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Supporting Local Governance

About Hoey Ainscough Associates

Hoey Ainscough Associates Ltd was set up in April 2012 to support local government members and officers in ensuring effective local governance. Our particular emphasis is on supporting the local standards framework for members put in place by the Localism Act 2011. We support all tiers of local government, including parish and town councils.

We support councils through a series of different tools, including tailored support for individual councils, advice and guidance through a dedicated web service and events designed to meet specific local, regional or national needs.

As the recognised national experts on local government conduct issues, we also work in partnership with national representative bodies to support local government. For further detail, please see 'Consultancy Services', 'Interactive Web Support' and 'Event Management and Regional Support' sections.


Paul Hoey, Co-Director

Paul has worked extensively for central government nationally and internationally for over 20 years in a range of policy roles including over ten years as the director in charge of strategy and stakeholder relations at Standards for England.

He has been the acknowledged national expert on the local government standards framework for the last decade and has worked with individual authorities and groupings of authorities on implementation and development of local standards arrangements as well as advising Standards for England, the Government and key national regulators and representative bodies on standards issues. He has given expert evidence to both the Parliamentary Select Committee and Committee on Standards in Public Life enquiries into local government standards.

More generally, he has wide experience of operating in a political environment, working with senior politicians across the political spectrum on policy development and implementation and strategic negotiations, covering a diverse range of areas including housing policy, environmental policy and latterly a range of issues relating to local authority governance, constitutions and political management.

He has particular experience of working closely with Ministers and understanding their needs and developed particular expertise in Ministerial speech writing and policy statements, ensuring they were targeted effectively to ensure maximum clarity of message and political buy-in.

He has similar experience working alongside senior officers at national and local level as well as within the political parties and has a deep understanding of the workings of Whitehall and Parliament.

Paul is skilled at developing consensus across a wide range of stakeholders, building effective alliances and facilitating events and discussions. His particular expertise lies in developing and testing policy solutions to problems and then ensuring effective delivery through consensus and team-building.


Natalie Ainscough, Co-Director

Natalie has nearly ten years' experience working on public policy development for Government agencies. This includes nearly 6 years at Standards for England in a key policy role developing and implementing an evolving local standards framework where she led a multi-disciplinary team in the development of statutory guidance. She also developed and implemented entity risk management systems designed to identify, assess and prioritise risks to local authority governance from standards issues.

She has experience of working with senior politicians and officers at national and local level and extensive knowledge of negotiating at the highest political levels across parties. Her particular areas of expertise are in understanding policy intentions behind legislation, production of clear and focused briefing and guidance materials and organising events. This includes responsibility for management of content for Standards for England's national stakeholder conference.

She is a specialist in understanding Parliamentary procedures and advising senior figures on how to influence political and civil service thinking at senior levels.

Natalie is particularly skilled in analysing complex issues from all sides, analysing risks, helping people develop solutions and consensus while ensuring the issues are understood and clearly communicated.