(Virtual) Developing the workforce, culture and capabilities for the future – people, tech & resources

Olivia Dixon joined Hertfordshire Constabulary through the Police Now National Graduate Leadership Programme in 2017 where she joined the Stevenage Safer Neighbourhood Team. She successfully completed 4 long-term problem-solving projects during her two-year probation, presenting the learning points from these projects back to her Police Now colleagues at national conferences. After completing her probation on the neighbourhood team, she has been on a local response team for a year and was quickly propelled into being one of the senior PCs despite only a few years’ service. Olivia became a Licensed Search Officer in October 2019 and since then has been involved in a number of high-profile searches including the searches of the Grove Hotel in Watford for the NATO summit. She is currently working towards becoming a PolSA and negotiator with the longer-term goal of becoming a detective and working her way up through the ranks.

Christine Elliott was the College's first independent director, appointed 2015 and is a proven senior leader with substantial chairing and non-executive experience. Prior to being appointed Interim Chair, she was the College’s Senior Independent Director and has chaired the Audit and Risk, College Regulatory Consultative, and Nominations and Remuneration Committees. Christine is also Chair of the Health and Care Professions Council, which regulates fifteen professions; and is an independent lay member of the Editors' Code Committee, which reviews and revises the Code used by all UK press regulators. Her career encompasses public, private and non-profit sectors and her track record includes transformation, change, systems-thinking and collaboration. A signature role was as Director at the previously unknown and heavily indebted, WW2 code breaking site, Bletchley Park, which she built into an innovative organisation that became internationally renowned and received millions of government infrastructure investment and private donations.

Former Director of the NAO PFI team; Lay Member of the CCG Governing Body with responsibility for finance and performance. David is an accountant who trained at PwC and served in the National Audit Office at a senior level for many years where he had particular experience of PFI, cross-government projects, and Government / City relationships. He chaired the National Youth Agency and he is currently Adviser to the Cambridge and Peterborough CCG (NHS) on finance and performance. David brings his financial and governmental expertise to Cityforum’s advisory work and round tables on financial and economic crime, international finance and economic resilience and on effective delivery of public services.

Chief Superintendent Paul Griffiths is a Gwent police officer and has served in both uniform and detective ranks throughout his career. He has performed operational, investigative and organisational roles for his force. He is a senior investigating officer, strategic firearms commander, authorising officer and a negotiator co-ordinator. He has led one of the largest modern slavery investigations in the United Kingdom. Paul has held branch and district executive roles since 2010 and was on the Panel of Friends. He was elected to vice president in 2016 and president in 2019. Paul is an officer of the Order of St John, holds a BSc (Hons), MSc in criminal justice studies and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Management Institute. He is a trustee with Police Care UK, National Police Memorial Day Charity and National Arboretum Memorial Trust. He is Chair of St John Gwent Council. He is married with two sons and in his spare time enjoys physical challenges, adventures and charity work. He has combined all three to raise money for police charities, by walking 870 miles around the Coastal Path of Wales, completing the UK 24 Hours Three Peaks Challenge, cycling over 2100 miles around every Police Headquarters, walking 86 miles along the Hadrian’s Wall Path in 36 hours and walking the full length of the Thames Path, covering 180 miles in July 2019.

Martin Hewitt is Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). He was appointed in April 2019. He began his policing career with Kent Police in 1993 and transferred to the Metropolitan Police Service in 2005. As an Assistant Commissioner for five years, Martin led frontline and local policing, specialist crime and professional standards. He led the national police response to adult sexual offences and kidnap between 2014 and 2019, and served as a Vice-Chair for the NPCC from 2015 before taking on the chairmanship.

Matt Jukes was appointed Chief Constable of South Wales Police in January 2018.
Matt joined South Yorkshire Police in 1995 before going on to work in a number of roles, principally as a detective. He worked for the forerunner of the National Counter Terrorism Policing network and remains involved strategically in counter terrorism, having been deployed as the CT Commander on a number of major operations. Matt joined South Wales Police as an Assistant Chief Constable in 2010 and was appointed as Deputy Chief Constable in 2013. As DCC Matt led the Force Change Programme at a time when funding was reduced by £51million, yet through systematic reform and efficiency changes managed to maintain South Wales Police’s position as one of the most visible and best performing forces in England and Wales. As Chief Constable, Matt has focussed on the health and wellbeing of officers, staff and volunteers developing a trauma-informed service that has resulted in a significant reduction in hours lost to sickness and a particular reduction in mental health- related absences of 18% between April 2017 and March 2019. The force has continued to be a pioneer in the ethical use of technology, most prominently ground breaking developments in Automatic Facial Recognition. Matt is the NPCC Lead on Pay and Conditions and is responsible for leading the design of a new national reward framework for officers in England and Wales. He is also the Deputy Chair of the NPCC Crime Operations Committee, as well as a member of ‘Building a Healthier Wales’ Group. He iaChair of Police Spork UK and a member of the Princes Trust Advisory Committee for Wales. Matt was awarded a Queens Police Medal in the 2018 New Years Honours List and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Cardiff University.

Martin Leven currently works within the CTIO function of BT as the Principle Technology Partner for Public Safety and Justice where he specialises in strategy and innovation within the policing and wider public safety communities. Previously a member of the Police Scotland Force Executive where he was Director of ICT, Martin was the founding Chair of The National Police Technology Council (NPTC) in 2015.

Karyn McCluskey leads the Community Justice Scotland team and has overall responsibility for raising awareness of the value that community justice brings to individuals and communities. Karyn trained as a nurse, and then in psychology. She spent 21 years working with the police and helped establish the Violence Reduction Unit in 2003 with a Public Health approach to preventing violence. She is a member of the WHO Violence Prevention Alliance and also helped set up the Medics Against Violence charity in Scotland, which speak to school children about violence reduction, injury and keeping safe. She has also previously developed a plan to tackle violence for the Metropolitan Police and has published work on Armed Robbery teams, Alcohol and Violence Interventions in a clinical setting and Violence Reduction. In addition, Karyn is a Non-Executive Director at Scottish Professional Football League and a board member of Simon Community Scotland and the Centre for Justice Innovation.

Jo Noakes was appointed as the Director of Workforce Development to lead the College's work supporting people in policing to meet the challenges of the future. She oversees the College's crucial work to promote diversity and wellbeing, and to support the development and selection of leaders at all levels within the service. This involves setting requirements for new recruits and promotions in all forces, accrediting, quality assuring and delivering professional development. Jo is the College lead for the Police Uplift Programme, delivered in partnership with the Home Office and the NPCC. Jo joined the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) in 2008. As the NPIA's Talent Management Lead she launched the Graduate Entry Scheme and managed programmes including the High Potential Development Scheme and the National Senior Careers Advisory Service, some of which transferred to the College in 2012. Her work developing and implementing the Direct Entry Superintendent Programme was recognised with a Chief Constable's Commendation and she played a central role in the College's 2015 Leadership Review which, through extensive research, identified what the service might require of its future leaders. From 2016 to 2019 Jo was the Head of Leadership & Talent and the Director of the College's Strategic Command Course (SCC), the most senior leadership development programme in UK policing (and the gateway to Chief office ranks in every force). Jo's work in leading a thorough review of the SCC and its selection processes, has resulted in the course producing increasingly diverse cohorts of Chief Officer candidates. Jo also established new leadership pathways for all ranks of officers, and the Senior Leaders Hub which, amongst other functions, supports the progression of those from underrepresented groups. She graduated from the University of Surrey with a BSc (Hons) in Business Studies in 1996 and joined a management scheme with one of the UK's leading hospitality retailers. Within two years she was responsible for a business with an annual turnover in excess of £1million. In 1999 Jo joined the UK's largest recruitment company as a consultant, and by 2004 was managing the organisation's flagship business in London, going on to win a number of awards. Jo left her role as a Divisional Director in a national recruitment company in 2008, wishing to apply her skills and experience to public services. Jo has Post Graduate Certificate in Career and Talent Management and is a member of the British Psychological Society, accredited in psychometrics including NEO, Hogan and MBTI.

Nicola Price joined West Midlands Police in November 2019 as Director of People and Organisation Development. A professionally qualified human resources leader with 20 years’ HR experience working in L&D, Talent & Performance, Shared Services, HR business partnering across Europe, Americas and Asia Pacific. Nicola completed a master’s degree in strategic human resources at the University of Portsmouth and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. She started her career in the Manpower Services Commission supporting national youth and adult training programmes, driving Government initiatives in skilling people back to work. Since then, she has worked in both public and private sector organisations driving global diverse people strategies in Rolls Royce, Bombardier, Barclays and Siemens.

Peter Selby’s nearly 50 years as a priest have taken him in unusual directions. After a curacy in north-west London, he spent the next 15 years were in various appointments concerned with laity and clergy education, while undertaking doctoral research in New Testament. In 1984 he became Area Bishop of Kingston. His clinical pastoral education at theological collage took him to San Quentin prison in 1965, where he acquired his lifelong interest in prison issues. So, after 5 years as a research professor at Durham and during his time as Bishop of Worcester, he became in addition the Bishop to Prisons, often speaking in the many criminal justice debates in the House of Lords; then after retirement he served as President of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs have oversight of human rights and rehabilitation issues in prisons and immigration detention). He then became a member of the interim directing team at St Paul’s Institute, the Cathedral’s agency for relating to the financial sector in the City, enabling him to continue another longstanding interest, the workings of the finance. Among a number of books his two most recent are on this theme: Grace and Mortgage: The Language of Faith and the Debt of the World (a book which some suggest was prescient of the crisis of 2007) and An Idol Unmasked, a Faith Perspective on Money. He is just emerging from his six month self-isolation.

David served as a police officer for 36 years culminating as Chief Constable of West Mercia Police from 2011-16 having also served at chief officer level in West Midlands Police leading on Counter Terrorism, Crime, Local Policing, Criminal Justice and ICT. He has held national portfolios in Fingerprints, Biometric Databases and Conflict Management. In late 2016 David became interim Programme Director for the Transforming Forensics Programme before joining the Home Office Biometrics Programme as Strategic Stakeholder lead. In September 2019 he began a new role with responsibility for Stakeholder Engagement within the Innovation team of the Law Enforcement Portfolio of the Home Office supporting a range of major technology programmes. In July 2020, he commenced a programme of learning which will enable him to become a supervisor on the Police Executive programme at the University of Cambridge.

Gavin Stephens brings a wealth of experience form over 23 years within Surrey Police, serving in every rank up to the role of Chief Constable, including as Neighbourhood Inspector in Tandridge and a Detective Sergeant during the last major force boundary change in 2000. Gavin has overall responsibility for strategic and operational co-ordination, and is also the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Neighbourhood Policing, Social Media and Digital Engagement, PCSOs and has recently taken on the role of Chair of the Communications Advisory Group. Born and bred in Hartlepool, Gavin studied engineering at the University of Cambridge and worked for GEC Marconi Research as a sponsored student. After joining Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 1993, he moved to Surrey Police as a PC in 1996 and was initially based in East Surrey. He continued his career working in Serious and Organised Crime, Professional Standards and latterly in the Neighbourhood Policing Command before becoming Chief Constable in April 2019. He is also a Trustee of Police Care UK and a Patron for Transform Housing.

Stefan Stern has been writing and commenting on business and management for almost three decades. His career in journalism has included stints at Euromoney, the BBC, Management Today magazine, and the Financial Times, where he was the management columnist between 2006 and 2010. In October 2010 Stefan was appointed Visiting Professor in management practice at City University Business School (formerly Cass), University of London. He is a Fellow of the RSA, and continues to write for the FT and the Guardian, among other titles. In October 2015 he became director of the High Pay Centre, a London-based think-tank which looks at the issue of top pay. He stepped down from that role in April 2018. He is the author, with Prof Cary Cooper, of “Myths of Management – what people get wrong about being the boss” (Kogan Page, October 2017). His second book, “How To Be A Better Leader” [Bluebird – PanMacmillan], was published in March 2019.

Gavin Thomas was elected as President of the Police Superintendents Association in 2016, representing all Superintendents and Chief Superintendents in England and Wales. Prior to becoming a full-time national officer of the Association, Gavin had been Head of Crime and Protective Services in Gloucestershire Constabulary. He has been a Detective for most of his career in fraud, serious and organised crime investigation, intelligence, and counter-terrorism. He has attended the FBI Quantico programme and has a keen interest in the application of technology and data to improve policing response to the new and emerging crime patterns online. The bulk of the Cityforum programme is devoted to helping secure better answers to often wicked problems that confront government, business and the citizen. Gavin Thomas’s practicality has real significance in delivering the performance quality that we seek.

Giles York has enjoyed a successful career in policing across Kent, South Wales and Sussex. His work covered many aspects of operational policing including counterterrorism, tackling serious organised crime as well as local policing. Nationally, he led a number of digital change programmes in policing and criminal justice. He was the national lead for Workforce, being the full range of people issues and leadership in policing. He championed diversity and inclusion on gender, race, disability and LGBT locally, nationally and internationally. He is a trustee for the UK Police Memorial Trust. He is married to Sally and they have three, mostly grown up, children and two springer spaniels.