Online - Spring Conference Day 2

John Bacon, Business Coach and Culture Expert, Cultura Consulting

John has nearly two decades' experience in coaching and consulting across multiple sectors, including local authorities and the NHS.  He is a subject matter expert in organisational and leadership culture, and experienced in helping leaders with mindset / behavioural change. John is passionate about helping people to achieve their potential, overcome challenges, and to find connection to their purpose.  He uses CLEAR coaching methodology with emphasis on accountability, behaviours, habits and accelerated wisdom.  He has a strong interest in EDI and removing non-objective bias from the workplace.

John focuses on aligning the cultural and commercial objectives of organisations and connecting / reconnecting people to purpose. This achieves better outcomes for individuals, their teams and their organisations.

Jonathan Goolden, Partner, Wilkin Chapman

Jonathan is a highly experienced regulatory and public sector lawyer and former senior manager. He trained as a solicitor in Manchester, London and Brussels before joining Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in 1991. In 1993 he moved to Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council initially undertaking planning and corporate work, before managing a litigation and social services legal team. He was seconded to the Council's Internal Inquiry team investigating serious corruption and misconduct amongst senior staff and councillors.

In 1998, Jonathan became Secretary and Solicitor to Derbyshire Dales District Council and its monitoring officer. In 2000, he moved to Lincolnshire, becoming a Deputy Clerk and Monitoring Officer, then Clerk to Lincolnshire Police Authority. He left the Police Authority in 2004 to set up his own firm which he merged with Wilkin Chapman LLP in 2010 and he is currently based at the firm's main office in Grimsby.

He was a member of the core drafting team for INLOGOV working on the modular constitutions project for English local government and lectures widely on governance and ethical standards issues.

Together with his team of experienced former police and local government officers, he has investigated and led a large number of reviews of complex and politically high profile cases of alleged misconduct in the public sector. His investigation of Boris Johnson’s conduct as Mayor of London and Chairman of the then Metropolitan Police Authority in relation to the arrest of Damien Green MP was cited as an example of best practice of a high pressured investigation by Hull Business School in research for the Standards Board for England.

More recently, he has reviewed the handling of significant whistle blowing allegations in a mental health NHS trust, child safeguarding and taxi licensing issues at a district council and assisted a London Borough hold its first full council meeting after a major and very high profile disaster.

Jonathan advises a range of commercial and public sector bodies on information governance, including data protection and information security and is a member of the Humber Business Resilience Forum.

Estelle Culligan, Partner, Wilkin Chapman

Estelle graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in modern languages and pursued a career in human resources before qualifying as a solicitor in 2001. She worked for four years as a family solicitor, before moving into local government as a litigation solicitor. She rapidly progressed and, for several years, has worked as head or director of law and monitoring officer for various councils. She has managed a number of related services within local government, including legal services, human resources, democratic services, information governance and elections.

Estelle’s experience within local government law is wide ranging. She advises on issues including constitutional matters, councillors’ conduct, decision making and powers, planning, housing and all aspects of local authority governance. She has developed a particular interest and expertise in dealing with grievance and disciplinary matters involving statutory officers.

Gill Thompson, Regulatory Executive, Wilkin Chapman

Gill Thompson is a regulatory executive within the regulatory and public law team based in Wilkin Chapman's Grimsby office. Gill has been at Wilkin Chapman since 1992 in various litigation support roles but for the last 13 years, she has been part of the Regulatory team and has extensive experience of investigations and compliance.

From 2011-2019, Gill was the firm’s Complaints Administrator, receiving, investigating and resolving client complaints and working on cases referred to the Legal Services Ombudsman. She also assisted with matters under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

As a key member of the Regulatory team, Gill has worked on a very large number of investigations of alleged misconduct by local government councillors and in complex public sector staff grievance and disciplinary cases.

She has been involved in the defence of regulated professionals such as healthcare workers and sports coaches. She also fields all firearms licensing queries.

Allison Cook, Partner and Head of Public Sector, VWV

Allison has over 10 years' experience in advising clients on a wide range of employment 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. 

David Kitson, 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.

Paul Bowden, Partner, Wilkin Chapman

Paul graduated from the University of Hull with a 2:1 degree in Law with Criminology. He passed his Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in York with Commendation and completed his training contract at a Hull based firm before joining Wilkin Chapman as a solicitor in 2009. He became a senior solicitor in 2013, and became a partner in June 2018.

Since 2009 Paul has formed part of the firm’s Recoveries department and has acted for a range of creditor clients in relation to both volume recoveries and more complex insolvency proceedings. He acts for a wide range of corporate clients, including local authorities, utility companies, debt purchasers and other commercial creditors.

From July 2013, Paul has had management responsibility for the development and delivery of "resolution", Wilkin Chapman's unique legal and insolvency service offering primarily developed for local authorities. This service provides research, enforcement support and case administration to local authorities (and other creditors) engaged in the use of insolvency, charging order and order for sale as recovery methods.

Paul specialises in finding ways to assist local authorities in dealing with collections. He can advise on collections strategy, improving processes and finding solutions for a wide range of issues facing revenues teams which include maximising revenue, tackling static debt and collecting arrears.

Paul and his team are well experienced in supporting revenues teams with all manner of legal and insolvency related issues and there is particularly high demand for services relating to NDR liability (such as contested liability, tackling rates avoidance schemes and collecting NDR debts), freeing static debt to trigger collections and strategies to address sundry debts, including adult social care.

Paul also has a wealth of experience in acting for petitioning creditors on personal insolvency matters, in particular those where petitions become defended. He has also advised clients on complex annulment applications and applications to set aside statutory demands. Paul has experience in acting for trustees in bankruptcy in relation to post bankruptcy issues such as applications for possession and sale and applications for examination.

Amber Aisthorpe, Solicitor, Wilkin Chapman

Amber joined the firm in 2009 and qualified as a Chartered Legal Executive in 2017. Amber went on to qualify as a solicitor in 2019, having completed her Legal Practice Course, gaining a distinction, at Nottingham Trent University.

She is a solicitor within the recoveries department and has gained vast experience in many aspects of recoveries and insolvency work. Amber has recently joined the Local Authority Team where she will support Alex Ottley in managing the team and concluding a wide range of defended litigation cases on behalf of clients.

Amber’ practice areas include dealing with the full range of debt types through various enforcement channels. The bulk of her work relates to unpaid taxes and other local government arrears such as Adult Social Care and other sundry debts.

She is able to support clients in all manner of debt and insolvency matters. She also assists with the management of our Local Authority team in order to ensure adequate supervision and the on-going development of staff knowledge.

Peter Collins, Partner, Sharpe Pritchard

Peter is a corporate lawyer who specialises in creating commercial delivery structures for public sector clients including through subsidiary companies, collaboration arrangements, partnerships and joint ventures. He regularly advises clients on public/private sector joint ventures relating to property assets in the context of land development and regeneration.

Peter has considerable corporate finance experience which he now harnesses to provide pragmatic and commercial advice to local authorities and other public bodies. Peter also acts for clients on company acquisitions and disposals, private equity investments, fundraisings, group reorganisations and corporate governance.

As part of his corporate 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 also a trusted adviser to a number of local enterprise partnerships, having been at the forefront of developing the corporate governance arrangements for a number of LEPs following the requirement for them to become incorporated.

Simon Colvin, Partner, Weightmans

Simon leads the firm's environmental law team and is also head of the firm's energy and utilities sector. He is also closely involved in the development of the firm’s ESG programme (internal and external).

Simon is client relationship partner for several leading energy, utility, and resource/waste clients. That role gives him unique insight and understanding of the pressures and requirements that operators in those areas are subject to.

He works closely with those clients to understand what is important to them and how the firm can help them to achieve their goals.

Simon’s recent experience includes:

• The defence of investigations and prosecutions by the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, and the Marine Management Organisation.

• An end of waste judicial review application.

• The export, transport and recovery of resources and fuels into and out of the UK.

• The interpretation of environmental permit conditions.

• The disposal of former manufacturing facilities for US corporations for remediation and subsequent development.

• Advising on the revocation of a hazardous substances consent.

• The application of MEES and EPC controls to the real estate portfolio of a household name FTSE 100 company.

Simon is a member of CIWM and writes a regular column in their journal, he is a fellow of IEMA and delivers a quarterly legal update webinar for them. He has supported the Broadway Initiative and a group of legal experts who worked with DEFRA in relation to the formation of the new Environment Act 2021.

Christine Rishton, Principal Associate, Weightmans

Christine is a commercial solicitor with an extensive range of experience, but a particular focus on advising upon long-term energy infrastructure projects aimed at delivering the Government’s Net Zero Strategy.

Christine helps clients with energy performance contracts and decentralised energy schemes and is looking forward to advising clients on offtake arrangements (in particular corporate power purchase agreements) as more and more non-fuelled energy power stations come on line

Thanks to a background within local government, Christine’s mix of commercial experience is broad, from advising upon the public procurement of public health services and the handling of formal challenges to the same within the Technology and Construction Court, to advising upon the delivery of Superfast Lancashire, which rural broadband scheme was praised for leading the way for delivering superfast broadband to the hardest to reach areas.

More recently Christine has advised in relation to the formation of numerous energy performance contracts funded by way of the public sector decarbonisation scheme for the benefit of a number of NHS trusts. 

Chris Plumley, Partner, Trowers & Hamlins

Chris specialises in large scale public sector regeneration and mixed use development projects. With over 20 years' experience he is particularly noted for unlocking stalled developments.

Paul McDermott, Partner, Trowers & Hamlins

Paul has worked with a range of local authorities, registered providers of social housing and other public sector organisations to develop public private schemes and create structures which enable multi agency service delivery to be effective.

Mary-Anne Anaradoh, Director, Practical Law Public Sector

Mary-Anne has significant legal experience in adult social care, health, education and administrative law. 

Prior to joining Practical Law in 2015, Mary-Anne practised as a solicitor at a number of London local authorities. 

She also held positions as Principal Lawyer and Deputy Monitoring Officer at Southend Borough Council and Principal Consultant Adult Social Care Lawyer at Islington Council, advising senior officers and members on complex legal, strategic and governance issues. 

Peter Ware, Partner, Browne Jacobson

Peter is the head of Browne Jacobson’s Government practice. Specialising in contentious and non-contentious procurement matters, Peter supports public and private sector clients to get the very best out of their regulated procurement activity.  

Peter’s extensive experience also means that he can advise clients on a variety of commercial matters for both government and supplier-to-government clients. 

Prior to joining Browne Jacobson, Peter was a special projects adviser for Nottinghamshire County Council – meaning he really understands the pressures faced by in-house counsel when leading major projects. 

Peter is dedicated to helping clients achieve their Net Zero aims. Peter has been instrumental in supporting the Midlands Engine in developing their 10-point plan for Green Growth. As Chair of the Midlands Engine Green Growth Board, Peter continues to champion their work by working with businesses, public bodies, academia and the third sector to achieve genuine change through innovation and growth.