Hello everyone and I’m delighted to introduce myself as the new Head of the National JESIP Team. It’s a huge honour to be taking on the role and it’s clear that I have big shoes to fill following the fantastic things that Dave Boyle and the team have done so far. I’m also fully aware that we are building on the many years of great work that have gone into developing JESIP so far.

To state the obvious, what we do in promoting and supporting JESIP is about successful partnerships, so I want to immediately say that my door is open and my phone is on (or is it more that my inbox is open these days?). We are fully aware that anything we are able to achieve in improving joint working is about collaboration across a whole range of sectors and organisations, so I am always going to be keen to hear from you about what we can do better or differently.

I’m also delighted that Dave has agreed to remain a supporter and advisor to us as a JESIP Associate. While we have exciting plans and ideas for the year ahead (which you can read more about below), we know that there is a huge amount of knowledge and experience out there that we want to learn from, not least including David’s!

As well as Dave’s departure, it’s been a busy time of comings and goings on the team. We are sad to say goodbye to Jez Wilson, who has done some fantastic work for us on our Joint Organisational Learning (JOL) platform and processes in recent months. But we’re also really pleased to welcome Chanel Hendricks-Lynch to the team, who joins as our new Team Leader from the London Fire Brigade and will take up some of that JOL work among other responsibilities. We will introduce Chanel properly to you in the next Newsletter later this autumn. And we are also currently recruiting to fill a vacancy for our Delivery Manager role.

The team and I will be out on the road in the weeks and months ahead and look forward to meeting many of you in person. If you have an event that you would like us to attend please do invite us with as much notice as possible and we will make every effort to attend. In the meantime, enjoy the newsletter and do get in touch.

Matt England
Head of the National JESIP Team