Gillian Hibberd
Gillian’s career spans a number of roles at the Kingfisher Group, Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, Dacorum Borough Council, the London Borough of Hackney, Hertfordshire County Council and Buckinghamshire County Council.
At Hertfordshire Gillian was a member of the management team that led HR to achieve the HR Excellence Award in 2003, Personnel Today Award for Innovation in Recruitment 2003, Personnel Today HR Team of the Year 2003, the Local Government Chronicle HR Team of the Year 2004, Employee Benefits Award for best voluntary benefit strategy in 2005 and numerous other HR awards.
Gillian joined Buckinghamshire in late 2005 as Corporate Director and is responsible for HR, OD, Policy and Performance across the whole organisation of 14,000 employees. She has overseen a HR transformation process which has resulted in significant savings and service improvements. Her team has recently been awarded the PPMA award for Innovation in HR and was shortlisted for a 2007 MJ award.
Gillian is on the national Policy Board of Public Sector People Manager’s Association (PPMA - formerly SOCPO), is the national lead OD and Leadership and is Vice –President of the Association. Gillian was named as one of the top 100 most influential people in HR in 2007 by Human Resources Magazine.
Paula McDonald
Deputy Director, Pay and Workforce Reform,
Economic and Domestic Affairs Secretariat, Cabinet Office.
Paula is responsible for public sector pay and workforce reform, advising Ministers and developing national policies and strategies in support of front-line delivery and service improvement. Joining the Cabinet Office in 2002, she works with Government departments on pay and workforce reform strategies and public service leadership initiatives, including leading the development of the newly launched corporate Scheme, Leaders UnLtd, which aims improve talent management into, and increase the diversity of, the Senior Civil Service.
Prior to joining the Cabinet Office Paula was Assistant Director for Service Quality and Resources Management at the London Borough of Camden, leading HR strategy and OD, service improvement, financial and business planning, strategic procurement and customer focus. With a strong background in local government and a range of roles at senior levels in the public, third and private sectors she has a broad experience of central and local government policy development, human resources, employment promotion and social and community enterprise.
Paula holds the Secretariat role for the Public Services Forum, established by the Prime Minister and chaired by a Cabinet Minister, that brings together national trades unions, government leaders and public service employers to improve dialogue and joint working on pay and workforce reform issues. Paula and her team work with these stakeholders to develop innovative policy delivery tools, including: a practical web-based tool to analyse and improve staff engagment in service improvement and change; interventions to develop leadership capacity for more strategic ‘customer focus’; and a policy framework for introducing Total Rewards strategies to incentivise high performance and productivity.
Paula has worked as independent management consultant in the private and third sectors and is a Non-Executive Director for a London NHS Acute Trust. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (Political Thought, Political Development) and a Masters Degree in Manpower Studies.
