Meet the Team

Rory Hegarty is a senior communications and community engagement specialist with over 30 years’ communications experience, including 20 years at a senior level in the NHS. Rory has led service change programmes in three London regions, working closely with residents, communities, NHS bodies and partner organisations to develop best practice approaches to public consultation, involvement and participation.

Mike has more than twenty years’ experience planning, delivering, and advising on public consultations. He drafted the first version of the UK Government’s Consultation Code of Practice. As Head of Consultation at Transport for London, he wrote TfL’s consultation policy and toolkit and oversaw a programme of 150+ consultations each year, while leading several large and contentious exercises himself.
Since leaving TfL, Mike has advised clients across transport, local government, health, and fire and rescue. His work includes supporting airports in England and Scotland on airspace change consultations and advising national governments in North Africa on constitutional change projects for the World Bank.

He has been a long-standing Associate, and later a Fellow—of the Consultation Institute, reflecting sustained contribution to consultation practice. He now works with tCI as an associate, bringing practical, policy-aware support to organisations facing complex or sensitive decisions.

With over 30 years in NHS leadership, Clive has led major hospitals, health boards, and system-wide programmes through complex change. He has a track record of turning around performance—improving emergency care, recovering planned services, and strengthening governance under intense scrutiny.

Clive’s experience spans acute hospital management, strategic planning, and high-stakes service reconfiguration across England, Wales, and the Channel Islands. His focus is on delivering measurable improvement while building trust between boards, clinicians, and the public.

Between 2020 and the Institute's closure in 2024, Steve Inett served as an Associate, providing advice, guidance, quality assurance, and training on the Law of Consultation to various local authorities and NHS organisations. He previously served as CEO of Healthwatch Kent and Healthwatch Medway, contributing to the development of tCI online training packages for Healthwatch England and delivering customised tCI equalities training to local Healthwatch. During his tenure as Healthwatch CEO, training from tCI enabled him to produce a best practice guide on consultations and engagement. He supported health and social care commissioners through a complex consultation on stroke services, which successfully defended a judicial review brought by two separate parties. Additionally, he has worked as an Associate with Traverse, The Health Creation Alliance, and HICO.

Steve started as a Registered General Nurse and has worked in social work, adult education, community development, and supported housing settings. He is the Chair of the Kent & Medway VCSE Steering Group and has held CEO roles with Citizens Advice and Mind, bringing experience in the voluntary sector and expertise in community engagement and co-production.

Barry Creasy is a specialist in consultation, evaluation, and research with 40+ years of experience in document design and data gathering. He began his career at the Agricultural and Food Research Council, leading written stakeholder consultations on topics such as animal welfare, then spent 19 years at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority as a researcher, evaluator, and consultor, contributing to major exercises including the 1994 Dearing consultation and managing the Monitoring Curriculum and Assessment project across 1000+ schools. Since 2006 he has worked independently, delivering training for The Consultation Institute on the law of consultation, focus groups, surveys and questionnaires, and data analysis, including programmes for the European Commission. He became an Associate and Fellow of the Institute in 2013.

Barry has supported consultation and quality assurance for a wide range of clients, including Highways England, HS2 Ltd, the Department for Transport, Airports Authority, local authorities, police and fire services, and the health sector. Recent work includes a risk review for the Humber Acute Services Programme, quality assurance for Surrey Heartlands, and tailored courses for ICBs and Healthwatch bodies. He regularly advises on questionnaire design, data collection, coding of qualitative data, and analytical methods, and provides hands-on analysis. Since 2020 projects have included large-scale quantitative analysis on hospital options for NHS Lanarkshire, qualitative analysis of focus groups on recycling for Doncaster Council, and mixed-methods analysis for Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB.

Anna was a Fellow and Senior Associate of The Consultation Institute and supported many clients across the health, fire and rescue, local authority and policing sectors. She has experience in providing advice guidance and quality insurance. Her subject matter expertise lies in equality, health inequalities, co-production and involvement methods. She co-authored the National Fire Chief’s Council guidance on Consultation.



Anna is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing and has extensive experience and expertise in developing innovative communication and involvement methodology particularly creating tools to support people from protected characteristic groups to make sure that their voice is heard. She has a particular interest in health literacy and accessible information.



Anna developed and delivered several training modules to upskill clients in meeting the Public Sector Equality Duty, Co-Production, Stakeholder Analysis, and Creating a Meaningful Communication and Engagement Strategy. She was often asked to provide executive briefings for senior teams and decision makers, helping them to understand their statutory duties and make sure they are informed to meet best practice standards.

Before supporting clients, Anna was a client of the Consultation Institute for over 10 years. She has had first-hand experience of leading several high profile, contentious service reconfigurations. Anna was a Director in the NHS with responsibility for communication, patient involvement and corporate governance. She understands the legal process and legislative requirements of implementing transformational change and the importance of good stakeholder management when under close scrutiny as well as having practical delivery experience.

Anna also worked for two Police & Crime Commissioners and again led several public and victim consultations to reconfigure services. In both sectors, she worked closely with the community and voluntary sector and can provide support with programmes that include building social, asset based capacity and participatory budgeting.

Andrea has over 20 years’ experience in the UK public and private sectors, specialising in capital projects and service change. She bridges the gap between delivery and governance, transforming complex requirements into clear engagement strategies.

She supports organisations through consultation and scrutiny, enabling difficult conversations and fostering shared understanding. Her work spans from major infrastructure schemes to local projects, always focused on fairness, transparency, and evidence.

Dipak Mistry is a Chartered HR and organisational change leader with over 30 years of experience in the health, local government, and regulatory sectors. As a Chartered Member of the CIPD and the Institute of Equality and Diversity Practitioners, he offers specialised expertise in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), people transformation, and consultation assurance.
Throughout his career, Dipak has advised senior leaders and executive teams on complex consultation and organisational change programmes, ensuring that engagement processes are fair, inclusive, and evidence-based. He has led workforce transformation, governance reviews, and consultation design—helping organisations to embed the Gunning Principles and enhance decision-making integrity.
At tCI, Dipak contributes to both the Training and Strategic Advisory portfolios. He supports clients in assessing the quality and robustness of their consultations, offers expert advice on inclusive change strategies, and helps develop organisational capability in people-centred consultation and engagement. His work is rooted in the belief that effective consultation and diversity are essential for building trust, transparency, and achieving better public outcomes.

Ian is a tCI Associate with 30 years’ frontline policing experience. A former Metropolitan Police leader (1995–2025), he brings critical-incident expertise and evidence-based problem solving across community policing, vulnerable groups and harder-to-reach communities. He works credibly with local authority leaders and commissioners, safeguarding and community safety teams, and charity/VCSE partners. Ian has served in response, custody and specialist drugs/sex-work teams, contributed to major incidents including 7/7, and is recognised with multiple commendations and long-service honours. He now strengthens defensible decision-making and proportionate engagement for councils, the NHS and charities through tCI’s assurance, learning and advisory services.