Homes and Homelessness

Gemma Young, Corporate Director of Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud, London Borough of Waltham Forest

Gemma is an experienced senior leader in the government administration industry, specialising in internal audit, counter fraud, risk management, managerial finance, governance, and business process improvement. Gemma has worked in the public and charity sectors for over 20 years and is currently Corporate Director of Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud for the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Gemma is an internal auditor by background, which has given her a strong insight into the design and operation of controls to prevent and detect fraud. For the last 12 years, Gemma’s work has focused relentlessly on the protection of public funds, both by the implementation of preventative measures, and the rigorous detection and prosecution of those seeking to defraud the public sector, including high levels of recovery of public housing stock, prevention of fraudulent succession and right-to-buy applications, and corporate/insider fraud cases.

Tony McGovern has operated at senior levels in the public sector over three decades as CEO in the NHS and Local Government. His passion is regeneration which he believes can and does change people’s lives by providing the building blocks for prosperity. He is a strong advocate of social value and close partnership working with the private sector to deliver benefits for local residents and community groups. As Director of Regeneration and Growth at Sandwell MBC he has developed a regeneration pipeline representing a £3bn investment in the Borough between 2022 - 2027 including twelve new education and skills facilities and the Sandwell Aquatics Centre for the Commonwealth Games 2022. In his current role he is promoting the integration of regeneration with public health to address deprivation in the 12^th most deprived LA in England.

Rob has worked for Manchester City Council as the Assistant Director covering homelessness and housing access since October 2022.  Prior to that Rob was the Senior Housing Advisor in the HAST at DLUHC covering the North, Midlands and East of England.  Prior to that Rob was a Head of Housing at Leeds City Council covering homelessness, private sector housing regulation, cross tenure housing adaptations and Gypsy and Traveller services.  Rob started working in homelessness in 1991 in a homeless hostel managed by the then Oxford Cyrenians.

James is the Neighbourhood Director for the Lancaster West Estate, which is the largest council housing estate in Kensington and Chelsea, and where Grenfell Tower is located.  James is responsible for the delivery of housing services for the survivors and bereaved from the Grenfell Tower Tragedy, as well as the wider community.  This includes the strategic and operational delivery of a co-designed 21^st century refurbishment which ensures Lancaster West is carbon-neutral by 2030.

Katie Treadwell is an Energy Projects Officer in the Energy Capital team at West Midlands Combined Authority where she focuses on the challenge of heat decarbonisation and the energy infrastructure that needs to underpin it. She recently moved to the West Midlands after working for 4 and half years in Brussels on Just Transition policy, specifically coordinating a large network of NGOs advocating for local level plans and action to drive a fair and sustainable transition to a Net Zero future in some of Europe’s most fossil fuel dependent regions. Prior to this, she worked as a UK civil servant in a range of departments, including notably energy policy and has an academic background in both EU policy and Biological Sciences.

Bret is Head of Climate Change & Sustainability for the City of Coventry. He is responsible for strategic oversight of all energy and environmental programmes across the City as a Council and also Citywide for an independent Sustainability & Climate Change Board in partnership with other public, private and third sector partners and stakeholders. Much of this work includes a number of major energy transformation initiatives the Innovate UK funded Regional Energy Systems Operator (RESO) in Coventry. He also oversees two professional environmental consultancies (Business Sustain and the Green Business Programme) which support SME’s and large companies with advice support and guidance for energy and environmental management, health and safety and compliance with standards (e.g. ISO4 0001) and legislation.

A former Director in Birmingham City Council and CEO of Sunderland’s New Deal for Communities Regeneration Programme with over twenty years senior management experience in local Government and the Charitable sector (Henry Doubleday Research Association and Soil Association) with a particular focus on addressing environmental and sustainable development issues. Bret led the development of the City of Cardiff’s first Environmental Strategy with achievements that earned the City the status of first ‘Energy City’ (with Newcastle) and ‘Recycling City’ (with Sheffield) and winning an International Council Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) award during the Rio Earth Summit. Coventry, a CDP ‘A’ Rated city, is committed to delivering a zero carbon agenda cutting across all areas of its business activities covering transport as well as buildings and infrastructure and in addition to the RESO Project it has a number of joint ventures delivering energy infrastructure across the City.

After studying Earth and Environmental Science at Lancaster University, Michael spent a year teaching in Hong Kong before starting his career working at the Energy Saving Trust in Nottingham. The role developed into consultancy work, delivering fuel poverty related SLAs with Local Authorities in the Midlands. Michael then worked for Mark Group, Leicester as a Solar PV system designer working on large-scale social housing, Local Authority and commercial projects; later moving on to work for JJM, Derby as Operations Manager, overseeing the supply and installation of building integrated solar PV across the UK for the construction sector. During this time, he gained a MSc in Energy and Industrial Sustainability from De Montfort University. Michael has most recently worked as Head of Midlands Net Zero Hub (funded by Department of Energy Security and Net Zero) and is responsible for a team that is delivering over £400million of funding across community energy, retrofit, MEES Enforcement, skills & training and large scale energy project development; at present Michael is also interim Director of Environment & Sustainability at Nottingham City Council.  

Todd was appointed to Cabinet at East Devon in May 2024 with responsibility for the authority's planning service. A double-graduate in Sustainable Development, Todd's academic background is in global environmental challenges and policy responses - including a January 2023 review of challenges in decarbonising rural England for the Institute of Economic Development - while professionally he works as a consultant in sustainability and planning.