Nita Clarke OBE
Director of the IPA since January 2008, and an honorary fellow of CIPD, Nita has a long career in the trade union and labour movement. She joined COHSE from university in 1976, working for the health union until 1983; after seven years at the GLC/ILEA including four year’s as Ken Livingstone’s press officer she rejoined COHSE in 1992 and was merged into UNISON the following year. She was press officer and then political officer for UNISON until January 2001 when she joined Downing Street as Tony Blair’s assistant political secretary with responsibility for trade union liaison.
At No 10 Nita was directly involved in establishing important social partnership developments including the transposition of the Information and Consultation Directive, the Women and Work Commission, the commissions looking at the right to request part-time working, the Turner Pensions Commission and many others.
She was instrumental in securing government support for the ground-breaking two-tier workforce deal and the Cabinet Office guidance on the treatment of staff in contracting; she was also one of the prime movers behind the establishment of the Public Services Forum, bringing together public sector unions and employers and was one of the government nominated members of the PSF. She was particularly involved in the development of the Drive for Change toolkit, which embodies the principles of partnership working. She also ensured that proposal for a Compact, further equalising the treatment of directly and indirectly employed staff, was included in the Warwick Agreement of 2004, and worked on its implementation right up to leaving No 10 in June 2007.
She was a strong supporter of a social partnership approach to delivering change and reform in public services and supported successive secretaries of state in education and health in developing partnership agreements.
She has an in-depth understanding of the positive role that modern unions and representatives can have in the workplace and a very wide knowledge of the trade union movement as well as business needs. She has close working links with the TUC and many individual unions as well as the CBI, EEF, Chemical Industries Association and many individual companies
Nita’s report on relations between trade unions and the voluntary sector for the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations was launched in June 2008.
She was vice-chair of the government commissioned MacLeod Review of employee engagement and co-author of the widely praised report Engaging for Success published in July 2009. She is much in demand as a motivational speaker on employee engagement and positive employee relations.
She has a BA in history and politics and an MA in labour history from Warwick University. She was a founder board member of the New Opportunities Fund and is the author of London for Beginners (Writers and Readers Press).
Sarah Dawson
Sarah joined IPA in 1997 from the Engineering Employers Federation (now Make UK) where she managed the Southern regional association’s training and consultancy services.
Sarah’s interest and expertise is employee voice and employment relations. She provides advice and guidance to organisations on the establishment of effective employee voice architecture and governance, including the establishment of information and consultation mechanisms and staff networks.
She also advises on employment relations and developing collaborative working relationships with recognised trade unions.
Sarah heads the IPA’s election services, supporting organisations with independently run elections for employee representatives.
Lorraine Modeste
lorraine.modeste@ipa-involve.com
Lorraine Modeste provides project management for IPA’s research and consultancy projects. She leads on IPA’s event programmes – organising events for the Employee Representatives’ Hub and IPA’s Work Insights Group, and produces IPA’s monthly newsletter. Lorraine also provides executive support to the director.
Lucy O'Melia
Before joining IPA in 2024, Lucy worked with leaders from public transport, infrastructure, housing and health to take a systematic, participative approach to organisational improvement. This meant helping them put employee voice at the heart of strategy development, corporate planning, team development, improvement projects and the management of day-to-day work.
Lucy now leads IPA’s learning and development programmes, working with both unionised and non-unionised organisations to develop new ways of working, based on collaboration and trust, that deliver better outcomes for both the organisation and its employees.
Andrea Ryland
Andrea Ryland is an experienced, senior human resources professional who has worked with IPA for over 20 years and previously as HR Director for Rolls-Royce in the aerospace sector. As an advisor, facilitator and trainer, Andrea has supported organisations in all sectors of the UK in developing their approach to employee relations.
Andrea has a track record of achieving results through the involvement and commitment of people. As a trainer, she designs and delivers workshops which equip leaders and trade union and colleague representatives to develop their capability and work together effectively. The development of a partnership approach is an area of expertise. As a facilitator she designs and facilitates workshops to support teams considering how to improve the ways in which they work together and build effective working relationships.
Dr Jasmine Gartner
Born and raised in New York, Jasmine holds a PhD in cultural anthropology and has taught cross-cultural studies at higher learning institutions where she was consistently highly rated by both students and faculty.
Jasmine has extensive experience as a writer and researcher in both academic and business settings and has been published in The New Statesman, The Miami Herald, At Cooper, The Social History of Medicine, Period Homes, Traditional Building, Binghamton University Magazine, and Health, Risk and Society; and Oxford University Press as well as contributing regular articles to the IPA Bulletin.
Her areas of expertise include employee voice and engagement, conflict management and diversity and inclusion.
Jasmine regularly designs and delivers training for employee representatives on staff forums and works councils, including supporting representatives through statutory collective consultation processes such as redundancy and TUPE.
“Our employees have been incredibly impressed with her style, delivery and the content of the training and as a result we have highly engaged Employees who really bring something different to the table with a key strategic focus.” HRD, major publishing company
“I would highly recommend the training which IPA and its trainer Jasmine provided……. It was truly brilliant the way that she helped them understand their role with some simple but really effective tools/models.” HR Manager, multi-national oil and gas company.