Simon Weakley Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

Bill Manager for Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, Data Policy DirectorateResponsibilities: Leadership of a bill team, establishing project management and governance structures, developing subject matter expertise, coordination of policy development, IA development, for one of DCMS’s top legislative priorities.Corporate leadership across the policy unit to provide confidence and direction in a fast paced and uncertain environment, driving a can-do culture that welcomes challenging work. Embedded project management and governance structures and implemented training and development for the unit. Achievements: Led a high performance bill/project team to successfully deliver multiple challenging policy and legislative outcomes in parallel. This involved coordination of a further c. 25 policy officials and resulted in many key outputs including a full public consultation, response, preparation of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, associated bill products, and preparation for Parliamentary passage.Developed a large stakeholder community across Whitehall and externally to ensure support from a wide range of groups. This led to bill policy that successfully balanced public and political objectives in a way that achieved consensus, while remaining alive and adaptive to changing priorities and circumstances.

Whitehall, England, United Kingdom

Responsibilities: Leadership (including line management) of a combined team (c. 20 headcount total) of civil servants, GDS resources, and external consultants from 2 firms, to deliver a high profile and politically sensitive project to build a platform providing advice and evidence on readiness for the end of the transition period.Achievements: Brought information for policy analysts, project managers and senior decision makers together and delivered a comprehensive, web-based reporting platform, enabling better quality advice and decision making across government and at Cabinet level.Implemented Agile and Kanban project management techniques to deliver all requirements against extremely challenging deadlines and for very senior stakeholders.Motivated my team to achieve high performance in difficult circumstances, delivering above and beyond expectations and maintaining stakeholder confidence in my grip on the project.