Full agenda

Welcome and opening remarks

  • Reflecting on faster, better leaner
  • Two years’ of ACEP, what has been achieved?
  • Keynote address : John Lehal

9.30 am > 10.00 am

John Lehal, former chief operating officer of the Labour Party and now senior counsel at communications agency Grayling, wields influence that extends far beyond Westminster’s corridors. With over 15 years in public affairs, this strategist has shaped the political landscape while remaining largely unknown to the public.

Lehal’s journey began far from the political spotlight. “I joined the Labour Party at 18, and it has been a massive part of my life ever since. My values are Labour values: social justice, fairness, equality, and standing up to injustice,” he has said.

At just 24, he contested the Conservative stronghold of North East Bedfordshire in the 1997 General Election – one of Labour’s youngest candidates. Though unsuccessful, this early challenge launched a career that would eventually help orchestrate Labour’s triumphant return to power.

What could go wrong? When consultations go off the rails, stories from the crypt

Panel Session

  • Top mistakes and how to avoid them
  • Stories from supporting clients
  • Caselaw

Moderated by Fraser Henderson, ACEP co-founder

10.00 am > 10.30 am

Nick Duffin, Independent Consultant

Nick has over 25 years experience of engaging the public and stakeholders, whether for public service, social or commercial purposes. He has supported health bodies, Councils, developers, airports, Fire and Rescue Services, NGOs, publishers, third sector organisations and consultancies in their consulation persuits.  Nick was CEO of the Consultation Institute until 2018.

Andy Wight, Founder ASV

Andy specialises in developing actionable outcomes based on sound research and insight, working with a diverse range of organisations and stakeholders. He has worked on a varied range projects providing advice and guidance as well as quality assurance on consultations, in health, social care, SEND, LTNs and other sectors. 

Andy Mills, Independent Consultant

Andy brings 10 years of experience with the Consultation Institue following a successful Assistant Director level career in public services.  He has worked with various consultation assignments for public bodies such as Tower Hamlets Borough Council, City of York and North Yorkshire Councils (shadow Combined Authority), Greater Manchester Health and Care Partnership, Edinburgh Health and Care Partnership, Surrey County Council, Walsall Met. Council, Gloucestershire County Council and North of England and Midlands and Lancs CSUs

Delivering big conversations: lessons learned from change.nhs.uk

Expert Session

When the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care launched Change NHS, they said they wanted this to be the biggest ever conversation about the NHS. And that’s exactly what happened.  Lucy and her team from Thinks Insights designed and managed the project that resulted in 270,000 contributions since launch in October 2024.  The stats are impressive:-

 

  • there have been more than 1.9 million visits to the Change NHS website
  • over 750 members of the public and over 3,000 health and care staff from every NHS region of England have taken part in discussions to get their views on how we can deliver the three shifts
  • ther were over 1,600 responses from organisations on the portal and we’ve continued to meet with partner organisations to capture their expertise and the views of seldom-heard voices
  • over 650 community workshops have been hosted by partner organisations and local health systems, with over 17,000 people attending local events across England. This includes those whose voices are often underheard such as Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, people with alcohol and drug dependence and people experiencing homelessness
  • 800 Integrated Care System leaders – from the NHS and local government – have attended regional events to talk about the plan
  • On Friday 4th April,  a National Summit was held bringing together hundreds of members of the public and health and care staff to help us shape the final Plan

10.30 am > 10.50 am

Lucy Farrow, Partner

Lucy Farrow is one of the UK’s leading deliberative research and engagement practitioners with 15 years’ experience involving citizens in the decisions that affect their lives.  Alongside her role at Thinks Insight & Strategy she is a Fellow of Lancaster University, focusing on participatory climate policy making as part of the Climate Citizens initiative.

Lucy has designed and delivered some of the UK’s largest and most complex consultation and engagement projects from self-driving vehicles, to health service reform, water industry pricing to data sharing policy. She is also committed to developing the field of deliberative engagement, from designing one of the early citizens assemblies on climate change, to training civil servants to use deliberative research and participatory engagement methods to transport planners.

Hettie Hill, Associate Director

Hettie is an experienced mixed methodology researcher with a particular expertise in researching sensitive topics, from serious crime to immigration issues, as well as designing and conducting research with vulnerable or hard-to-reach audiences.

She is a core member of the Thinks team specialising in financial services research, having delivered numerous projects for clients including the Financial Conduct Authority, the Financial Reporting Council and Lloyds. With a background in consumer communications, Hettie also has a keen interest in communications and campaign development research, and in using behaviour change frameworks to understand the extent to which a campaign will effectively change behaviour and create impact.

Expert Session

Engage Early, Deliver Better: Lessons from across Local Government and Infrastructure Projects

The importance of early engagement across transport and infrastructure projects, particularly significant with the upcoming changes to DCO projects with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.  Chloe will share lessons learned from delivery across local government and nationally significant infrastructure projects.

10.50 am > 11.10 am

Chloe Smith, Associate Engagement Consultant

Chloe is a creative Chartered Manager with a wealth of experience delivering communications, engagement and consultation strategies on a range of projects from active travel and public realm to large infrastructure DCO projects.

Experienced in helping clients gain consents on projects through extensive two-way dialogue and use of engaging techniques, Chloe has a keen interest on digital and innovative tools to ensure engagement reach is high and people feel informed and inspired.

Continual engagement through citizens assemblies – a dialogic approach to speed-up policymaking

Expert Session

Exploring the importance of continual engagemen through more dialogic methods, with a particular focus on the highs and lows of citzens assemblies.

11.10 am > 11.30am

Reema Patel, Director of Research and Implementation

Reema is an independent researcher and practitioner with expertise in deliberative and participatory approaches. She currently works on the Digital Good Network, Public Voices in AI, and the Global Climate Citizens Assembly led by Iswe Foundation. She is also an EDI associate to the Wellcome Trust, advising them on the development and implementation of their equity framework.

She has been a People Powered mentor on two democracy accelerators, and she serves on the stakeholder panel for the EU Horizon consortium INSPIRE (Intersectional Spaces for Participation), which she helped establish. Reema co-founded the Ada Lovelace Institute. She is steeped in the practice of participatory processes, working at the RSA, Ipsos, and Involve. Most recently, she was Research Director and Head of Deliberative Engagement at Ipsos — specializing in complex, multi-country citizen engagement programs such as the Global Science Partnership for climate action as part of the UK’s COP26 Presidency.

**Short 10m Break**

Afternoon chaired by Joe Cawley – Head of Grayling Planning and Infrastructure UK

Grayling Planning and Infrastructure is Grayling’s specialist stakeholder, community and digital consultation and engagement practice within the global communications firm, Grayling. 

 Based in nine offices across the UK, Grayling P&I engages with communities on major TCPA and NSIP projects, including managing the complex DCO process from consultation to consent. Joe is a multi-award winning consultant, with over 15 years’ experience working on major residential, commercial, infrastructure and mixed used schemes across the UK.

It’s all about productivity – what have we learned in two decades of online participation?

Panel Session

Moderated by Joe Cawley : Head of Gralying Engage

Exposing trends in online consultation and engagement from three leading platform providers.  What data insights do they have? What trends and future predictions do they have about the use of digital in our industry?

11.40 am > 12.10pm

Louise Cato, Chief Operating Officer

Louise Cato is the Chief Operating Officer at Delib, a company that builds digital tools to help governments run democratic, accountable processes. Delib has been working with government for over 20 years to help open up decision-making processes to millions of people. She has over a decade of experience in public sector technology, operations, and customer-focused service design. Louise has worked with organisations like the Scottish Government, Government of Northern Ireland, Whitehall departments, regulators and many local authorities, on projects large and small, from the Infected Blood Inquiry to the second Scottish Independence Referendum consultation. With a background in finance, med-tech, and the public sector, Louise runs Delib’s strategy, delivery and daily operations and is focused on building a company that delivers trust, transparency, and meaningful impact with government in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

Jonathan Bradley, Business and Practice Lead (Granicus)

Jonathan Bradley, Business and Practice Lead (GXG UK), heads up the Granicus Experience Group in the UK, leading our development of digital engagement and citizen experience professional services for the UK market.

He has spent the past two decades focused on citizen engagement in the UK and was recently responsible for building Bang the Table’s (now part of Granicus) business and services in the UK market. Before joining Granicus, Jonathan built and led the UK’s first independent agency specialising in public engagement, working closely with local authorities and government organisations. And prior to that, Jonathan worked at a leading independent market research company, heading up the design, delivery, and development of major research and consultation projects on behalf of central and local government

Lora Botev : Country Manager UK, GoVocal

Lora has a diverse background in various industries, ranging from public policy to education and business development. With experience at companies like CitizenLab, Tutoracle Ltd, and Opendatasoft, Lora is involved in building stronger local democracies, providing tutoring services, and redefining data sharing solutions. Lora also has a background in public health consulting, knowledge search, and microfinance consultancy. A graduate of Sciences Po, University of Oxford, and University College London, Lora holds degrees in International Public Management, Russian and Eastern European Studies, and Modern Languages.

Working at pace in a Combined Authority – 30 consultations in six months – what we did and what we learnt

Expert Session

What happened in summer / autumn 2024, what we learnt and what we are now doing differently (or plan to as change takes a while!)

12.10 pm > 12.30 pm

Clare Davies, Communities, Consultation and Engagement Manager

Clare Davies manages the Communities, Consultation and Engagement team at West Yorkshire Combined Authority. She has over 20 years’ experience of delivering local government consultation and engagement activity.  She has led the team in delivering an extensive range of projects including devolution, transport, skills, business, housing, planning, climate, culture and many more!

Raising awareness like a ninja: how to gain the most traction in planning consultations

Expert Session

The visibility of consultations is vitally important yet in a busy world where people are time poor and attention economics is king, how do we get noticed and drive traction to our consultation and engagement opportunities?  Oli reveals some practial examples of gorilla marketing.

12.30 pm > 12.50 pm

Oliver Deed, Managing Director

Oliver Deed is co-founder and Director of ECF. Oliver is a talented communications and engagement practitioner with over 10 years of experience in the UK and across Australia.   His knowledge of public and political relations as well as his expertise in strategic communications provide him with the tools to design innovative solutions for a range of projects. He has worked on small and large scale residential, construction and infrastructure projects. 

He has led the team in delivering on a wide range of projects for clients including BeFirst, Camden Council, CityFibre, Community Health Partnerships, Crystal Palace Football Club, Enfield Council, Haringey Council, Mid Sussex District Council, TOWN and U+I PLC.

Getting it right first time: how preparedness can help reduce unforeseen costs in complex change programmes

Expert Session

Good planning makes good consultation.  Paul will explore the various aspects of good practice around preparadness – from creating the perfect business case to option development and early identification of issues.

12.50 pm > 13.10 pm

Paul Parsons, Founding Director

Paul has 20 years’ experience of involving people in policy and service change by creating relationships and supporting dialogue between underrepresented people and the people who make decisions that affect them. He has supported dozens of organisations through high-profile, public service change projects, with a special interest in health and social care service transformation. He specialises in identifying, planning for and managing the risks of conducting public consultations on contentious proposals.

A history of working with people who live with disabilities, people who have English as a second language, and people who are deaf, blind, or deaf and blind have given him a broad perspective on the benefits of engaging people and communities who some services describe as ‘hard to reach’.

 Close 13.20

(Closing remarks)