Team
From a peak number of 11 permanent and seconded staff in the first year of operation, the Company now has 15 employees (including nine permanent and six fixed term), three secondees and six contractors, for a total of 24 people. All work to support the activities of the Company alongside selected external partners, currently providing our finance systems and our legal and commercial support and procurement.
In addition to the resources covered by our core finances, we occasionally contract additional programme and project management and ICT architecture resources as part of the funding we receive.
Following the recent appointment of Ian Bell as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, work is currently underway to shape the Company’s future structure and operations.
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Ian Bell, CEO, Police ICT Company
Ian joined Cambridgeshire Constabulary in September 2008 as Head of ICT Service Delivery. His remit was to create a cohesive Service Delivery team and create substantial opportunity for cashable savings whilst creating a platform for new technological opportunities. His successes included the delivery of best of breed ICT architecture were delivered with best of breed technologies, delivering multiple millions of savings.
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He became Head of ICT in Cambridgeshire on 1 October 2011 and subsequently the Head of ICT for BCH in July 2014. Ian is the vice-chair of the National Police Technology Council and in November 2016 became the Director of the National Enabling Programmes at their inception.
Ian’s previous roles included Chartered Accountant, Head of Services at Associated British Foods, managing both internal IT teams and multi out-sourced services.
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Charles McKay, Chief Operating Officer
Charles comes to the Police ICT Company to oversee and lead on the operational and commercial direction for the Company, building a strategy for a joined up ICT infrastructure and the delivery of a coherent technological tool set that is fit for purpose to use across the police forces of the UK.
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A graduate of Portsmouth and Leeds Universities, Charles has been in the criminal justice arena for nearly three decades, starting with ten years a police officer working in a variety of disciplines within the Metropolitan Police Service. Following this, he spent 12 years as an ICT leader in the civil service working with the MoJ, NOMS, IPS and the Home Office and, most recently, has also successfully led the Justice Division within Vodafone.
Outside of work, Charles has worked for numerous disability charities, is a member of his local residents’ association and coaches junior rugby with his young son and daughter.
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Autumn
Autumn is a specially-trained hearing dog who started with The Police ICT Company at the same time as her owner, Charles McKay, the Company’s Chief Operating Officer.
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Originally from Barnsley, Yorkshire, four-year-old, bacon-loving Autumn graduated from “Hearing Dogs for the Deaf”, Beatrice Wright Training Centre, three years ago.
Her main role in the Company is making sure that Charles is safe when she accompanies him to wherever his work takes him. She is a well-seasoned traveller, spending long hours in the office, in cars, trains and even on aeroplanes.
Autumn is much loved by everyone who meets her and has a calming effect when she arrives in the office – though she does sometimes liven up a quiet afternoon by madly chasing her tennis ball or rag toy around the floor.
Her popularity fortunately remained untarnished when, while in the line of duty, she happened to be sick on a politician's shoe! She has also been known to enjoy a playful roll around on the floor with the odd chief constable.
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Gary Chahal, Commercial Analyst
Gary joined us in July of 2017 and is responsible for the production and interpretation of financial management analysis and performance indicators linked to the Company's structure and objectives; reporting them directly to the Head of Commercial.
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Having served in both the Private and Public sector, Gary has over 10 years experience in Data, Finance and Business Intelligence, producing and designing KPI reports to cater for specific needs in order to monitor performance within an organisation.
In his spare time he enjoys reading as well as a variety of sports including football and basketball. He has also participated in various charity events to help raise money for children in poverty as well as victims of natural disasters worldwide.
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Nora Davies, Knowledge Manager
Nora's role is to manage the Police ICT Knowledge Hub and website, developing them in accordance with the needs of and feedback from our members. She also works with our Communications Manager to manage our social media presence.
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Nora, a self-confessed geek, has several years of experience improving public and private sector websites and loves building a bridge between people on the front end of web technology (i.e. users and stakeholders) and the technical folk who make things happen behind the scenes.
Nora comes to us from the financial sector where she gained experience working with Lloyds Bank and a few small financial services companies where she worked on a multi-million pound online banking revamp and managed various website improvement projects.
Though she is new to Policing, Nora has had involvement with the public sector when she worked on the websites for the Small Business Service, Business Link, the Point of Single Contact and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service, which she helped redesign and promote within its target audience of institutions of further education in England and Wales.
When she is not busy thinking of ways to improve the Knowledge Hub or posting blogs on our site, Nora is partial to a bit of geocaching in the wonderful Surrey countryside.
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Gavin Gardner, Finance Officer
Gavin joined the company in April 2017 initially on a temporary basis and works closely with the Business Manager to assist in providing a full range of finance and business support services. His background is mainly in banking and he joined Lloyds Bank in 1983 in what was then the Foreign Exchange department and spent several years learning all the relevant back office functions. This included foreign payments, various types of trading contracts and keeping track of the foreign exchange dealers position so they could trade effectively.
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He then joined a small team within Lloyds Bank that administered a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) which was a company set up between the bank and part of the UK Treasury whose purpose was to refinance UK Government guaranteed loans.
In 2015 Gavin moved to Capita and helped to run a contract they had with the Financial Conduct Authority to manage their treasury functions and also assist Barnet Council with their treasury management.
Gavin is married to Nicola and has a daughter Grace and when not working enjoys travelling to foreign countries, especially Turkey. He also enjoys music festivals and is a keen cook.
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Anna Horne, Communications Manager
Anna's role is to lead work on the Company’s communications strategy and implementation plans. She leads on all the communications elements of stakeholder engagement, media relations and event planning, as well as the Company's marketing materials. Her role is key to making sure that the Company's work within policing is communicated in the most efficient and effective way to its national stakeholders.
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Joe Kelly, Project Manager
As part of our business development team, Joe works with both suppliers and policing to bring about more efficient, innovative and collaborative use of technology. Work he is currently involved in includes leading on the management of the national “Access for All” agreement, to generate services and efficiencies for policing, and the MPS Digital 101 work.
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He has previously been strongly involved in The Company’s Police Innovation Fund and Transformation Fund projects.
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Heidi Koyun, Human Resources Manager
Heidi joined the Company in July 2015, initially on secondment from Home Office HR to support the start-up of the Police ICT Company. With the Chief Executive already in post, Heidi was responsible for recruiting his team. She eventually moved across to the Company in April 2016 and now leads on all people-related matters within the Company.
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With over 35 years’ experience in the public sector, including 15 years specialising in Human Resources and HR Business Partnering, Heidi is responsible for all of the Company’s recruitment, agreeing and drafting contracts of employment, drafting Company HR policies and procedures, discussing and agreeing company employees' learning and development needs and sourcing suitable accommodation to meet the needs of the team.
Leading large operational teams within Jobcentres and Unemployment Benefit Offices early in her career provided Heidi with valuable insight and experience into how HR (personnel in the old days!), should provide a supportive and enabling service to the business. During her time at the Home Office as a senior HR Business Partner, Heidi supported senior managers during complex business change and with high profile personal cases.
Heidi lives in East Sussex is married with two grown-up children and one grandson, George, who keep her busy on Wednesdays!
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Cara Levin, PA
Cara provides executive diary management to the Chief Executive, while also offering administration support to the team. She is responsible for managing diaries, setting up meetings, greeting clients, formatting and sending out documents, ordering stationery and dealing with new enquires. Cara joined the team in December 2016 from Keystone Law.
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In her spare time, Cara enjoys going to the gym, attending West Ham United games and walking her Shih Tzu dog ‘Bubbles’ down the seafront.
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Ben Nelson, Head of Commercial
Ben is responsible for all aspects of the company’s commercial activity, both internal and external, with a remit to drive commercial benefit and efficiency across policing. He aims to do this through working with suppliers to recognise policing as a single customer and therefore to drive greater economies of scale.
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He has extensive experience within the justice sector over the last 10 years, having supported large-scale infrastructure projects within the Ministry of Justice, the National Police Improvement Agency and the Home Office, building a strong working relationship with the operational policing and supplier community.
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Dipesh Parmar, Digital Community Officer
Dipesh joined the company in September 2018 as the Digital Community Officer and comes from a wide and varied background as a Digital Media Specialist. He has worked in web development, digital media and technology training with a with a BSC focused in Digital Media Technology from Nottingham Trent University. Since graduating he has been heavily involved in the digital media and technology arena.
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For several years Dipesh has been a freelance digital media specialist and has been providing hardware/software support as well as service delivery and maintenance for small businesses in his local community, bringing them into the digital age by building and maintaining custom hardware, websites, web services and holding technology training sessions for his clients.
Dipesh has a real passion for technology, be it bleeding edge or retro and is another self-professed geek on the team. He has worked with and been a part of some exciting projects in the past such as launching one of the world’s first Google Stores as a Senior Google Specialist. Here he helped the public and the retail sector learn and understand different technologies and services offered to them by Google.
Outside of work Dipesh enjoys going to the gym and building functional strength as well as going to watch the most exciting team in football today, Chelsea FC. He also enjoys creating 3D environments and digital sculptures and is an avid gamer.
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Marie Perry, Governance Officer
Marie joined the Company in 2016, taking on the role of Governance Officer in November 2017. Marie is responsible for ensuring the Company complies with all relevant policies, and leads on ensuring a rigorous approach to risk management. She also supports arrangements for the Company Board, Committees and Annual General Meeting, as well as assisting the Business Manager in the general management of the Company.
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Prior to joining the Company, Marie worked in finance after receiving a degree in Business Finance from Durham University. She has lived in London since 2008 with her husband and the recent addition of a baby boy to the family.
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Tamsin Posteraro, Deputy Head of Commercial
Tamsin joined the Company in October 2018 to support the Head of Commercial in managing the tactical and strategic issues related to the commercial and procurement elements of the Company. She helps manage the Company's commercial activities through negotiation with various stakeholders, delivering and developing commercial procedures and policies and ensuring commercial agreements are legally sound.
She began her career working in crime and investigations at Irwin Mitchell solicitors and then moved away from criminal law into a career in commercial with a strong focus on defence and security. She has worked for Rolls-Royce in defence aerospace and nuclear submarines; general dynamics in C4I and Leonardo in cyber security. Most recently Tamsin offered private sector expertise into the Joint Security and Resilience Centre within the Home Office, working to create a joint response to national security challenges.
Outside of work, Tamsin is a mentor for children in foster care and also interested in mindfulness, yoga and meditation and the powerful impact that this can have.
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Michael Russell, Head of Finance and Company Secretary
Michael is an experienced leader who has worked for more than 30 years in roles involving setting up, establishing and running business support services, governance and delivering business change.
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Michael is the Company’s Head of Finance and Company Secretary, which involves providing a full range of finance and business support services, being responsible for business governance including support to the Company Board and acting as the Company Secretary.
After 25 years working in blue chip insurance companies in the private sector in business support and change roles Michael joined the policing family in 2003 working for the national police training organisation followed by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and the College of Policing.
In a 38-year career, Michael has built a strong portfolio of financial management experience including:
- Many examples of establishing and running a range of business support including the full set of finance functions, HR, ICT, procurement, performance and planning, marketing, project and portfolio services.
- Management accounting experience in large departments with budgets of £3m+.
- Significant experience of investment accounting in portfolio and programme roles with an investment budget exceeding £10m pa and analytical oversight of a portfolio budget of £100m+.
- More recently, an expanded set of financial responsibilities across the full range of finance functions including tax and treasury.
Michael has a chartered insurance qualification, is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and has achieved PRINCE2 and Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) accreditations.
Outside of work Michael is married with a son and twin girls, he loves live music, is an enthusiastic collector of vinyl records and has a collection of 10 electric and acoustic guitars that he plays loudly and very badly. Michael has been a long-suffering supporter of Charlton Athletic football club for 45 years and is a regular visitor to Wasps RFC.Read less
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Lynne Spiers, Head of Organisational Development and Quality Assurance
Lynne joined the Company in July 2015, on secondment from the Home Office. Originally brought in as Policy Manager to help set up the Company, like many of the early team, Lynne turned her hand to many different things.
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One of these was to manage the Company’s contribution to the Police Innovation and Transformation Funds – including working with the Home Office and College of Policing to review and revise the process, providing support to those forces applying for funding, and helping the Company to develop and submit bids with lead forces. Lynne also worked closely with the Communications Manager to plan and deliver the Company’s very successful annual Summit in 2017.
Lynne’s role is now as Executive Secretariat to the Company’s CEO and Chief Operating Officer. As well as supporting the Executive Team to deliver the Company’s objectives, Lynne also leads on various ad-hoc projects and is currently leading on the Company’s response to, and engagement with, the current Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry, “Policing for the Future: changing Demands and New Challenges”.
Lynne’s 28-year career in the Home Office means that she has a broad range of experience to bring to bear, including work in policing (as Head of Neighbourhood Policing Policy), Security and Counter Terrorism, Immigration and Asylum. Secondments to Parliament (working on the Environmental Audit Select Committee) and the Foreign Office (a short-term secondment to Moscow) have also broadened Lynne’s experience in other aspects of government.
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