Organisation

We have developed a network of senior people to work closely with places and partnerships across the region; we also have individuals who are able to offer high quality policy expertise on strategic issues such as:

• planning
• housing
• transport
• community safety, and
• community cohesion

GOSE is accountable to Parliament through the Ministers in each of our sponsor departments and, in the future, will also be accountable through our Regional Minister and through Parliamentary regional scrutiny. We report quarterly to our sponsor departments on delivery of Public Service Agreements (PSAs) in our region.

GOSE is led by a Regional Director, Colin Byrne, and a Management Board. We also consult with regional stakeholders through a Stakeholder Advisory Panel that meets quarterly.

 

Our directors and their responsibilities

Colin Byrne – Regional Director
Colin Byrne has re-joined GOSE after a spell as Director of the Home Information Packs Programme, a position he took up in June 07. Prior to this he was Director of Town & Country Planning in the Department for Communities and Local Government. From 2000 to 2005 he was Director for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight within the Government Office for the South East and had lead responsibility across the Office for Sustainable Communities, Land Use Planning and Housing issues.

He has worked in several Government Departments including Department of the Environment, Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as well as spending time on secondment to the European Commission and the Health and Safety Executive.

 

Dick Oldfield – Deputy Regional Director
Kent & Medway, Crime & Disorder, Drug & Alcohol Harm, Empowered & Cohesive Communities, Social Exclusion, Violent Extremism
Dick was originally recruited to GOSE in October 2001 to manage the delivery of the crime reduction programme across the South East.  His responsibilities expanded in 2005 to include the regional delivery of the national drugs strategy and again in 2008 to deliver the national alcohol harm reduction strategy.  He assumed his current role in 2009.

Prior to GOSE, Dick was a Research Programme Director at the Home Office responsible for a range of policing related programmes.

 

Howard Ewing: Deputy Regional Director
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Support & Delivery, Housing and Planning, Regional Spatial Strategy, Local Government Performance and Capacity Building
Howard joined the Government Office for the South East in January 2007 from the Department of Trade & Industry. Howard's career has focused mainly on market regulation and enterprise issues. He has worked on consumer policy, employment relations, labour markets, and small business policy.  Howard was also Secretary to the Low Pay Commission and Secretary to the Inquiry into the treatment of Enemy Property during the Second World War.

 

Peter Craggs: Deputy Regional Director,
Finance, HR, Resilience, Estates Management
Peter has responsibility for the delivery of corporate services to 250 people working in the Government Office for the South East. This includes Human Resources, Finance, Training & Development, Facilities Management and Audit. He oversees an annual administrative budget of over £10.5m. Peter also leads on Property Asset Management for the GO Network as a whole. Peter has worked in the Government Office since 2001.

 

Helen Bennett: Deputy Regional Director
Surrey & Sussex, Safeguarding, Children's health and workforce development, Early years and Families, Youth and 14-19, Skills employment and ageing society
Helen joined the Government Office for the South East in April 2009 following a short secondment to the London Borough of Lewisham where she worked on anti-social behaviour and youth crime. Prior that she was at the Department for Children, Schools and Families, where she had particular responsibility for quality and standards for the early years.

Helen led on supporting Ministers during the passage of the Childcare Act 2006 through Parliament, and had a key role taking forward its implementation.  Earlier in her career she worked on Children’s Trusts, school governance and other school policies and was Private Secretary to two junior Ministers.

 

Ian Coates: Deputy Regional Director
Sub National Review, Impact of Regional Strategies, Business Improvement, Communications, European Programmes
Ian joined GOSE in 2006 from the Department for Education and Skills. Prior to joining DfES in November 2004, Ian worked in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, where he worked on agendas as diverse as the regulation of electronic networks; improving the life chances of disabled people; and the costs and benefits of genetically modified crops. Ian's background is as a Government Economist.
 
Ian's role in GOSE includes responsibility for regional strategies and the regional implementation of the Review of Sub-National Economic Development and Regeneration (SNR). He also leads on European programmes in the region, and on the regional economic agenda, as well as taking responsibility for corporate planning, stakeholder engagement

 

Susan Stuart: Deputy Regional Director
Thames Valley, Climate Change, Transport, Sustainable Development, Natural Environment, Transformation
Susan joined GOSE in March 2007. Prior to her appointment Susan was a Rail Bid Director with FirstGroup plc and was previously a Regional Director for the Strategic Rail Authority, also responsible for delivery of national accessibility and security policy.  

Susan has extensive experience of private public partnerships and programme management, which she deployed in a variety of roles with KPMG and with WS Atkins. Her experience spans rail, underground, road and environmental sectors.

 

Dr Yvonne Doyle - Regional Director of Public Health (NHS South East Coast)
Dr Yvonne Doyle joined the NHS South East Coast as Regional Director of Public Health in August 2006. Her previous post had been with the former South East London Strategic Health Authority where she was Director of Public Health. Yvonne qualified as a doctor in Ireland in 1981 and has trained in public health, worked in the NHS, in an academic support unit and the private sector. She has a very strong track record in research with 40 peer reviewed publications and holds an honorary senior clinical lecturership at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. For the past four years she has researched the nature of human aging - specifically what, if anything, comprises 'successful' aging - and its implications for health policy in the UK. Part of this work is leading to an MD degree.

 

Prof. John Newton - Regional Director of Public Health
Prof. John Newton is the Regional Director of Public Health. He was previously Head of Health Improvement with South Central SHA. Having qualified in medicine from Oxford and London, John worked in hospital medical specialities before training in public health.

He was Consultant in Public Health Medicine for the Oxford Regional Health Authority and led a team supporting the national Clinical Standards Advisory Group in the 1990s.  He has also been an academic epidemiologist at the University of Oxford for eleven years and was the first CEO of UK Biobank, a large genetic epidemiology project based in Manchester.

In the NHS South Central area, he has been Director of Research and Development and Assistant Medical Director at both Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust and at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. John retains a national role in public health information and is Honorary Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Manchester.