Simon Baddeley Email & Phone Number

Simon Baddeley following a career at Birmingham University, then an Associate of the Institute of Local Government Studies studies working relations between politicians, managers and professionals. He has taught in Australia, NZ, Sweden, Canada. He ran in-house events on political-management working relationships in councils across the UK. He has worked with NHS Trusts and with civil servants in the UK, and from Iraq, India, Africa, Japan, and Romania. He has developed a diversity of training approaches including the ‘Owl/Fox/Donkey/Sheep’ model (co-authors, Kim James, Tanya Arroba). He was a member of the 2005 SOLACE Commission, convened by Cheryl Miller CBE, to examine the challenges and complexities of working in a political environment. From 2012-2018 he helped lead a political management module for the the National Leisure and Culture Forum ‘Leading Learning Programme’ for senior UK local authority cultural services managers. He has an enduring interest in understanding relationships that make government. His most recent work, in partnership with The Development Alchemists based in Turin, has been a series of seminars, delivered on-line, during 2021 on a programme for civil servants with a focus on 'political sensitivity'. PERSONAL INTERESTSSimon is currently Hon.Sec. of Handsworth Helping Hands (HHH), a small voluntary group working in the inner suburbs of the city which he helped found in 2010. He helped HHH to submit a report - ‘Mobilising Communities, Small Grants Fund 2015-16’ - on the challenges for voluntary groups striving to engage highly transient populations in local improvement projects. HHH won a Queens Award for Voluntary Service in 2019. His choice of travel is walking, bicycle and public transport. His non-academic publications include evidence submitted in 1998 by the Handsworth Allotments Information Group, which he started, to the sub-committee on ‘The Future for Allotments’ and a history of his local park. His memorandum on behalf of The Handsworth Park Association, which he helped found in 1994, is published as evidence to the Environment Sub-committee on ‘Town and Country Parks’. He has featured in BBC documentaries about urban green space – ‘Private Investigations’ in Nov 1999 and ‘Losing the Plot’ for Midlands Report in Jan 2000. In 1965-66 he and Sue Best sailed a 22’ boat across the Atlantic.