Matt Wilton
Principal Consultant
Matt is a Principal Consultant at GENECON, and leads our ‘skills for regeneration’ offer, working with regeneration agencies to increase their capacity and capability to deliver key regeneration challenges, including responding to the HCA’s Single Conversation process. Matt provides a bespoke skills for regeneration offer, ranging from an initial gap analysis – carrying out individual and organisational assessments of capacity and capability issues, including in support of the Single Conversation process; providing guidance on sources of training/CPD to address capacity and capability gaps; design and development of training programmes/events for authorities/agencies to meet their skills needs; right through to the direct provision of training programmes/events to clients.
Our offer draws on Matt’s experience of working with a range of regeneration agencies, and with key intermediaries in the regeneration skills field, including the Homes and Communities Academy, RegenWM, and most recently, Integreat Yorkshire. He has carried out a number of assignments for the former Academy for Sustainable Communities, now the Homes and Communities Academy. This includes a leading role in the first Mind the Skills Gap research project, two formal evaluations of the Academy itself, drafting and editorial work with the Corporate Management team on business and corporate planning and future visioning, including the collaborative development of Key Performance Indicators for the organisation; and advising the Academy on potential delivery options for CPD programmes, including the ‘Raising Our Game’ programme. At the regional level, Matt recently delivered training/CPD sessions for members of the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership, focusing on neighbourhood management, as part of support to RegenWM, the regeneration centre of excellence for the West Midlands. Also in the West Midlands, he has carried out research and analysis into the capacity and capability of local authorities, with a particular focus on the expertise and skills required to deliver substantial regeneration investment programmes. He also carried out research into the prevalence of generic skills provision within built environment degree courses in the East of England, for Inspire East, and has evaluated the Integreat Yorkshire/Bradford City Council Regeneration Academy.
Matt also has substantial project management experience in evaluation and research within the neighbourhood renewal and sustainable communities field, leading high-profile evaluations including the national evaluation of Neighbourhood Renewal Funding (Department for Communities and Local Government), evaluations of Bristol City Council’s Neighbourhood Renewal and Neighbourhood Management Programmes, and advising Walsall Borough Strategic Partnership on the transition from NRF to WNF programmes. He has also led evaluations across various other funding streams such as SRB, recently leading the North West strand of the meta-evaluation of the impact of SRB funding within DBERR’s Evaluation of the Impact of RDA Spending.