Neil Wooding
Director, Public Service Management Wales
Neil has spent much of his career working with organisations across the UK to promote Equality and Human Rights. He was the first Equality adviser to be appointed in Wales and during the course of his career successfully established the NHS Centre for Equality and Human Rights. He is currently the EHRC Commissioner for Wales, the Co-Chair of Stonewall Cymru, a Trustee of the National Aids Trust and a Non-Executive Director of South East Wales Race Equality Council.
He is the Director of Public Service Management Wales, an organisation set up by the Welsh Assembly Government and public service organisations for the purpose of building leadership and managerial capacity. Neil is a Fellow of the National Centre for Public Policy and a respected authority on Equality and Human Rights issues. He lives with his partner in South-east Wales and co-parents two children.
Steve Thomas
Chief Executive, Welsh Local Government Association
Steve Thomas is Chief Executive of the WLGA, taking up the post in March 2004. Appointed to the WLGA in October 2000 as Head of Strategic Policy, Steve has worked in local government since 1989. He started within the field of Economic Development and was then tasked in the early 1990s with the project management of the reorganisation of Islwyn Borough Council leading up to the establishment of the new unitary authority Caerphilly County Borough council in 1996. At Caerphilly CBC Steve was the Head of Policy, Best Value & Central Services where he managed a range of functions including corporate strategy, democratic services, elections and the Wales Programme for improvement.
Steve is Joint Secretary of the statutory Partnership Council between the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Local Government Association. He also sits on a range of national bodies including the Wales Resilience Forum, the Consultative Forum on Finance, Public Services Board for Wales and chairs new boards for the National Service Frameworks for Children and for Older People. Steve is also Company Secretary of the Local Government Data Unit Wales Board and sits on the Council of the Prince’s Trust Cymru. Steve has a First Class Honours Degree in History and Politics and a Masters in Public Management and is always on the search for tickets to Welsh rugby internationals!!
Grenville Jackson
Head of Skills, Business and Employability
Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills
Welsh Assembly Government
Grenville began his career in Wales with the Development Board for Rural Wales in Newtown in 1977 as an economist/projects manager and became Marketing Director in 1984. Throughout to 1997 he was responsible for factory building, inward investment, business support and finance, training, tourism and community development and marketing. He introduced the agri-food initiative in Mid Wales.
In 1997 Gren worked on the WDA, DBRW and Land Authority for Wales merger and subsequently was the WDA’s Director of Strategy and Policy, before arriving at Mid Wales TEC in spring 1999 as Chief Executive. When ELWa was created in 2001 he became the Director of Strategy and Policy and subsequently had responsibility for learning development and communications and skills.
From the 1st April 2006 Gren leads the new ‘Skills, Business and Employability’ Division of the Welsh Assembly Government. This includes responsibility for sector developments and SSCs, direct support for employers, and leadership and management development and training support.
Lynette Harris
Professor of Human Resource Management and Professional Practice at Nottingham Business School
Lynette is Professor of Human Resource Management and Professional Practice at Nottingham Business School. Prior to joining the University, Lynette was a Personnel Director in Local Government and has 14 years experience of working as a personnel practitioner in both the public and private sector.
Lynette is an active researcher and consultant on contemporary human resourcing issues and is one of the authors of the recent CIPD talent management research report. She is also the author of articles in both academic and practitioner journals and joint editor of the postgraduate text ‘The Strategic Managing of Human Resources’ published by Pearson Education. Her professional activities include acting as a Quality Management Chair for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and she strives to play an active role in the work of Chartered Institute with the aim of strengthening the dialogues between practitioners and academics. Lynette has been an arbitrator and mediator for ACAS since 1987and acts as a Deputy Chair for the UK’s Central Arbitration Committee.
Dr Pat Oakley
Director, Practices Made Perfect Ltd.
Teaching and Research Fellow and Examiner in Organisational Psychology and Human
Resource Management, Birkbeck and King’s Colleges, London University.
- Lead Tutor, NHS Wales’ National Leadership and Innovation Agency for Healthcare.
- Former Non-Executive Director of the English National Board.
- Former Special Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Health.
- Former Special Adviser to the Scottish Executive’s Integrated Workforce Planning Group.
- Past President of the Association of Healthcare Human Resource Managers.
Dr. Patricia Oakley is an Organisational and Management development specialist and a technical workforce model-builder and planner; current areas of work include:
- Supporting senior management teams in developing their service strategies and management plans, eg. in the NHS, Prison Service and Professional Bodies.
- Delivering a successful programme of Policy Master classes as part of local development programmes across the UK.
- Building with specialist colleagues bespoke workforce planning models and preparing strategic workforce policies and investment plans for senior management teams and national policy-makers.
- Researching the implementation of complex Government Policies eg. in Children’s Mental Health Prevention Services.
- Developing research-based national-level policies eg. in assessing the potential impact of commercial enterprises (multi-national and small businesses) on public service delivery.
Dr. Oakley has nearly 30 years health and public service experience in both operational and policy research and development areas. She has worked extensively with boards and executive directors and senior clinicians, and with service managers and clinical practitioners, in developing their strategic management approaches for delivering clinical and specialist services. She has worked in management and organisational development; restructuring organisations and clinical care systems; designing and delivering skill-mix reviews and reprofiling programmes; conducting value for money audits and managing subsequent change programmes; designing and implementing fully costed pay and remuneration plans; preparing strategic workforce and education and training investment plans; and developing pragmatic approaches to managing doctors’ poor performance.
She has also worked with senior Strategic Health Authority and Local Authority staff and GP Practices to develop their infrastructures of skills, knowledge and processes to make local purchasing and programme commissioning schemes work in practice. More recently she has been involved in developing clinical networks in and across Trusts.