Places & Partnerships Team

Following a management review, the former Places and Local Government Practice Teams have been merged to form a Places and Partnerships Team.

The rationale behind this merger is to avoid duplication and possible confusion both within the Government Office and for external stakeholders.

The Local Government Practice Team was originally set up principally to deal with improved performance of local authorities in general, but in particular the poor performers. In recent years the team’s work has expanded to embrace the Partnership Director role (a single point of contact for each local authority), and Local Area Agreements amongst other things.

Places Teams have been established in each regional office, as their name suggests, to deal with issues around ‘place shaping’.

As the Local Government Practice team in the North West has developed its role ahead of the national priorities it became clear that there needed to be some rationalisation within the office to avoid confusion and duplication. In addition, a central research team is being established in the Government Office and this covers some of the work which until now has been carried out in the Local Government Practice Team.

The newly merged team is called Places and Partnerships and is jointly headed by Phil Watson, Deputy Director (Partnerships and Performance) and Jon Parkin, Deputy Director (Places). Whilst the team is small and all will have some involvement in the LAA process, the broad areas of responsibility are outlined below:

• Phil Watson will lead on local government improvement, local government reorganisation and LAA strategy.
• Jon Parkin will lead on LAA delivery and Priorities for Places.
• Mike Chambers will lead on the Partnership Director role, best practice and LAA quality.
• Stephen Bagnall will assist Mike on the Partnership Director role, best practice and LAA quality.
• LAA Performance and Monitoring Project Manager will deal with LAA coordination and delivery.
• There are also three posts of personal assistant/general overall support.

Contact numbers and job titles of the newly established team are listed below:

• Phil Watson – Deputy Director, Partnerships and Performance
  0161 952 4389
  philip.watson@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
  
• Jon Parkin – Deputy Director, Places
  0161 952 4214
  jon.parkin@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
  
• Mike Chambers – Head of Partnerships
  0161 952 4463
  mike.chambers1@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
  
• Stephen Bagnall – Places and Partnerships Support Manager
  0161 952 4145
  stephen.bagnall@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
  
• Charlotte Burrows – PA to Phil Watson/Places and Partnerships Support Officer
  0161 952 4446
  charlotte.burrows@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
  
• Elaine Reynolds – PA to Jon Parkin/Places and Partnerships Support Officer
  0161 952 4034
  elaine.reynolds@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
  
• Vicky Smith – PA to Mike Chambers/Places and Partnerships Support Officer
  0161 952 4079
  vicky.smith@gonw.gsi.gov.uk

The following colleagues have left the Local Government Practice Team and their previous duties are now carried out by one of the newly established team.

Brian Stevenson – Head of Local Government Practice
David Davies – Lead Official
Diane Roberts – Regional Support Manager
Gill Salim – Regional Support Officer