Staff and Associates

Phillip is an internationally recognised political thinker and social and economic commentator. He founded ResPublica in 2009 and is an academic, journalist and author. Prior to entering politics and public policy he was a senior lecturer in theology and philosophy – teaching at the Universities of Exeter and Cumbria. He is the author of Red Tory (Faber and Faber 2010) which sought to redefine the centre ground of British politics around the ideas of civil association, mutual ownership and social enterprise. His ideas have influenced the agenda around the Big Society and have helped to redefine British politics. Papers he has authored while at ResPublica include 'The Ownership State', 'Asset Building for Children' (with Dr. Sandra Gruescu of ResPublica) and 'To Buy, To Bid, To Build: Community Rights for an Asset Owning Democracy' (with Steve Wyler of the Development Trusts Association). He has written extensively in the British press including The Guardian, The Observer, The Financial Times, The Sunday Times, Prospect and the New Statesman. He is a frequent broadcaster – appearing on the BBC and Sky as well as foreign media outlets. His ideas have attracted attention both nationally and internationally and he speaks all over the world on the idea of a new economic and social politics based around free association and group formation.

David Boyle is a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, a former Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate and the author of several books including Authenticity and The Tyranny of Numbers, and co-author of Eminent Corporations.

Antonia is a journalist, former school governor and mother of three who first campaigned for the Conservatives in 1983. She worked as a community service volunteer between school and university and has been a patron of the Bloomfield Centre Appeal for child mental health services at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London.  She has worked in financial services, as banking correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and helped launch BreakingViews, an award-winning financial comment service. From 2001 to 2010 she was a leader writer at the London Evening Standard, and then became a policy adviser to the Conservative Shadow Transport Secretary. In 2004 she wrote the Policy Exchange publication "The Best Kit", calling for better support for Britain's armed forces. In 2010 she wrote "More Bang for the Buck", a publication on getting better value from the defence budget, for the Centre for Policy Studies. She was parliamentary candidate for Islington South and Finsbury in 2010 and increased the Conservative vote by over 80%.

Julian Dobson is a ResPublica Research Associate. He is a writer, speaker and commentator on regeneration, place-making, civil society and social policy. He is also a trainer, adviser and facilitator, working with organisations on creative solutions to the problems of place.

He is the director of Urban Pollinators (www.urbanpollinators.co.uk), which helps make sense of regeneration, place-making and social change by sharing and applying ideas through research, writing, editing, and face to face learning. Julian was co-founder and for 12 years was editorial director of New Start, the national magazine for regeneration practitioners, and previously edited Inside Housing, the national weekly for social housing professionals. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and on the editorial board of the journal Local Economy.

 

 

Pete is a Director at Social Regeneration Consultants, which he set up in 1993. He has spent nearly all his career working in the field of community-led regeneration and neighbourhood planning, especially in our more deprived areas. He was a leading figure in the development of 25 housing cooperatives across North East England in the late 1970s and 1980s. Much of his more recent work has focused on the delivery of large scale community-based regeneration programmes, neighbourhood management and most aspects of the localism agenda. In 2010 he carried out case study research for the Scottish Government to inform its Community Empowerment strategy and also worked with Sally Thomas to develop a set of practical tools for assessing and delivering community empowerment for the Local Government Association. Pete is a regular speaker at national and regional conferences and seminars where housing, neighbourhoods and community empowerment are on the agenda. He has written many national good practice guides over the years, His most recent – for the Chartered Institute of Housing and Communities and Local Government – was researched and written jointly with Sally Thomas and is succinctly titled Successful Neighbourhoods. Pete is also a Parish Councillor.

Duncan Fisher is the author of ResPublica's report published in June 2011, "Children and the Big Society: Backing communities to keep the next generation safe and happy". Duncan has been working on family policy for over 10 years, with an OBE for services to children. He is author of Baby’s Here! Who Does What?, which challenges the idea of a primary carer and recommends the sharing of responsibilities as the basis for a stable family life.

Alex Fox is CEO of Shared Lives Plus, the UK network for small community services for older and disabled people. Shared Lives Plus represents Shared Lives carers and schemes and works with Community Catalysts to support social care micro-enterprises. It is also the network for Homeshare schemes. Alex sits on the National Programme Board for Think Local, Act Personal, the sector-led programme for transforming care and support. He co-led on prevention for the social care White Paper engagement process 'Caring for Our Future' and in 2012 was one of NESTA and The Observer’s Britain’s New Radicals.

Alex was Director of Policy and Communications for The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and he still sits on the Standing Commission on Carers. Alex is a visiting lecturer at Nottingham University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He blogs at alexfoxblog.wordpress.com, @AlexatNAAPS and www.socialcareworker.co. He enjoys rock climbing and writing.

Dan has a considerable range of experience of funding and financing mutual and social enterprises, through developing policy at the highest level and delivering in practice at the grassroots. He has worked for the Treasury, Futurebuilders England, the Cabinet Office and in delivering the Department of Health’s Social Enterprise Investment Fund at Local Partnerships. He has also worked in France and Germany, and in Brussels on Corporate Social Responsibility. He founded the world's first pop-up think tank - POPse!

Dan has led the development of a number of pioneering developments in practice, including supporting business planning and development of around 50 Right to Request staff-led public sector ‘spin-outs'. He authored The Right to Run, a practical guide for public sector staff thinking about setting up a mutual or social enterprise, the NCVO Commission’s Report on Tax Incentives for Social Investment, HM Treasury’s Guidance to Funders and Purchasers and Cabinet Office’s Consultation on the Social Investment Bank.

Dan has recently been working at a policy level on behalf of NCVO, ClearlySo, Social Enterprise UK, ResPublica, NCVYS and Social Finance. He has worked on the practical challenges facing spin-outs with Mutual Ventures, the Baxi Partnership and Stepping Out. He works at a more local level with Meanwhile Space CIC, Pop-Up Bristol, Wiltshire Councils and youth charities. He is also part of a TSRC-funded academic team exploring the nature of innovation in public service spin-outs.

Rafal ("Rafe") Heydel-Mankoo, B.A. (Hons.), LL.B., M.A. is a ResPublica Research Associate. Graduating with degrees in history and law, Rafe is an international broadcaster, writer and lecturer, specialising in constitutional monarchy and British institutions, traditions and heritage.  One of North America's leading royal commentators, he addressed Lord Wakeham's Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in 1999 and presented evidence to the House of Commons' Public Administration Select Committee in 2004, during its review of the Honours System.  Rafe is a Trustee of the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust and lectures extensively in the UK, North America and further afield. He is the co-author and co-editor of the critically-acclaimed Burke’s Peerage & Gentry: World Orders of Knighthood & Merit and has advised various governments on their national honours systems.  Rafe is a contributor to ResPublica's 2012 Reform of the House of Lords Report and, together with Phillip Blond, is also the co-author of the report's Conclusion & Recommendations chapter.

Caroline is a Senior Researcher and Project Manager at ResPublica, managing work within the workstreams on British Civic Life and Models and Partnerships for Social Prosperity. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with a Masters in Philosophical Theology and holds particular expertise in the role and value of faith groups, the Church and Aristotelian ethics in public political life.

Caroline has a keen interest in the importance of ‘civic institutions’ – from schools and local services, to cultural outlets and national governing bodies, and is currently leading ResPublica's research into the British constitution. She also co-ordinates ResPublica's policy work on public and private services - including the health, housing, work and energy sectors - and the importance of the social value that such services can deliver. 

Dr Patricia Kaszynska is a Senior Researcher at ResPublica. Her current research interests lie in the field of education and skills policy, culture and sport, as well as capabilities and behaviour change. She is also interested in the role of the arts in promoting political engagement. Prior to joining ResPublica Patricia conducted research in higher education policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of the Arts London. Previously Patricia worked for Demos and the Fabian Society and held the role of parliamentary researcher. Prior to entering the world of public policy she completed her PhD (DPhil) investigating the political significance of the aesthetic domain at the University of Oxford, where she also taught aesthetic theory. Besides the PhD she holds an MSt with Distinction from Oxford and a First Class Degree in Philosophy and Art History from University College London. Patricia is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  

Mark is an Independent Housing Policy Analyst who has written extensively on housing policy issues and has managed a wide range of policy and research projects.  Mark has wide-ranging experience in the housing sector having worked with the CIH as Director of Operations and Deputy Chief Executive and from 1997 to 2007, was Policy Analyst at CIH with responsibility for co-ordinating the research and policy analysis. Prior to this Mark was for over 10 years the Housing and Development Director of a major housing association. He has been a board member of two housing associations and was for four years chairman of a local authority housing committee.

 

Caroline has worked at ResPublica since its launch in November 2009 and played an integral part in its development from a start-up to a leading think tank. In 2012 she was appointed as Managing Director by the Board of Trustees and looks after the operations, business development, fundraising and communications strategy for the ResPublica Trust, the not-for-profit entity established in July 2011 which undertakes all of ResPublica's domestic activity.

Winston is a Researcher at ResPublica, working within the New Economies, Innovative Markets workstream. He graduated from the University of Surrey with an MSc in Sustainable Development. His dissertation studies new legal instruments for social enterprises and sustainable economy.

Prior to joining ResPublica, Winston has previously worked as a policy advisor to a think tank advocating new economics and a researcher for the ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles Values & Environment (RESOLVE) at Surrey University. His interests lie in politics and economics of climate change, sustainability, social enterprises, green investment and community energy. Winston has also served in the civil service in Hong Kong where he dealt with trade and industrial support policy.

Liberty is the Events and Partnerships assistant. Prior to joining ResPublica she worked at another think-tank and as a research assistant in the House of Lords. Liberty graduated from The University of Exeter in 2011, where she read Politics and Philosophy and was heavily involved in fundraising for local community projects. Outside of ResPublica her interests include Emerging Markets; sustainable businesses and the relationship between man and the State.

Peter is a Research Assistant working within the British Civic Life workstream. Peter completed a BA in Politics from University of Leicester in 2010. His particular interests lie in the political participation of citizens, devolved institutions in UK politics and the reform of institutional political structures and conventions.

Guy Shrubsole is Director of Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC), an independent charity whose work is aimed towards building a sustainable society. He previously worked for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and New Zealand’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Sally Thomas is Director of Social Regeneration Consultants (SRC), specialising in the social and community aspects of successful communities and neighbourhoods. She has written a number of books for the Chartered Institute of Housing, government departments, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Housing Corporation. Sally has extensive experience in the housing and social sectors, having worked for several housing associations, the Housing Corporation and Tyne and Wear Development Corporation. Her consultancy work has involved project managing many and varied commissions for local authorities, government agencies, housing associations and developers. She has been a member of and chaired a number of boards in the health, arts and charitable sectors. Sally contributed to ResPublica's report ‘At the Crossroads: A progressive future for social housing’.

Richard Wilson is the founder of Involve.  He has designed and delivered 100's of public engagement programmes for governments and businesses across the world including: the European Commission, the BBC, most UK government departments, the French treasury and the State of California. Richard has written four books and regularly appears in the national print and broadcast media.