Paul O’Brien is the Chief Executive of the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE). Based in Manchester APSE has 250 local authorities in membership.

Paul has represented APSE on the Scottish Executive Health and Physical Activity Council, the Office of the Deputy Prime Ministers, Strategic Partnership Taskforce, Trading and Charging working party and the Local Government Procurement Forum. He is currently the independent facilitator of the Northern Ireland Local Government Reform Joint Forum.

Paul is a columnist with the MJ magazine and regular contributor to numerous local government publications. He is currently a member of the Guardian’s Local Government Network Advisory Board and a member of Civic Magazine’s Editorial Board. He was also a board member on the partnership between APSE, IDeA and LGIU which delivered the ODPM’s National Councillor Mentoring Programme.

Paul was previously APSE’s Principal Advisor (Scotland), and has over 28 years experience in local government.