Local Government Challenge 2019: Meet the contestants

I work as an Economic Development & Regeneration Officer, helping to deliver on the City Council’s Economic Growth Strategy. This covers three core areas of work (business, people and place) to be delivered by 2021. My role is diverse and engaging, bringing up new challenges every day, and I have learnt much from having to think on my feet and be flexible with what is asked of me.

I’m Bob Allen and I have worked for Wigan Council since 2013, I currently work as a Project and Operations Manager in the Drugs and Alcohol Team. As a born and bred Wiganer, living in the borough all of my life, the opportunity to showcase my hometown to a national audience was a great motivation to apply as well as the chance to share the innovative work that my colleagues and I undertake on a daily basis.

I work as part of the Performance and Transformation Service, the Insight team gives me a holistic view of all services across the council concentrating on their performance, projects, consultations, risk and complaints. That combined with my business knowledge and political awareness, allows me to analyse complex data sets and produce compelling visual reports to enable services to make evidence-based decisions, and ultimately provide our residents with excellent services in an efficient way. I’m looking to gain valuable insight into other local authorities’ practices, what we do differently and experience new and creative solutions around the challenges we are all currently facing.

Emily Kindred works within the Health Protection and Civil Contingencies Team as a Public Health Officer; designing and implementing asset-focussed work programmes across two mandated functions. Her programmes extend from Infection Prevention and Control to Emergency Preparedness. Emily has implemented a development programme called ‘Bright Sparks’. Emily has been nominated for two internal awards, as ‘Rising Star’ and ‘Ambassador of the Year’, showcasing her commitment and belief in the local ambition.

I’m a Commissioning Manager in Children’s Care and Support. My role is to design, procure, monitor and evaluate the delivery of Public Health services, ensuring they meet the needs of local children and young people. The role is challenging with less funding available for services, a growing young population and greater levels of need than ever before. Delivering this role successfully in context of these challenges requires; strong market engagement strategies, creative and innovative thinking, effective programme and relationship management and skills within monitoring and evaluation to ensure the consequences of savings pressures have limited impact on ability to meet the needs of local people.

I currently work as a Senior HR Business Advisor within Kent County Council supporting managers to enhance business performance and respond to the organisation’s changing needs. My role is extremely varied and includes providing expert advice on complex cases and leading on both departmental and organisation wide projects. I want to grow both personally and professionally and to learn new skills that I will benefit from in my future career. I want to grow my confidence, push myself outside of my comfort zone and support others that may face the same challenge.

I am a Policy, Strategy and Partnerships Officer for the London Borough of Merton. I am responsible for leading on a number of projects that encourage stronger collaboration across different service areas and that improve the ways in which the council can utilise data and information to inform the decisions it takes. The role is hugely varied with the opportunity to face different challenges every day. I am massively passionate about the positive and vital role local government plays in enabling communities to thrive. This is a fantastic opportunity to challenge myself, both personally and professionally and develop skills I can then use to support residents and their communities.

I’m Rob Comber - I have been working for Kent County Council since 2010. I am proud to be working across Children’s, Young People’s and Education services - the ambitions we set ourselves are great and the work we deliver is inspiring. I am a project manager with a wide range of experience in change management and business agility and I have a passion for innovation and research and. My current role focuses on delivering service transformation to improve experiences and outcomes for children and their families. I am excited to be part pf the challenge and I am looking forward to getting started.

I am proud to have work for Kirklees Council, primarily within Adult Social Care. I currently work within the Transformation Team working on large change projects across our organisation. My role focuses mainly on corporate and enabling programmes of work such as our digital transformation and mobile and agile working project – my passion lies within both culture change and redesigning current systems and structures. I am also a keen advocate for young people across Kirklees and have run successful conferences and new development opportunities – championed by both our Chief Exec and councillors.

I am proud to work for Merton Council within the Transformation Team, working on large change projects across our organisation. I am a Corporate Programmes Officer within the Continuous Improvement Team.I provide guidance, support and assurance for the delivery of Merton’s transformational projects and other continuous improvement activities, producing monthly project reporting to the board. I ensure that services within the council are supported to adopt the changes projects bring about so that these changes are embedded into day to day practice. I am very excited to be a part of this and am looking forward to the challenge. Roll on 2019!