate structures, Peter acts for public and private sector clients on company acquisitions and disposals, fundraisings, corporate finance, group reorganisations and corporate governance.

As part of his work, Peter advises clients on public procurement and subsidy control matters. He is regularly asked to advise accountable bodies on the terms of multi-million-pound grant agreements. Peter is experienced on corporate governance and brings from the private sector robust corporate governance practices and employs them effectively in the local government context. He is regularly asked to provide training on corporate governance, in particular directors’ duties under the Companies Act 2006. Peter also has a comprehensive understanding of the UK Corporate Governance Code having implemented governance arrangements across a range of companies subject to the code and organisations that have used it as the basis of their own governance regimes.

Philip McCourt, Bevan Brittan

Philip specialises in local government corporate law and decision making. Having joined a local authority as a shared district and county sponsored trainee in 1988, he qualified first as a chartered secretary and then a solicitor. He has since worked for a number of authorities, first becoming a monitoring officer in 2000. He joined Bevan Brittan LLP in 2022.

Philip has led the drafting on a number of national projects on governance and standards, including:

• the LLG, CIPFA and Solace  Code of Practice on Good Governance for Local Authority Statutory Officers;
• model Members’ Planning Code (described by the Supreme Court as offering sound practical advice);
• the LLG example Code for the Governance of Council Interests in Companies;
• materials and training products that made up the LGA (IDeA) Ethical Governance Toolkit; and
• the parish council governance toolkit.

He is the current author of Knowles on Local Authority Meetings, is a contributor and editor for LexisNexis and is an examiner for the Law Society’s Local Government Diploma.

Quentin Baker, Hertfordshire County Council

Quentin is the Director of Law and Governance at
Hertfordshire County Council and is a previous President of LLG

Rachel Murray-Smith, Sharpe Pritchard

Rachel specialises in projects and procurement matters, with a particular focus on construction.

Rachel provides solutions-focused legal advice, with an emphasis on proactive engagement with her clients and management of legal and commercial risks. The projects that Rachel advises on invariably involve multiple stakeholders, numerous commercial risks and considerations, and tight deadlines.

Rebecca Gilbert, Capsticks

Principal Associate, Capsticks

Rebecca Gilbert is an experienced public sector projects solicitor advising local authorities and other public sector clients on a variety of complex and multi-disciplinary projects ranging from regeneration and development, infrastructure, alternative delivery models, joint ventures, collaborations and service arrangements. 

Rebecca’s expertise spans across a number of disciplines from property to commercial to public and local government law. She regularly advises public sector clients on vires and governance; best value; development agreements; corporate and collaborative structures; joint ventures; options appraisals; funding agreements; services contracts and other commercial agreements; procurement and vires; land assembly; acquisitions and disposals.

Stephen Johns, Weightmans

Steve is a commercial lawyer and a key member of Weightmans’ local government team.  Throughout his 24-year career he has worked extensively with public sector clients such as local councils, transport and waste authorities, NHS bodies, police and central government.  He advises on a wide range of commercial and procurement matters across sectors including public transport, housing, PFI, waste, roads and other infrastructure. 

Over recent years Steve has taken on a number of high-profile matters for Combined Authority clients, including GMCA, WECA, LCRCA and WMCA.  He has strong experience supporting clients on complex projects, often involving collaboration across different public sector entities.

Stephen Wanless, IKEN

Steve Gummer, Sharpe Pritchard

Steve is the Head of Net Zero at Sharpe Pritchard and has extensive experience on regulated and net zero projects. He has acted for investors, utilities, government and innovative developers on all types of projects.

This includes regulated water, where he has experience advising on environmental matters and licence conditions and creating and developing financeable regulated project structures. He has worked on a number of bespoke regulated projects, including in the nuclear sector and in the water sector including on the Thames Tideway Tunnel and Portsmouth Water in developing a unique form of bulk supply arrangement on the Havant Thicket Project. Steve is an expert on regulated asset base delivery models.

Stuart Evans, Anthony Collins

Partner, Anthony Collins

Stuart leads on planning and highway related legal work.  For over 15 years he was employed as Head of Planning and Regeneration and Interim City Solicitor at Birmingham City Council where he advised the landowning arm of the Council’s Property Services on many large transactions. He also supported and advised the Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust.  Previous transactions Stuart advised upon relate to large scale city centre redevelopments, Aston Regional Investment Site, Birmingham City University and HS2. The advice provided related to the making of planning applications, drafting of committee reports and associated committee procedure; he also advised on the inter-relationship of development agreements, s106 agreements and highway agreements. 

Stuart is a recommended lawyer in the Legal 500, 2020, where the firm is ranked in Tier 1 for Local Government. “Partner Stuart Evans stands out. He is a planning solicitor who makes things happen and is an expert at guiding clients through the complexities of planning.”

Tanya Corsie, IKEN

Tiffany Cloynes, Capsticks

Partner, Capsticks

Tiffany Cloynes is a Partner and Head of Local Government at Capsticks. She has an excellent reputation and substantial experience of acting on large scale, complex regeneration and infrastructure projects and is recognised as a leader in her field by clients and the legal press. Underpinning this experience is extensive knowledge and practical experience of both public and administrative law.