These are confirmed speakers at the CfGS 2026 conference, with updates as we get closer to the event
Samantha (Sam) Smith
Director, Socitm Institute
Sam is a former President of Socitm and now the Director of the Socitm Institute. In that role she leads the delivery of services including Artificial Intelligence, procurement, social value, policy, research, data, learning & development, and benchmarking.
Before joining Socitm Sam spent 27 years in local government IT & Digital Services culminating in Service Director for a shared IT service working across two Councils in the East of England. Managing shared services of different types and sizes has been a feature of her professional life and has given her an incredibly rich view of local government in England. Throughout her career she has been keen to share experiences and collaborate across the public sector. Socitm has given her the opportunity to do this at regional and national levels.
Catherine Howe
Chief Executive, Dorset Council & CfGS Chair of Trustees
Dr Catherine Howe is an expert in digital innovation, focusing on the areas of digital democracy, systems practice and digital transformation. Her current area of focus is public service reform and she writes and comments on that very many moving parts of this on her website as well as writing in other spaces.
Catherine has a background which connects together technology, community and social change and has worked across a number of different sectors including education, not for profit and the technology industry. She has worked with new collaborative technologies and social networking tools for over 15 years. Her research interests cover digital civic space, citizenship and systems thinking and she is the Chair of the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny Board of Trustees.
Tabitha Baker
Senior Lecturer, Bournemouth University
As Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and Society, Dr Tabitha Baker holds a PhD in Political Psychology. As a social science researcher specialising in socio-political research, her work explores the dynamics of identity, belonging, and political division in contemporary Britain.
She focuses on group identities across multiple territorial and political scales, examining how they are formed, mobilised, and contested within frameworks of national identity and nationalism, as well as within regions at a local scale.
Hamida Ali
Head of Learning and Practice, Future Governance Forum
Hamida has over 20 years’ experience of addressing equality and diversity in public sector organisations, including local and regional government, the criminal justice system, public service broadcasting and the trade union movement. Hamida served as a councillor for Woodside ward in the London Borough of Croydon from 2014–2022. In October 2020, Hamida was elected as Leader of the Council and was responsible for steering the council through a period of significant turbulence prompted by serious financial and governance problems.
Prior to that, Hamida served as Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon and Communities from 2016–2020, leading on community safety, community and voluntary sector relations, and equality and diversity. Hamida led a public health approach to tackling serious violence, including domestic violence and knife crime. Since standing down as a councillor, Hamida has joined the team delivering leadership development programmes for councillors in leading roles for the Local Government Association.
Claire Ward
Partner at Anthony Collins Solicitors LLP
Claire Ward specialises in local government law at Anthony Collins. Claire spent 20 years in local government working in Cumbria County Council and then Herefordshire Council, as the Council’s Monitoring Officer and Deputy Chief Executive.
She now advises local authorities on all aspects of governance and decision-making. Claire has extensive experience across strategic, unitary, county, district, town and parish councils enabling her to guide authorities nationwide on effective governance practices.
Claire has advised on Local Government Reorganisation and assisted Council’s in all parts of the process.
Dawn Plimmer
Interim CEO at Collaborate
Dawn is currently involved in developing Collaborate’s approach to supporting places with Local Government Reorganisation, with an emphasis on creating the culture and leadership needed to ‘end well to start well.’CIC, a consultancy that helps people, organisations and places work together to tackle complex social challenges. She oversees Collaborate’s work on funding and commissioning, learning and evaluation as well as a number of projects with place-based partnerships. Recently, she led work helping Wigan Council review the Wigan Deal and develop a new collaborative whole-place strategy, and worked with Involve to provide external scrutiny of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s development of the Grenfell Support programme, which has included a focus on embedding a restorative approach to scrutiny.
Dawn has played a key role in developing Human Learning Systems as an alternative approach to public management which aims to enable more relational, adaptive and collaborative public services. Her background is in grantmaking, with a focus on enabling more person-centred, collaborative and learning-focused approaches.
Dave McKenna
Associate, CfGS
Dave is a dedicated scrutiny practitioner with ten years experience as manager of Swansea Councils scrutiny team. Since 2017 Dave has been based in West Sussex working as an independent consultant, providing training and support sessions for scrutiny councillors across more than 30 different councils across England and Wales. He has also hosted workshops at Centre for Governance and Scrutiny and Association of Democratic Services Officers annual conferences. As a Tpas associate Dave also provides training, support and research for tenant scrutineers.
Dave has been BRIEF trained in solution focussed techniques and has expertise in public governance; particularly local government scrutiny, partnership working and public participation. He has a PhD in local politics and is an associate of the Institute of Local Government Studies, working as a researcher on projects such as the 21st Century Public Servant.
Dave is also a longstanding volunteer organiser for the Notwestminster local democracy conferences.
Yvonne Murphy
Artistic Director and Executive Producer of Omidaze Productions
Yvonne Murphy is the creator of The Democracy Box and The Talking Shop which are innovative creative approaches to democratic education, information, conversation and deliberation. Yvonne is also the author of The Democracy Box report Beyond the Ballot Box. Yvonne has been a freelance creative since 1992 working as a Theatre Director, Creative Producer, Facilitator and Consultant across the UK and Internationally. Yvonne is particularly interested in the intersection between cultural and democratic participation and how professional creatives and artists can be involved in creating innovative solutions to society’s most pressing problems. In 2013 Yvonne was awarded an Arts Council of Wales Clore Fellowship and seconded to cover the maternity leave for the UK Strategic Lead for the national arts and cultural movement – What Next? Yvonne has been an Associate Artist of Wales Millennium Centre, Theatr Iolo and Artis Community and a board member of Chapter Arts Centre and Awen Cultural Trust.
Yvonne was named as one of Wales most influential women in theatre in 2016 and one of Wales’ 100 Changemakers by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales in 2022. In 2025 Yvonne was appointed to the Welsh Government’s Innovating Democracy Advisory Group.
Iain Murray
Director of Public Financial Management, CIPFA
Iain leads CIPFA’s policy, public affairs and standard setting work. He is a CIPFA member and has over 20 years’ experience of working in public financial management. Having started his career in local public audit Iain has worked with bodies across all aspects of local and national service delivery in both an audit and advisory capacity.
Iain is well versed in public finance and public service delivery. Working with public sector organisations has always been a conscious choice and he is proud to continue this work with CIPFA in the UK and globally.
Paul Cutler
Associate, CfGS
Paul Cutler is a facilitator and consultant with over 30 years of experience providing support and advice to local government, the NHS and the community & voluntary sector. He specialises in governance, health systems, children’s services and public participation. He has held a variety of roles including board roles in the NHS, non-executive director roles and charity governance. He has worked as an associate for CfGS since 2007 and the National Children’s Bureau since 2006. His main passion is championing the active involvement and participation of diverse groups of local people in decision-making. He achieves this through creative tools, strategic development, co-production, evaluation and partnership working. His work regularly uses social return on investment approaches to demonstrate the impact of engagement and grassroots leadership.
Dave Burn
Associate, CfGS
Dave is an Associate with CfGS, the Local Government Information Unit and SOLACE where he has supported a number of local authorities with their governance arrangements. He has over 20 years’ experience as a senior local government officer with a strong understanding of the democratic, legislative and organisational needs and requirements of how local government organisations work and function. Dave has extensive experience of leading teams and working tactically to support council’s to deliver their vision. He navigates well in the political environment, having worked effectively with senior members and officers to fulfil the council’s priorities. As Director of Frontline Consulting Associates Ltd, Dave has been supporting local authorities for the past 10 years in order to support improvement and to ensure effective internal challenge.Dave has also provided support to a number of local authorities with their improvement agenda through interim roles.
Catherine Needham
Professor, University of Birmingham
Catherine is Professor of Public Policy and Public Management at the University of Birmingham.
She researches the public service workforce, with a range of studies under the theme of the 21st Century Public Servant.
Catherine also researches social care systems and markets, and her most recent book is Social Care in the UK’s Four Nations: Between Two Paradigms.
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