In our latest virtual round table discussion, Panoramic Associates’ Principal Consultant Alex Miller invited two guest speakers and attendees to discuss a variety of topics within the sector.

Chris Shephard – Director of Economic Development at BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council) gave a presentation on “Regeneration – Setting the Scene”. Also, Tom Dobrashian – the Group Head of Place Shaping for Watford Borough Council gave a presentation on “Getting to know Watford”.

Chris explored Bournemouth’s vision for the future as they class themselves as UK newest city region. Their long-term goal is to be one of the best coastal places in the world. To achieve this, they are targeting a variety of areas such as providing a vibrant community, improving residents’ quality of life, and nurturing skilled people. To fund this, BCP has created their own futures fund by creative accounting from the Council leaders.

Tom presented his ideas on Watford’s views and plans for growth to transform travel in Watford via their local plan and transport and economic strategy. He also discussed their vision to extend Watford town centre to create a new highly sustainable mix-use urban quarter around the junction station. Watford as a whole is looking to write their story better.

It was helpful for all the attendees to share best practices on how they are progressing their schemes. It was also an environment to share any innovative ideas that can be implemented in their respected councils/ working practice.

Watch the meetup below.

We, at Panoramic Associates, thoroughly enjoy getting insights into our specialist market sectors, other organisations and perspectives. We run these events to build our collective knowledge and provide opportunities to create a network of like-minded individuals.

If you have any suggestions on future topics for our next event or would be interested in attending, please contact Alex at [email protected]

Panoramic Associates are thrilled to bring you our first Change and Transformation Meetup!

For this event, we were joined by three brilliant guest speakers: Nathan Pierce, Head of Smart London Team & Programme Director of Sharing Cities with the Greater London Authority, Karen Thorpe-Reid, Master Change Practitioner and Teresa Itabor, Transformation and Change Professional.

We explored best practice, challenges and trends within local authorities in change and transformation.

Currently working as a Programme Director with the Greater London Authority, Nathan also shared his overview of the Sharing Cities Programme, thoughts on post-pandemic agile working and business as usual, and big digital innovations for local authorities.
From all of our speakers, we heard their exciting opportunities for local authorities to collaborate and innovate creative ideas to elevate their change and transformation programmes!

About Nathan:

Nathan Pierce is the Head of the Smart London Team based in the Greater London Authority in the UK. He is also the Programme Director for Sharing Cities, a pan-European programme that tests out innovative smart city solutions across a number of major European cities, replicating and scaling what works through new business and investment models.
Nathan has 15 years’ experience across a range of public sector bodies having led on major service design and commissioning projects within London and at a European level. Nathan is determined to improve the lives of regular people by finding innovative ways to make government more sustainable, efficient and citizen focused.

About Teresa:

Teresa Itabor is an experienced Transformation and Change professional, with a track record of delivering major service improvements in Local Government and Housing Associations.
Teresa has spent the last 20 years as a transformation and change leader, working with directly CEOs and Senior Leadership teams in Local Authorities, designing, automating and streamlining business processes through the use of technology and implementing effective Target Operating Models.

About Karen:

Prior to founding Premier Change Consulting, Karen held leadership roles with public and private organizations including Shell Oil, TFL, Network Rail, Carphone Dixon & TalkTalk. At age 26 Karen joined Shell as Head of Customer Service before becoming the Director of Customer Service within 18 months where she presided over 19 islands. As a senior global executive, she has been responsible for leading large teams (3000 plus members).

As a Transformation consultant Karen applies her years of experience in business leadership to challenge culture and convention. Driven and open-minded, Karen enjoys changing the way that things are done to generate benefits that will last a lifetime. Karen is also the founder of The Flexie Bench, a virtual platform that unites small companies, start-ups, and individuals in order to foster creativity and accelerate success.

Watch the meetup below.

We, at Panoramic Associates, thoroughly enjoy getting insights into our specialist market sectors, other organisations and perspectives. We run these events to build our collective knowledge and to provide opportunities to create a network of like-minded individuals.
Please in touch at [email protected] with any questions or suggestions on future virtual meetups.

In addition, if there’s anything we can help you with in regards to sourcing candidates or finding a new role please do also get in touch

A Morning with Be First London – Accelerating Growth in Barking and Dagenham.

Earlier this month, Panoramic Associates’ Lead Senior Consultant Alex Miller held the next instalment of The Development & Regeneration Series!

Alex was joined by Be First’s Pat Hayes, Managing Director, and Caroline Harper, Chief Planning Director, who covered a wide range of topics to give us an insight as to how they run their respected services.

Pat gave an overview of Be First’s objectives and goals as to why they were initially set up. The Council took a view to intervene in the housing market and seized an opportunity to build out a housing programme.

A regeneration department was formed as an arm’s length company to address the housing demand in the Borough. This started as a build small scale build operation and now has expanded with the view of producing 5,000 units over the next 5-10 years. Be First currently have 1,500 units on-site and have produced 3,000 units in their first five years of operation.

Caroline then went on to explain her experiences joining Be First from a solely private sector background and her initial challenges when joining a Public Sector organisation.

Caroline oversees what she calls a “Planning Super Service”, which consists of a variety of services and a growing planning consultancy team. The team Caroline inherited wasn’t fit for purpose, which meant she had to drive a huge cultural shift to ensure planning is used as a mechanism to say no to poor development. Caroline’s goal in the coming years is to grow the consultancy team, to not just oversee Council owned schemes, but to explore working for third parties.

After this, there was a chance for the attendees to ask any questions relating to the speaker’s insights.

This was a brilliant session for all attendees as it enabled them to take a glimpse into one of the leading wholly-owned companies in the country.

Watch the meetup below.

We, at Panoramic Associates, thoroughly enjoy getting insights into our specialist market sectors, other organisations and perspectives. We run these events to build our collective knowledge and provide opportunities to create a network of like-minded individuals.

If you have any suggestions on future topics for our next event or would be interested in attending, please contact Alex at [email protected]

Earlier this month, Panoramic Associates’ Lead Senior Consultant Alex Miller spoke with Pat Hayes, Managing Director of Be First, LB Barking & Dagenham’s development and regeneration company, as part of The Development & Regeneration Series.

We are looking to bring together individuals from the public sector space across the development and regeneration services to share ideas and best practices.

During our discussion, we covered the following topics:

– Pat’s working background and how he entered the sector
– What the longer-term vision will be for Be First
– Be First’s vision and key objectives
– Their process once recruiting

Pat talked through his journey into the sector as he entered the field outside of the traditional routes as he originally studied politics. Pat started in the Councils policy team, then eventually drifted into urban regeneration.

The future of Council Development Companies is still unclear as to whether they will remain Council owned or split off entirely as a separate entity. They do have the freedom that most Council services don’t have, and financially Be-First could run indefinitely. Be First want to encourage Housing Associations and Developers to work in the borough to create job opportunities.

Pat then went on to discuss how they want to build on the 5000 home pipeline and progress their estate regeneration projects to increase the employment within the area and improve their economic offer. Be First are have an enormous opportunity to grow with land available to build on.

The core workforce was from the council initially as they transferred over when Be First was created. There is an intention to promote within and also offer scholarship and apprentice programmes to attract local people to start their Careers at Be First. They want to employ external professionals to also not miss out on the best talent on the market. Their goal is to attract not just the best skill sets on the market but also attract people who will work well with others and buy into the culture.

Watch the meetup below.

We, at Panoramic Associates, thoroughly enjoy getting insights into our specialist market sectors, other organisations and perspectives. We run these events to build our collective knowledge and provide opportunities to create a network of like-minded individuals.

If you have any suggestions on future topics for our next event or would be interested in attending, please contact Alex at [email protected]

Panoramic Associates are delighted to bring you the first instalment of “The SEND & Inclusion Series”. Our first meetup featured special guest speaker Adam Boddison, CEO at Nasen, who discussed ‘Challenges, Pressures and Outcomes across Local Authority Teams’.

In this session, Adam considered the different data sets available to schools and how they can be used to improve the quality of provision for learners with SEND. Adam gave a particular focus to published regional/national data sets, school level data sets, and data from formal assessment/diagnostic tools. By the end of the session, our participants had a better understanding of how effective assessment and data analysis can inform interventions and strategic decision making.

About the speaker
Adam is CEO at Nasen and Chair of Whole School SEND. He is a National Leader of Governance and Trustee at a Multi-Academy Trust, spanning primary, secondary and specialist settings. Adam is a Trustee of the Potential Trust, a member of the National SEND Forum and a Fellow of the RSA. Prior to this, Adam was Director of the Centre for Professional Education at the University of Warwick and Academic Principal for IGGY (a global educational social network for gifted teenagers). He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Wolverhampton, a published author and a qualified clinical hypnotherapist.

Watch the virtual meetup below.

Using a virtual platform allows us to reach more of our community and interact with you directly. We are planning to host our next virtual meetup in the new year, please get in touch with any questions or suggestions on future virtual meetups.

In addition, if there’s anything we can help you with in regards to sourcing candidates or finding a new role please do also get in touch.