HomeOur People
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Louise began her career as an academic teaching across a broad spectrum of political sciences and philosophy. Her research was mainly focused upon the nature of power in local and central government administrations. After ten years of lecturing and study, she moved into the real world and took up a post with the London Borough of Lewisham where she worked on CCT for the Environment Directorate, both as client - producing the first CCT Specifications for the Borough, and later as the Head of Contracts management for the DLO. In 1998 she was promoted to Head of Programme Management, and during this time designed the first local government orientated project & programme management methodology. Her portfolio covered projects and programmes with a value exceeding £210 millions.
For the past six years, Louise has worked for the commercial arm of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance as a senior advisor and consultant to a wide range of public sector organisations. Her areas of expertise include Social Housing, Programme and Project Management; Risk Management; Regeneration Programmes; Social Housing Finance; Inspection and Assessment; Quality Management; Business Planning; Performance Management, Value for Money and Efficiency, and Social Housing Procurement and Partnering.
Louise is the Manager of the CIPFA Housing Advisory Network which provides technical and specialist advice to Social Housing organisations across the UK. During her time with CIPFA she has written and published more than 25 Social Housing Management Guides.
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CIPFA Finance & Policy Manager
Lesley Lodge
Professional Qualifications
CPFA 1996, AAT 1992 Postgraduate Certificate in Education 1972
Employment
Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA). July 2000 to present.
Finance and Policy Manager, Local Government. Responsibilities include providing technical advice and developing responses to legislation and consultations issued by central government. Specialist in the areas of local government housing and education.
Publications
“The Outlook for Business in 2010” (with C Hughes). Pub. Management Consultancies Association 1998. (Short-listed for Guardian Business Insight Award)
Articles on Housing Finance, public sector finance etc published in professional journals, eg Housing Today, Local Government Chronicle, Property People -
Senior Associate to the Housing Advisory Network
John Kettlewell
John is a graduate in Modern History from Durham University and a qualified CIPFA accountant. He commenced his career in local government in 1972. He became involved in housing in 1977 and so now has the dubious distinction of “celebrating” over 30 years in housing finance, first at Kirklees, then East Hampshire and finally for many years at Tower Hamlets where he was ultimately head of Housing Finance, responsible for housing benefits and leaseholder services, in addition to housing finance. In 2005 he decided on a career change and left Tower Hamlets. He has worked freelance, at Havering, then at CityWest Homes, the ALMO set up by Westminster City Council, and currently at Redbridge Council where, although he has involvement in the HRA, is concentrating mainly on homelessness issues. He has also been involved with work for CIPFA’s Housing and Local Authority Accounting Panels over the years and is an associate with CIPFA Commercial through which he has done a number of masterclasses on various aspects of housing finance and supporting people. He is involved in the Government review of housing finance, being a member of the CLG workstream which is reviewing the HRA. His main outside interest is keeping fit through doing triathlons and half marathons. He also grows vegetables in a part of the garden.
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Senior Associate to the Housing Advisory Network
Nigel Barr
Nigel started his career as a chartered quantity surveyor working in both professional practice and for contracting organisations. During this time, he became responsible for the commercial management of major housing projects and developed a keen interest in effective procurement strategies and open book accounting.
Nigel joined Stradia in the late 80s (formally Knowles Management) with an MBA and a passion for improving business processes in the construction industry. He has advised and provided support and guidance to many large public and private sector organisations in the field of partnering, procurement and performance management. The practical experience that Nigel has gained provides the basis for his well-known seminars and workshops, which he has held throughout the UK and Europe.
The approach Nigel adopts is that all organisations are capable of achieving tough targets and he finds that working with management teams to develop practical performance improvement strategies that deliver results is very rewarding.
Since joining CIPFA as Senior Associate in October 2007 Nigel has delivered several successful training workshops and seminars in the field of open book accounting and procurement. Nigel has also worked in close partnership with Dr Louise Dunne (CIPFA HAN) to develop the first accredited open book accounting training course in the country. Demand for this course is already exceeding all expectations and looks like it will keep Nigel and Louise very busy over the coming months!
Nigel finds his work with CIPFA very rewarding particularly working alongside experienced its personnel who strive for excellent standards in achieving the requirements of member organisations. -
Senior Associate to the CIPFA Housing Advisory Network & Director of Finance at InCommunities
Louisa Clarke
Not having been blessed with the knowing what she wanted to do with her career but safe in the knowledge that the first choice of rock star was probably a non-starter, Louisa studied philosophy at the University of Essex subscribing to the theory you were likely to do better in a degree if you studied something you were interested in.
After leaving university Louisa stumbled into a career in housing after applying successfully for the position of secretary at Colchester Quaker Housing Association; a small association specialising in supported housing. She remained there for the next seven years, progressing to Finance Assistant and then Finance Manager, acquiring her CIPFA qualification and a husband in the process. As Finance Manager Louisa was part of the executive management team for the organisation.
Following a calling to her family roots in Yorkshire, Louisa joined Incommunities (formerly Bradford Community Housing Trust) as an Area Finance Manager in 2004. She was keen to broaden her housing experience and a role within a large new LSVT presented the perfect opportunity. In August 2005 she was promoted to Head of Financial Services, and in December 2007 took over as Acting Director of Finance.
In April 2008 Louisa was selected by CIPFA and Public Finance magazine as one of 10 Future Leaders. She was formally appointed as Director of Finance at Incommunities in May 2008.
Louisa has been an Associate to the CIPFA Housing Advisory Network since April 2006. She became an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing (ACIH) in March 2007.
When not at work Louisa indulges in her passion for music by singing along to CDs whilst she’s cooking, and kids herself that she’s not really unfit by walking her dog out on the Pennines. She still reads philosophy books. -
Associate to the CIPFA Housing Advisory Network
Robin Dean
Mr Robin Deane is the Performance Director at 10066 Housing Association, part of the Amicus Horizon Group.
His particular specialism as Associate to the CIPFA HAN derives from his skill and expertise in implementing Value for Money across organisations and has successfully engaged local tenants and residents in using the VfM agenda as a way of assessing the performance of key services such as repairs and maintenance, and homelessness. -
Visiting Associate to the CIPFA HAN
Ms Frances Wells
Frances has worked in the field of sustainability for the past 15 years, initially as a member of the senior management team of a large-scale project where she had responsibility for government relations and corporate partnerships with a wide range of public sector organisations in connection with their sustainability interests. This role also included, among other things, substantial fundraising for sustainability themed projects from a wide range of sources, and running an Advisory Board of some of the top thinkers in sustainability in the UK.
As a consultant Frances has pursued two themes: sustainable regeneration and sustainable business. In each the central threads have been the engagement and consultation of relevant stakeholders, analysis of context and the development of strategies that help to deliver a triple bottom line – i.e. social and environmental as well as financial outcomes. She has also assisted clients, including social enterprises, in business planning for new sustainability initiatives.
In regeneration projects she has led teams to design and deliver large-scale stakeholder consultations in planning and regeneration contexts, and consultation on the development of the Core Strategy for Local Development Frameworks involving local politicians and others. Housing, and the community issues and opportunities that arise around it, have been a common theme in this work.
With her landscape architecture background, urban greenspace has been another recurring theme in Frances’s consultancy, again often in the context of housing. She was a contributor to the Government’s Task Force Report on Urban Greenspace and has previously been a member of the Landscape Institute Technical Committee, the GLA’s Spatial Development Commission for the London Plan and chaired the education committee of the Urban Design Alliance, the latter looking at more joined-up thinking and learning to produce better development schemes.
Frances’s work in Corporate Responsibility spans public and private sector organisations and keeps abreast of the drivers and trends behind the green business agenda, the risks and opportunities for organisations and how they can embed sustainability into their business strategies.
She has recently become a Senior Consultant with Stradia.
Core Areas- Sustainability and the green business agenda
- Stakeholder relations and engagement in business and regeneration
- Facilitation of strategies for sustainability
Qualifications- BSc (Hons) in Geography
- MA in Landscape Design
- Graduate Member of the Landscape Institute
Frances is also a trained and experienced facilitator -
Visiting Associate & Independent Consultant
Ms Pascale Mézac, FCCA , PGCERT
Pascale Mézac started trading as Plan2moro in 2008, following an extensive career at senior management level in housing, local government and the NHS. She now works with teams to develop their skills and knowledge of RSL finance, reorganising processes and creating efficiencies; she has written financial regulations and housing schemes remodeling guidance and regularly advices professional firms to write up tenders.
Until 2008, she headed Finance at Westlea Housing Association; she was business development manager and assistant director of resources at Leeds Health Authority and headed student grants and environment urban programmes at Bradford Council. For the past 20 years, she has brought multi disciplinary teams together to deliver capital projects. She allies strong interpersonal and technical skills with excellent project and organisation management abilities. She particularly excels at business planning, process re-engineering, financial modelling, finance training and team building.
She developed a PFI in Primary Care guidance with NHS Estates and has translated local government policies into plain English. She is a keen advocate of social enterprise and supports local charities with their business planning.
She is a fellow chartered certified accountant (FCCA), a qualified Prince2 project practitioner and has a post graduate certificate in health economics. She has a national profile with both the National Housing Federation (past chair of the South West Finance Group) and CIPFA with current membership on the RSL panel.