Kate McAllister works across the public and voluntary sectors to provide organisations with the tools and impetus to deliver positive change.
Her background is in the public and voluntary sector and she has many years experience of working at executive director level – most recently at Carr-Gomm, one of the leading supported housing associations in the UK.
Kate now works regularly with government and local authorities across England to monitor progress, resolve ongoing problems and help people prepare for forthcoming inspections. Her unique blend of skills and expertise has helped people to achieve success, at both individual and organisational levels.
In 2007 Kate was involved in developing the new outcomes framework for Supporting People and delivering extensive national training on this to providers and Local Authorities on behalf of CLG.
Other partnership work with CLG includes the development of a cost modelling tool for SP Administering Authorities, which builds on successful work with Warwickshire SP team and others to develop an overall value for money framework for SP.
In 2007 Kate was also selected by CLG to work with the 13 national Individual Budget pilot sites, to offer support to effectively integrate Supporting People and DFG funding streams. The findings were published by CLG in November 2008. A further piece of work sharing experiences and practice from the pilot sites was published in March 2009 and Kate is now sitting on the CLG working group that is taking this work forward..
In 2008 Kate worked in partnership with Matrix Consultancy on a major study funded by CLG, the Housing Corporation and CSIP to carry out research into the relationship between regional investment, housing support and health and social care.
She also worked with the Audit Commission in connection with the 2nd national review of the SP programme.
In 2009, Kate was a member of the national working group that reviewed the CLG Quality Assessment Framework and was part of the CLG training team.
She is currently working with the CLG Regional Resource Teams (RRTs) to carry out a series of diagnostic visits to local authorities re PSA 16, which aims to increase the proportion of socially excluded adults in settled accommodation and education, training and employment.
As a qualified coach and master NLP practitioner, Kate regularly offers support and mentoring to individuals and teams.
Kate is also a founding director of AI consulting Ltd, working with other skilled consultants who have pooled their expertise across the business, public, voluntary and academic sectors to create a dynamic and versatile team dedicated to Appreciative Inquiry, which is an internationally-recognised approach to delivering sustained and positive organisational improvement.
Current major consultancy projects include:
- Delivering training on outcome-based support plans to all adult social care staff in North Tyneside
- Involvement in major consultation exercise with Hampshire Criminal Justice Partnership
- Development of VFM Support (a value for money and benchmarking toolkit for providers and local authority commissioners, in partnership with Matrix Knowledge group www.matrixknowledge.com)
Consultancy services:
- Assistance with implementing Audit Commission Supporting People and Housing inspection recommendations
- Professional advice ahead of inspection
- Coaching and mentoring staff to help them to prepare for inspection
- Help and advice to Local Authorities on procurement and commissioning of SP-funded services including design of cost and service models
- Action planning
- Strategy development , including tested ways to identify and prioritise strategic objectives
- Needs assessments
- Priority-setting
- Good practice guidance
- Help on securing value for money
"At their 3rd Annual Housing Awards at the Chartered Institute of Housing's Annual Conference, the Audit Commission awarded Carr-Gomm the highest rating for service delivery following their inspection in 2003. As Operations Director, Kate McAllister took the lead role in preparing the organisation thoroughly for this inspection, the first of its kind for a national supported housing provider. Her project management skills, attention to detail and commitment were instrumental in making this process a positive experience for the staff, service users and the inspectors."
Gary Lashko, Chief Executive, Carr-Gomm
"Kate McAllister has made a very positive contribution in a consultancy role with Advance Housing and Support, helping it to gear up for Supporting People Quality and Monitoring requirements. This work has included -presentations to middle and senior managers groups on Strategic Relevance and Value for Money - a series of training events for project mangers in the requirements of the Quality Assessment Framework - working with the Senior Management Team to implement a QAF pilot exercise, review and analysis of results, culminating in an organizational Action Plan."
Derek Healey, Deputy Chief Executive, Advance Housing and Support Ltd