Louise Hider-Davies

Previous National Management Trainee

Joined 2008

“I started my NGDP journey at Barking and Dagenham in 2008 and am now Head of Commissioning (Adults).  I chose to interview at Barking and Dagenham because I was interested in the Borough’s history and the fast-paced demographic changes that the Borough had seen over the previous 20 years. It was an area with complex, social and economic issues but with a real vision for change and I felt that I could make an impact within the local authority.  I also agreed with the Borough’s values and I really liked the people that I met who worked for the local authority. During my interview, I felt like it was an organisation where people genuinely supported each other, so it was not a surprise when I decided to relocate from Portsmouth to take up my National Management Trainee position in Barking and Dagenham.

I completed three six-month placements in Integrated Family Services (Children’s Services), Personalisation (Adult Social Care) and in the corporate Policy and Partnerships Team. During my time in Integrated Family Services, I worked on several projects including a child poverty project, the implementation of a new Borough-wide Rising Star Awards and co-ordinating events for disabled children. I developed a range of skills including research, project and budget management whilst on this placement.

In my second placement, I worked on the Personalisation programme which was aimed at helping service users to have better choice and control of their care and support needs through the implementation of personal budgets.  In my third and last placement, I worked with key stakeholders such as the police, fire and health services to improve partnership working and also researched and presented a paper on the life outcomes of young people in the Borough.  In both of these placements I presented to Cabinet Members, Senior Managers, operational staff, partners and residents. 

I have had a steady career trajectory since coming off the programme, having left the NGDP early to take up a secondment as a Business Manager within Community Safety and then undertaking a front-line role as a Community Safety Coordinator.  This role worked closely with the Police, other Council teams and local residents to problem-solve community safety issues in four wards in the Borough.  Following several successful roles within the council, I was appointed as Head of Commissioning (Adults) in 2017.  The NGDP provided a unique experience of shadowing, networking and exposure to senior leadership and Cabinet Members.  My advice to graduates aspiring for a senior leadership role is to make the most of the opportunities provided and to take up a frontline role either as one of your placements or following completion of NGDP; this experience will build the foundation for progression.”

Zulfiqar Abbasi

Finance Graduate Trainee

Joined 2019

"Hi, I am Zulfiqar and I have now been on the finance graduate scheme with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham for around 15 months. I studied Accounting and Finance at university. I have always wanted to be in a profession where my role is more than just making profit for the company. I am a resident of the borough and have seen the great work done by the council employees and leaders over the years and wanted to be part of this dynamic team.

As part of finance graduate scheme I took my first placement in service finance, where I engaged with service managers to understand how they provide services and what challenges they face and role of finance in ensuring a smooth function of services.

I have just started my second placement in corporate finance. I am studying towards qualifying as a CIPFA accountant as part of CIPFA apprenticeship scheme. The course is challenging but highly relevant to the work. Council allows days off to attend college, revision, and exam days. CIPFA apprenticeship team and council’s finance department provides continuous support to gain relevant work experience and where possible the placements are matched with modules studied at college to put theory into practice to develop technical knowledge and experience.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my first year on the scheme, there are plenty of social activities and graduates are encouraged to take lead on this. LBBD recently launched a Graduate Trainee Network with the aim of providing a platform to current trainees on different graduate training pathways to collaborate and develop a wider network. My short experience with Graduate trainee network has been very positive as I have worked closely with graduates from other departments to launch the network and arrange a networking session for graduates and alumni.  Local government finance graduate scheme at Barking and Dagenham provides opportunities and challenges to push yourself and it’s a great organisation to start your career at and grow."

Rishi Bachan-Lawrence

Legal Trainee

Joined 2020

"I recently started as a Trainee Solicitor for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in November 2020 during the National lockdown due to the global pandemic. This saw the start of my training contract which in law is a two-year period carried out by law graduates who are pursuing a career as a solicitor.

Academically, I studied English Literature at Queen Mary University of London, after which I completed the Graduate Diploma in Law, commonly referred to as the GDL, and then the Legal Practice Course, also known as the LPC. During my training contract I will continue to demonstrate and strengthen the skills required to practice law, as well as gaining a deeper insight and working knowledge into different areas of law. Additionally, as part of my training contract I am required to take the Professional Skills Course (PSC) before qualifying as a solicitor, which covers core aspects such as advocacy, communication skills and client care.

My role is to work and manage my own caseload while learning and developing the relevant skills and knowledge. This has been a great opportunity to work with skilled, knowledgeable professionals who are above all approachable and always willing to help.

I chose Barking and Dagenham for my legal training as I was attracted by the emphasis placed on empowering staff through training and development. This legal training and development offers a unique possibility not only to experience law but to make a difference. Barking is London’s growth opportunity, which is undoubtedly exciting to be a part of and presents the prospect for personal and professional growth.

As I am in the infancy of my training it is somewhat difficult to be clear about my hopes and aspirations, however, at this stage I would aspire to be the best I can. This means excelling in my training by embracing every opportunity to continue growing as a young professional to ultimately qualify as a solicitor, while building strong working relationships and making an impact on my local community."

Kajal Pabari 

National Management Trainee

Joined 2020

"I started working for Barking and Dagenham in October 2020 as a National Management Trainee on the NGDP and since then I have completed a secondment as the Dispersed Working and Community Hubs Project Support Officer, and I have now progressed into the role of the Care Technology Project Manager within Care & Support. My role is to project manage the transition, mobilisation and embedding of the new Care Technology Service which is a significant workstream within the Adults, Disabilities and Mental Health Improvement Programmes.  A transformed Care Technology Service has the potential to be:

• life changing for our service users and their families, improving access for groups who traditionally have had limited access to Care Technology
• delivering better outcomes for service users who will value the service and identify the positive impact upon wellbeing and independence
• a smooth and responsive experience for our Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, and other referrers
• a more cost-effective service than our current service

I have been involved in many exciting projects across the Council such as setting up the booking app for our staff to book workspaces and meeting rooms across the borough, setting up Community Hubs in every ward to provide support to our residents closer to their homes and now working on the Care Technology programme.

Separate from my role, I am Deputy Chair of the Graduate Trainee Network within the Council, and this network supports staff members from different graduate schemes and those early in their career and increases networking and development of skills. I am also the Co-Chair of the NGDP Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Network. I hope to progress, learn more in my role and further develop my skills which the NGDP has been very helpful with and my supportive colleagues at Barking and Dagenham.

I chose to work for Barking and Dagenham as I am a resident of the borough and want to continue to help make my borough a better place to live in."

Owen Kelly

Finance Graduate Trainee

Joined 2020 

"I started working with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) in September 2020 as a newly appointed CIPFA trainee within the council’s financial department.  I joined this year as part of the Finance the Future initiative after graduating from the University of Glasgow where I studied accountancy and finance

My interest in applying for LBBD’s finance graduate scheme was not only due to the opportunity the position provided to further enhance my financial and professional skills, but also because it offered me the opportunity to work in an organisation where I felt I could really make a positive impact to the community around me. I had a particular interest in working for the LBBD council as well due to the Boroughs reputation of being a diverse and fast-growing area which aims to provide the best service to their residents.

Currently, my placement within the LBBD’s finance team has me working with the Adult social and care department, monitoring the budgets of a number of care homes who operate with clients with various and differential needs (e.g. dementia, old age, mental health issues etc.). I’ve lead client meetings with Kallar Lodge and Joint And Discharge cost centres to discuss the annual cost forecasts projected for the cost centres and to investigate large financial variations in transactions. As a result of these meeting, the care homes were able to gain better understanding of their financial positioning against the 20/21 budget and were able to get answers for some of their financial query’s (e.g. what items could be capitalised)

I’ve also aided in the restructuring of the new localities and assessment teams cost structure to improve the efficiency in operations and cost allocation for the service and have processed numerous journal adjustments which have allowed general or staff costing to be transferred to their intended cost centres.       

My involvement with the GTN has been as an active CIPFA representative within the programs board.  My chose to be a CIPFA representative network centres around my belief that it would be a good opportunity to develop my own communication and teamwork skills through working in the committee. I also believe, as a newly appointed CIPFA trainee, I could offer a point of view which would be useful towards achieving the committees goal of increasing the LBBD graduate network. My work within the program so far has focused on helping in organising various events such as the launch Pad event, and providing my testimony of my experience in the CIPFA program so far to an audience of other graduates.    

My aim for the future is to continue to improve my financial and workplace skills while working at LBBD. I hope to be able to lead projects and increase the number of budget holders and cost centres I work with and whose budgets I can assist in managing. For GTN, I hope to achieve to increase the number of graduates, especially those wishing to pursue a career in CIPFA, as well as increasing the diversity of location within the graduate network as being someone who has lived outside of London."

Lydia Freeman

National Management Trainee

Joined 2020

"I was lucky enough to secure a place on the NGDP at Barking and Dagenham in October 2020. Starting a role in the height of the pandemic was definitely a challenging moment, particularly when relocating from Scotland to London. I ultimately chose Barking and Dagenham due to some of its innovative approaches to meeting the needs of residents, such as the Social Progress Index and its unique structure.

I have recently left the scheme early to accept a full-time post in Children’s Care and Support Commissioning, which is the area in which I completed my first placement. I am now working on several projects with the Youth Offending Service, Care Leavers and Placements. When I was on my placement in 2020, I worked across the whole of commissioning gaining experience in Disabilities, Children’s, and Adult’s Social Care. I led on reviewing all of our current placements across our looked after children and worked with young people to provide better supporting documents on their options when leaving care.

I have also been involved in projects outside of Commissioning which piqued my interest, characteristic of the scheme’s flexibility. I have worked as a project support officer for one of the tests as part of the Dispersed Working Programme. This has established a new normal across the organisation which allows employees to use office spaces in a personalised way. It was great to aid the development and design of a service and see it directly benefit colleagues in the organisation.

My final placement was an extended placement within Public Health working to support the Obesity Programme and leading on a pilot to establish a network of volunteers to offer face-to-face wellbeing support with a local charity to residents within Thames Ward. During my placements I got to work across the organisation and with different stakeholders such as members, charities, residents, and providers.

I am also involved in a few staff networks across the council which are a great source of support, particularly the Graduate Trainee Network which brings young people on training schemes in the council together. The Borough is a place of change, in its demographics, its skyline and its council. The NGDP will offer you a brilliant opportunity to be part of the Boroughs growth in lots of different ways, so keep an open mind.

I am part of the most recent cohort to join Barking and Dagenham as part of the NGDP, which has involved moving to London and starting this role completely remotely. My first placement on the scheme was within Children’s Care and Support commissioning, it has been a great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone in social care after working within Adult’s throughout university. As part of my time within Children’s I have worked on several projects in areas such as placement’s review, saving negotiations and the care leavers pathway. The recent transformation of commissioning within Barking and Dagenham has meant I have been able to work in the Disabilities and Adult’s social care space to give me an excellent overview of the service as a whole and a good understanding of systems thinking in practice. I have also been involved in projects outside of Commissioning which piqued my interest, characteristic of the scheme’s flexibility. I have worked as a project support officer for one of the tests as part of the Dispersed Working Programme, it has been brilliant to aid the design and development of a service which directly impacts colleagues and me.

The scheme already has helped me learn a lot about the core workings of the council in such a short space of time from the breadth of experience I have gained. Due to the multidisciplinary aspects of work I have worked collaboratively with many different departments across the council giving me first-hand experience of democratic services, procurement, and HR information governance, to name a few. I am also a member of the access/ inclusion staff network, women’s network and the newly founded graduate network which all really help me feel part of the council’s community. I am very excited to see what opportunities will come from my next three placements!"

Michael Kynaston 

Previous National Management Trainee

Joined 2018

"I started in Barking and Dagenham in 2018 on the NGDP, and am now Participation Manager (Communities) in the Council’s Participation and Engagement Team. I wanted to work for Barking and Dagenham Council because I believed in the vision that we had for the Borough and had really enjoyed reading the Borough Manifesto during the application process. I felt that the Council’s views and principles aligned with my own and it seemed like an incredibly exciting place to come and work!

I started off in the newly formed Inclusive Growth team. During my six months there I got to work on a review of our housing programme for our most vulnerable residents. I was also able to work on an regeneration engagement project called Borough and Me. This involved engaging with hundreds of residents across the Borough which I absolutely loved doing. In my next placement, working in the transformation unit, I was able to be part of a team that was working out what the next phase of transformation looked like for the Council. I loved this placement as again it meant working with a variety of stakeholders and partners, both internal and external, and quickly learning a lot about the Council, our services and our strategic vision for the future. It was a great experience.

Both of these placements enabled me to meet and work with colleagues from across the Council and helped me to learn a lot in a short space of time. This for me is what is great about the NGDP, it sees you thrown straight into a variety of projects and gives you a broad range of experiences in doing so.

I then took on a role as a Policy and Communities Officer in the Participation and Engagement Team, working closely with our community partners and residents on different projects:

• the NCIL participatory grant-making process where our residents make decisions on community funding using Neighbourhood Community Infrastrucure Levy funds
• working closely in partnership with Participatory City as they run the largest participation platform in the Country right here in the Borough in the form of Every One Every Day
• collaborating with the BD_Collective as they deliver our Social Infrastructure Contract, supporting and growing the capacity of the Social Sector in Barking and Dagenham
• working with BD Giving, and transferring a community endowment fund worth over £900,000 to them in order for them to grow and distribute it on behalf of the social sector of Barking and Dagenham
• in partnership with our community and faith groups and other Council services, delivering BD CAN, our community-led response to Covid-19 that saw our vulnerable residents have got the support they need during these tricky times

I have recently begun a role as the Participation Manager (Communities) in the Participation and Engagement team, continuing to work on all of the above areas while also leading a team that works on tenant engagement, volunteering and community assets. It has been a very exciting first couple of months!

I have loved being at Barking and Dagenham so far and I’m looking forward to whatever comes next!"

Ilirjeta Buzoku 

National Management Trainee

Joined 2021

"I am a newly accomplished graduate of Sociology 2021, originally having grown up between the London Borough of Havering and Barking and Dagenham. Luckily, I gained a place on Cohort 23 of the NGDP in the same year I graduated. As someone who is a second-generation Kosovan, the unique demographic of eastern Europeans and other ethnic minorities in Barking and Dagenham really appealed to me in terms of working for a council that has seen a large movement in people over the last 20 years. I never though I’d want to work in the same area I grew up in, but the evident change in Barking and Dagenham over the last few years and their visions going forward really did pique my interest in the information sessions – and here I am!

My first placement has been in Children’s Social Care Commissioning. Before this placement I wasn’t familiar with the term ‘commissioning’, but my team and everyone around me were extremely supportive in helping me find my feet and trusting me with big responsibilities so I could learn. By the end of my very first week, I was given the task to lead on my largest project so far - the Foster Carer Rate and Benefit Uplift project.  This piece of work gave me a wealth of experience in understanding how the council operated their decision-making processes. Being able to start a report and see it through many governance boards, all the way to cabinet was a really satisfying and proud moment for myself. Among other things, I have supported the improvement of the boroughs supported accommodation for young people, conducting consulting with care leavers and evaluating tender bids.

My first placement has shown me that even when you enter sector not knowing what to expect, you can find that you really enjoy it and actually consider it as a part of my long-term career trajectory. I look forward to taking advantage of NGDP’s unique scheme to experience different areas of the council and further my knowledge about local government holistically."

Nikhil Scott 

National Management Trainee

Joined 2021

"After graduating with a degree in History in 2021, I joined LBBD in October of the same year as part of Cohort 23 of the NGDP. I chose Barking and Dagenham because it met many of my criteria, such as location and variety of placements offered, but I was also struck by how invested the council seemed to be in the NGDP. Towards the end of the application process, I attended the information sessions of lots of London boroughs, but LBBD stood out from the crowd because of the attendance at their session of numerous grads and senior staff. This created a strong impression of plenty of support for graduates and a positive organisational attitude towards them – since starting work, I have found both impressions to be accurate!

My first placement has been in My Place in the Property Management and Capital Delivery team, working to manage the borough’s assets, from high-rise blocks to the layout of the Barking Town Hall. Before this placement, I had never considered a career in property, but I have enjoyed it to the extent that I am now considering working in property in the long term! My work has ranged across multiple projects, with the largest being a fire risk assessment project (completing actions across nine buildings to make them safer from fires). This experience has given me a wealth of experience in project and data management, and also stimulated my interests more broadly. After beginning this project, I decided to join a steering group run by the London Fire Brigade to help design community forums – an opportunity I happened upon thanks to a Barking and Dagenham newsletter email.

Since I am a relatively new starter to LBBD, I have only recently joined the Graduate Trainee Network. What excites me most about the Network so far is the prospect of socialising and getting to know other grads in the organisation, something that Covid has made difficult over the last two years! In the near future, I am most looking forward to the GTN’s Social (rescheduled thanks to Omicron)!

Being a National Management Trainee at Barking and Dagenham has made me quite hopeful when thinking about my professional trajectory. From my first placement alone, I have learned about several sectors that I might be interested in pursuing a long-term career in, and I am sure that I will discover even more potential career paths in my future placements too. However, wherever I end up, I am sure that the skills that I have developed on the NGDP will be indispensable, and so I aspire to learn as much as I can throughout the programme."