The launch of WK Consulting

On Thursday 30th September, over 100 housing association and public sector professionals gathered at The Work Foundation in London to celebrate the official launch of WK Consulting. In addition to a highly entertaining keynote address from Will Hutton, Executive Vice Chair of The Work Foundation, the group heard our Managing Director, Barbara Thorndick outline what makes our consultancy unique in the sector.

  The evening's proceedings were introduced by Jonathan Shaw, our Associate Consultant who was previously Regional Minister for the South East. Jonathan said it was an exciting time for the consultancy and the sector as they faced the many challenges ahead before he passed over to Barbara.

Barbara began by setting out why she had established the consultancy. She highlighted that other social housing providers had responded to West Kent being awarded three stars by the Audit Commission whilst she was Chief Executive. Over 300 people from 90 organisations visited the housing association to see how they had achieved their rating.
  For Barbara, however, the important insight was that everyone she talked with had something they were proud of – something their organisation did extremely well. Barbara called these the 'golden nuggets' of knowledge that can drive the entire industry forward. She said: “Finding these nuggets is like panning for gold. It is only by considerable effort that you can find and extract the small pieces, bring them together and make something really worthwhile.”

That's what she believes WK Consulting is perfectly positioned to do. With roots in West Kent, we're able to deliver a platform for continuous two-way learning and improvement. We can work with clients to ensure that knowledge and experience is transferred in a way that drives best practice and service excellence.
  “However big or small you are as an organisation, the best stimulus for improvement always comes from encounters with others in the external world – whether this be another housing provider, a consultant or an organisation from another sector altogether,” said Barbara. WK Consulting provides a synthesis of this knowledge and experience to create what Barbara called: “a virtuous learning circle that will benefit all that take part.”

Barbara's presentation was followed by an address from Will Hutton where he touched on themes of fairness, behavioural economics and public sector pay. Will offered advice to housing association professionals looking to address this government's localisation agenda. He proposed that these organisations could benefit by focusing on how they positively influence and support the behaviours of the people and communities in which they work.
  The busy event was attended by many industry leaders including David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, June Barnes, Group Chief Executive from East Thames and Gavin Cansfield,Chief Executive from Tower Hamlets Homes and gave plenty of time for chat and informal networking.

Barbara left the audience with one final thought that reinforced her key theme: “I think there is a real opportunity here for us all to gain from a virtuous learning circle which could create the best value for money in innovation ever – so I can only encourage you to take part.”

Further information

Download Barbara's full launch presentation. (PDF 56KB)

Download our launch press release. (PDF 108KB)

See all the shots from the night on the WK Consulting Flickr page

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