Information on the speakers presenting at CIPFA Public Finance Live Northern Ireland 2024.
Carol Culley OBE, Commissioner, Woking Borough Council, CIPFA President
Carol's most recent role was Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer at Manchester City Council. She was the Council’s Section 151 Officer and has responsibility for Finance and Procurement, Commercial Governance, Revenues and Benefits and Customer, Internal Audit, HROD, ICT and Capital Programme Delivery. Carol led Manchester’s transformation programme and the Zero Carbon Action Plan, whilst also serving as the Senior Responsible Officer for Factory International and Our Town Hall projects.
Her previous roles in Manchester include Assistant Chief Executive for Finance and Performance, and Assistant Director of Finance and Commissioning for Social Services. Carol has a wealth of experience in financial management, governance and assurance and fulfilling trustee roles. She is CIPFA qualified, has a diploma in management and is a member of the CIPFA Council. Carol is CIPFA President for the year 2024/2025.
Steve Mungavin, Chair of CIPFA Northern Ireland branch
Steve has over 30 years' experience working in and with public bodies throughout the UK, Ireland and overseas. He is a well-known lecturer, consultant and trainer in leadership, strategy and corporate governance at a variety of levels including political, Chair, Board, CEO and senior executive, and trainee.
Owen Mapley, Chief Executive, CIPFA
Owen was appointed as CEO of CIPFA in July 2024. Prior to joining CIPFA he spent five years as Chief Executive of Hertfordshire County Council and three years as the council’s Executive Director of Resources and s151/Chief Finance Officer.
His time in local government followed an eight-year tenure in the Senior Civil Service, where he held Finance Director positions at the Home Office, HM Courts Service, and the Legal Aid Agency.
Owen began his professional career with PWC, spending 12 years in professional services working with a wide range of private and public sector clients and qualifying as a chartered accountant. In addition to his operational responsibilities at HCC, Owen was a member of his local system’s Integrated Care Board alongside NHS and voluntary sector partners.
Owen’s additional leadership roles also included terms as lead local authority Chief Executive for the East of England region and as Vice-Chair of the Association of County Chief Executives.
Alan Bermingham, Policy Manager (Government), CIPFA
Alan is a Policy Manager (Government) with CIPFA. He has previously been responsible for the management and delivery of our IFRS training programme for central government and health in partnership with PWC. Alan has delivered a number of modules on the CIPFA professional qualification as well as technical training to central and local government across the regions.
He was previously Director of Finance for a Northern Ireland-based housing association and has lectured on the CIMA professional qualification at Belfast Metropolitan College. Alan is qualified with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and holds the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland’s Diploma in IFRS.
Diana Melville, Governance Advisor, CIPFA
Diana is lead advisor for the Better Governance Forum and is CIPFA’s representative on the Internal Audit Standards Advisory Board. She is a CIPFA-qualified accountant and a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Prior to joining the institute in 2008 she was head of internal audit at Salisbury Council, and held other audit roles in local government and at the National Audit Office. She is part of the CIPFA working group that developed the Good Governance Framework for Local Government (2016) and supports other CIPFA policy initiatives and publications on governance, internal audit and counter fraud.
Gareth Hetherington, Director of Economic Policy Centre, Ulster University's Economic Policy Centre
Gareth Hetherington is Director of the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre. The Centre carries out a broad range of economic policy focused research to inform Government on key policy and strategy decisions. The Centre is currently working with Central Government in the areas of labour market research, skills development and the latest Investment Strategy for NI and with Local Government in Community Planning and economic development strategies.
Gareth provides regular economic commentary in the media and is often invited to provide evidence to Stormont Committees on economic development policy. Gareth is a Council member of the NI Chamber of Commerce and the NI Skills Council and was until recently Chair of the South Eastern Regional College.
Joanne Pitt, Senior Policy Manager (Local Government), CIPFA
Joanne Pitt is an experienced local government adviser and has 25 years of public sector experience. She was responsible for the delivery of the CIPFA Financial Management Code and is an advocate of strong financial management and good governance.
She is a national speaker and author of numerous publications on topics such as government funding, housing and financial sustainability. Through her work with CFOs across the country she supports local government improvement and reform using data analysis and strong evidence-based insight.
Ian Owen, Local Government Industry Director, TechnologyOne
Ian is a CIPFA fellow who started his local government finance career in the 1980s qualifying as an Accounting Technician before studying for CIPFA while at Blackpool and Preston City Councils. On leaving local government Ian worked for the Department of Work and Pensions before moving into consultancy.
Ian has spent the last 20+ years at several major suppliers providing a variety of solutions and transformational services to the public sector with a significant focus on Local Government back office enterprise solutions. As TechnologyOne’s Local Government Industry Director, Ian helps unitary and district councils digitally transform and leverage world-class ERP SaaS solutions, helping them do more with less. Ian was elected to the CIPFA Council for 2023/25 representing the North West region of England.
Kelly Beaver, Chief Executive of Ipsos UK and Ireland
Kelly Beaver has been with Ipsos for over a decade and was previously Managing Director of Ipsos’s UK Public Affairs division. Kelly holds several honorary positions external to Ipsos in academia and charities. She is passionate about the use of evidence in decision-making and her roles outside of Ipsos enable her to make a wider contribution to the social sciences discipline in promoting its use.
Kelly was awarded an MBE in June 2022 as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to academia, research and the COVID-19 response.
Dr William Burns - Social Care Network Adviser, CIPFA
William is CIPFA’s social care policy voice, and he runs the Social Care Network. His work focuses on social care reform, and he has produced thought leadership in the areas of charging reform, children’s social care reform, Scotland’s National Care Service, and social care funding.
Before joining CIPFA, he was Social Care Finance Lead at the Scottish Government where he was involved in costing a range of social care reform policies stemming from the Independent Review of Adult Social Care. William attained a PhD in English Literature from the University of Glasgow and started studying accountancy during the final stages of his PhD.
William Crawley, Journalist and Conference Chair
William is an award-winning journalist and BBC presenter. He hosts Talkback, the daily current affairs discussion programme on BBC Radio Ulster, and Sunday on BBC Radio 4, and has written and presented scores of radio and television documentaries on subjects ranging from history and science to religion and literature.
He is a recipient of the Eisenhower Fellowship, an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast for services to broadcasting, and, in 2019, was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Daniel McCrossan MLA, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee
Born and raised in West Tyrone, Daniel studied law in Liverpool before returning to work for Joe Byrne MLA. When he retired late 2015, Daniel became the MLA for West Tyrone.
Daniel was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2017 and 2022.
Daniel is currently the SDLP's Social Justice Spokesperson, and has served as Chair of Stormont’s Audit Committee.
He has previous been spokesperson for the SDLP on Brexit, the Economy and Infrastructure, and Vice Chair of the Public Account Committee.
Daniel is a powerful advocate for better quality jobs and services in West Tyrone. He has been at the forefront of the campaign to get the A5 upgraded, and wants West Tyrone to get its fair share of support.
Sir Robert Chote, Chair, NI Fiscal Council and the UK Statistics Authority
Sir Robert Chote is President-elect of Trinity College, Oxford, and will take up that post in September 2025, is a visiting Professor at Kings College London and Chair of the external advisory group of the Irish Parliamentary Budget Office.
He was Chairman of the UK Office for Budget Responsibility from 2010 to 2020 and of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) network of parliamentary budget officials and independent fiscal institutions from 2017 to 2020.
He was previously Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 2002 to 2010, adviser to senior management at the International Monetary Fund and was also economics editor of the Independent and Financial Times newspapers.
Patrick Gallen, Director, GallenTCF Limited
Patrick was the Partner leading Grant Thornton’s People and Change Consulting practice in Ireland until he retired from the firm in December 2023. He continues to work for Grant Thornton as an Associate as well being a Director in his own training and consultancy firm, GallenTCF Limited. Prior to Grant Thornton, Patrick worked at PwC for over 28 years in People and Change.
Patrick is both a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He has over 30 years of experience in People and Change, working right across Ireland, the UK and on a global basis. He specialises in delivering behavioural change through capability building, which can range from working on complex transformation projects right through to coaching senior Board members on a one-to-one basis.
Lorna Pimlott, Managing Director, Local Authority Advisory and Lending, UK Infrastructure Bank
Prior to joining the Bank, Lorna worked for over 30 years developing and delivering major infrastructure projects. She started her career as an architect and worked with both the public and private sector, engaging with central and local government to solve challenges in infrastructure.
She has led schemes from a multinational contractor, central government grant organisations, big four and specialist boutique consultancies to government arm’s length bodies. Her most recent roles were at the Great British Rail Transition Team and as Sponsorship Director for Phase 2 at HS2.
Lorna started as Managing Director of the Local Authority function in July 2023 and is continuing to develop offerings for advisory and lending services across the UK’s four nations.
Mark McBride, Council Member, CIPFA
Mark is Chair and a Trustee of the AAT Retirement Benefits Scheme. He was previously an Independent Member of the Northern Ireland Local Government Superannuation Committee (NILGOSC) and Head of Finance and Performance at Belfast City Council where he worked for 23 years. Prior to that he was a Financial Accountant with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive where he qualified as a CIPFA accountant in 1993.
Mark has been an active member of the CIPFA Northern Ireland Committee for over 20 years and served as Chair of the NI Branch from 2006 to 2008. He was also a CIPFA-nominated member on the AAT Council for ten years, where he was Chair of the Resources, Nominations and Remuneration Committees. He served as President of AAT in 2016/17.