Our Team
The Backbone of Our Organisation
We couldn’t do half of what we do here at Delegated Services if it wasn’t for our amazing team. In addition to our Risk Management and Reassurance Advisors, we also have a network of consultants, service providers and many other expert individuals on hand to help our customers.
Bill Crocker
Chief executive officer (Tech IOSH, Nebosh, MEPS, MRICS, Dip. Est Man.)
With Delegated Services, as CEO, Bill has over 10 years experience under his belt providing help and support to Education Establishments and the Community Sector.
Previously he led and provided a successful Risk, Resilience and Wellbeing service as part of the Children and Young People’s Services Directorate, Bristol City Council, for over 10 years. The experience was wide, and on reflection, not to be missed. At the most challenging end of the spectrum and on commencing work with them, staff and pupils were hurt, reputations damaged and substantial costs incurred, including those that were uninsurable.
Bill has the experience of being involved with court cases brought by the HSE, but was also able to work in effective partnership with education establishments and provide the best service of 50 provided to establishments by the LA for 3 consecutive years, and as verified by the audit commission.
Bill knows that Customer feedback is central and essential to the service the team and he provides.
Mark Howard
Risk management and reassurance advisor
After completing his degree in Zoology at Bristol, Mark joined the Health and Safety Executive where he took their Post-Graduate Diploma in Safety and Hygiene at Aston University.
Moving to Bristol City Council he spent two decades supervising and managing practical projects and staff teams at various levels. In 2005 he left Bristol to join Valcor Ltd, a health and safety consultancy and then in 2013 was taken on by Delegated Services CIC.
Mark has supported customers with a range of work including policies and risk assessments, puzzling over how best to sort out the odd issues that arise and don’t fit convenient categories.
Over the last few years Delegated Services has provided Mark’s advice to help with health and safety issues, food safety management questions, supportive reports for grant bids and access and equality questions.
He has special interest in developing and working with Community Organisations and Charities, a growing area of Delegated Services’ Customer base.
Philip Tranter
Risk management and reassurance advisor
Philip Tranter has worked with Local Authorities for over 25 years specifically providing Health, Safety and Welfare advice to schools and has been a Technician member of IOSH for many years. He was recently fortunate to take Voluntary Redundancy from South Gloucestershire Council where he had worked for 14 years running the Schools Health and Safety Unit which provided advice, guidance, model documentation etc. to the Council Schools and latterly Academies.
Before this he was with Avon County Council for over a decade and comments that during his time with Local Authorities they moved from controlling budgets centrally to now having limited school funding held centrally. When he was first involved with the Local Authority Education Department it actually had responsibility for local Colleges and still ran in-house cleaning and catering services.
As such he has managed budgets for work in schools, prepared briefs for the work to ensure health and safety requirements were met and later, as funding was devolved, helped many Head Teachers prioritise and manage their own health, safety and welfare issues. Over the years he has seen many changes in those requirements including major changes in Asbestos, Accessibility, CDM, COSHH, DSE, Play Equipment standards and Work Experience.
Jo Hughes
Risk management and reassurance advisor
Jo has worked in educational establishments for over 25 years. Starting as a trainee laboratory technician at The University of Bristol Veterinary school at Langford, obtaining a Higher National Certificate in Applied Biology and specialising in Veterinary diagnostic microbiology.
Jo was involved with assessing materials/substances and procedures used within the lab to provide COSHH information due to new regulations. This led to a greater engagement in science. After studying for the Senior Technician Accredited Co-leaders in Science (STACS) award Jo became senior science technician in a local comprehensive school. The course dealt with how to be thrifty with resources and still maintain high standards of health and safety, and included training from CLEAPSS. Many beneficial changes were made to the running of the science department.
For the last few years Jo has been involved in assisting the school with their health and safety needs, obtaining her NEBOSH certificate, and has also gained experience at helping the school prepare for and lead on a HS&W audit carried out by Willis Tower Watson as part of the Risk Protection Arrangement. This first-hand experience following on from the huge improvements already seen within the schools Health and Safety management systems and culture enables Jo to fully understand the needs of our clients.
Lucy Wyatt
risk management and reassurance advisor
Lucy has ten years experience as a Head, where her top priority was always to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of all those associated with the school.
Grad IOSH Lucy Wyatt has been involved in a number of projects involving school reorganisation, restructuring and building, latterly the development of Bristol’s first co-located Specialist Children and Family Centre in Lawrence Weston. Here after working through a year-long construction project on site, she was ultimately responsible for a campus containing a large primary school with Specialist Resource Base, a Childrens Centre (managed by the Local Authority) and health facilities managed by the North Bristol Trust including midwifery, health visitors, community paediatricians, CAMHS etc.
She worked on this project with colleagues from Skanska, the National Health Service and Early Years Team during the planning and construction phase and afterwards as they worked to establish the provision of services. This was the turning point that led Lucy to become a Health and Safety Trainer and Consultant.
Jane Meakin
risk management and reassurance advisor
I am looking forward to joining Delegated Services in January 2021.
I started my career in H & S working for the prison service as a H & S admin officer. I left to become a Health and Safety Officer in a large secondary school where I gained my NEBOSH General Certificate. I stayed there for 12 years and loved every day of my time with the school. I spent a year on secondment with Wiltshire Council H & S team where I gained further valuable experience.
Two years ago I left the school to work for South Gloucestershire Council as H & S Officer for Integra, the trading arm of the council. I loved visiting the local schools and spent my time advising schools on best practice and of course, more recently, Covid 19.
I live in Wiltshire with my dog Alfie and in my spare time I enjoy meeting friends for coffee, cooking and reading. I have spent time volunteering for the youth offending team as an ‘Appropriate Adult’ and more recently helping out at a church run soup kitchen to ensure the local homeless people can have food and hot drinks.
Shelley Brown
PA and Training Co-ordinator
Shelley joined DS at the beginning of November 2015, as PA Support to Delegated Services. Since then, as the training business grew she has updated and improved DS’ training recording systems including use of a google form and built Daedalus Labyrinth with the mentorship of our Mark Allen.
Shelley has over 20 years experience as a Personal Assistant working within large FTSE 100 corporate companies, including PA to the Head of Commercial Insurance Director in the Square Mile of central London, and at Yell as PA to 3 Regional Directors based all over the UK ~ Scotland North East & Yorkshire, London & the South East and the South West, Wales & Northern Ireland. As if this wasn’t enough proof of her organisational skills, she also co-chaired her daughter’s Primary School PTA Committee until her daughter moved on to Senior School education.
Happily married for 15 years, she has a teenage daughter. In her spare time she is an active member of Downend Ladies Circle and has also just stepped down from being Vice President & Treasurer of Downend WI, but remains as part of the team on the committee!
Kim Harler-Elias
Administrator
Kim is excited to be a new member of the Delegated Services team.
Joining in March 2019, Kim brings over 13 years administration experience to the role. Within this time, Kim spent over 4 years working as an Executive Assistant to the CEO and Senior Management team of a successful financial organisation, and more recently, over 5 years in a medical administrative environment.
Kim holds an NVQ in Business Administration and has exceptional organisational skills. Kim also has a wealth of customer service-based knowledge and is consistently thorough, efficient and conscientious in all work that she undertakes. This was also demonstrated when Kim took on the voluntary running of a local toddler group, which became hugely successful as well as being an exciting and rewarding challenge.
Since joining Delegated Services, Kim has worked effectively alongside other members of the team to improve and update the functionality and content of information databases, training systems and website content.
Sophie Kear
Publications Editor
Sophie comes to Delegated Services as Publications Editor to work on
Bill’s Bulletin and other professional documents.
Sophie has previously worked in FTSE 100 companies and brings more than ten years’ experience with her. She has previously worked as PA to managing directors, as well as in Office Management.
During her previous roles she has also been responsible for working on and issuing various publications for both internal uses, as well as clients.
Sophie has a proven track record of streamlining processes and improving working methods. Other responsibilities Sophie has undertaken include being head fire marshal, a DSE Assessor and ensuring H&S compliance within the office. She also has a strong
understanding of collaboration tools and IT systems in a corporate environment.
Roger Smith
Business development manager
Roger is a trusted adviser and a recognised competent business leader with an excellent track record of achievement.
He has held posts including CEO and General Manager in several major organisations and brings a wealth of experience to DS. His success he puts down to creative thinking and the application of processes with good business integrity, outstanding communication skills plus a sound knowledge of the education market, customer service being a priority.
Roger’s personal goals are always to be trusted, helpful and be a positive influence on family, friends and anyone else in most situations, and have fun, where appropriate.
Mandy Parry
Safeguarding advisor
Mandy Parry is a Bristol Safeguarding Children’s Board (BSCB) registered safeguarding and child protection trainer. We are proud to have had Mandy in our network since 2014 delivering in-house courses on child protection in our establishments as well as developing new courses to keep up with recent developments such as Prevent, Safer Internet and her newest course, Effective Supervision.
Mandy is an extremely experienced, confident and engaging trainer. With a degree in dramatic arts, she initially worked in a challenging comprehensive school. As training manager for the newly established Knowle West Sure Start, she trained the entire staff team in Child Protection.
She gained considerable experience of child protection case work in a disadvantaged community, as well as group facilitation, partnership working and participative working with service users.
Mandy worked as a Trainer for the Social Care Training Department Children and Young People’s Services within BCC, with special responsibility for developing and delivering training in Child Protection, Equalities, Total Respect, the Common Assessment Framework and skills for managers.
Claire Leheup
outdoor learning advisor
Claire has over 20 years of experience in both formal and informal education and in a wide range of sectors.
Claire is a member of the Institute of Outdoor Learning and The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom and also holds a Master’s Degree in Outdoor Learning.
She has extensive knowledge and expertise in advising staff how to plan, prepare and execute educational visits in either the UK or overseas, ensuring that the appropriate health and safety criteria are met and that the venture is also an enjoyable and memorable learning experience for all involved.
As a nationally accredited trainer, Claire is able to offer quality training for Educational Visits Coordinators and Group/Party Leaders. She also provides bespoke training.
In her spare time, Claire extends her passion for the outdoors by playing hockey, walking, cycling, riding, paddling and occasionally caving!
David Potter
education consultant
David is an education consultant with particular interests in managing the improvement of teaching quality, in helping schools and education departments assure quality and plan for improvement, and in supporting schools causing concern.
In his seventeen years of teaching, he ran two departments, was a pastoral head and deputy head, and led a large secondary school. He then worked for fifteen years in local authorities, first as senior secondary inspector, later as chief adviser and deputy director of
education (head of school improvement). He has worked as a DfE adviser, led a large number of OFSTED inspections, trained OFSTED inspectors and monitored inspections; and worked extensively as a school improvement adviser to schools and academies.
In addition to working in the UK, he has worked as a consultant to governments in South Africa, Botswana, Russia, Cyprus, Jersey and the Caribbean. He has published extensively on school improvement, self-evaluation and schools in difficulties.
Geoff Mountjoy
Governance support
Geoff has over 15 years’ experience of supporting school governance in the three strands of effective governance (1) setting strategic direction, (2) holding senior leaders to account and (3) monitoring financial efficiency/probity. He continues to be a Member and Trustee of a successful North Somerset Stand Alone Academy.
He works for the Teaching School Council (South West) as a Regional Governance Lead co-ordinating leadership governance support to schools/academies and also supports schools in a Bristol Multi Academy Trust as their governance officer. He is currently studying for a PhD in Education, exploring how to promote effective governance relationships.
Geoff strongly believes that, evidence from Ofsted inspections shows that effective governance is a major determining factor of the success of a school and whether its pupils make good progress as learners. He has designed and delivered a training programme for system leaders to undertake External Reviews of Governance (ERG). These allow schools to critically examine their strengths and weaknesses and produce an action plan for improvement. Geoff has personally undertaken ERG’s and also provides facilitation for schools to undertake annual self-reviews as recommended by Ofsted. Too often schools don’t know how effective their governance really is until concerns are raised at an Ofsted inspection and the reviews Geoff offers helps them and Trusts to make improvements, or consolidate success, in advance.
In addition to governance reviews, Geoff offers support to boards for governor induction, the development of governance targets and mentoring of new Chairs.
Rhys Thomas
Health and safety consultant – D&T
Rhys Thomas is a DATA accredited Design and Technology Health and Safety Consultant working across all age groups: from primary to University.
He provides quality training for new and experienced staff in educational establishments. After 13 years teaching and leadership experience in secondary D&T he set up on his own, formerly Ithaca training and now Practical Training Ltd. He has been working within the DS network and so far his training has been extremely well received.
He has a professional and personal interest in Product Design and Technology and lives with his wife and two children in South Wales.
Lucy Rothwell
Project Management Support
Lucy Rothwell, Project Manager (PRINCE2 Practitioner), worked at PHAB, as Business Manager for over 6 years.
During this period Lucy also worked as a Clerk to the Governors for several schools, and developed a good understanding of school structures and processes, including the transition to Academy.
Prior to this Lucy worked in project management in the commercial sector for 20 years and her experience also includes bid management.
Michael Earle
wellbeing support
Michael Earle provides practical, everyday advice to cope with the demands of modern professional life to organisations large or small.
He supports professionals to increase their awareness of the importance of improving and maintaining their wellbeing.
He is a great believer in early intervention and prevention rather than crisis management….and above all encourages us to ALL TAKE OUR LUNCH BREAK!
David Hussey
Coaching And mentoring support
David is the most recent addition to our wellbeing network. A head who has been described by Ofsted as “An inspirational leader who is passionate about the quality of care and education that the pupils receive”.
He has joined our network to support coaching and mentoring.