WHAT WE DO

Policy Development + Implementation
We develop, design and implement public policy and legislation, both in-house as members of our clients’ teams, and on projects externally. We work in all sectors, including in Māori and Pacific peoples policy.
Our work includes project managing significant programmes of work in the public policy area. We work across both strategic and operational policy design and review.
Our work includes:
- Research Services
- Design and development of policy, services and programmes
- Legislation design, development, implementation and review
- Policy, research and development strategies
Our staff are a mix of strategic thinkers and operational policy experts.
We can lead a green fields review of policy, or come in and assist with a discrete task, such as an analysis of submissions or a literature review.
To see some examples of our work, click here.

Policy Team Members
Matthew Allen
Managing Partner (New Zealand)
BSc, MA(Appl) Env St, Dip Env Hlth
Paul Houliston
Managing Partner, (Australia)
MPhil
Anna Gribble
Practice Lead (Governance, Secretariat + Programme Support)
BA, BsC, DPH
Calvin Scott
Senior Consultant
MA, MPP, PhD
Emma Ward
Practice Manager
BA (1st Class Hons), MPM (Merit)
Jacqui Haggland
Practice Lead (Policy + Regulation)
BA (1st Class Hons), MAdLitNumEd (Distinction), GradDip Tch (Sec)
Jason Carpenter
Senior Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons)
Nick Leffler
Senior Consultant
MA (Hons), MSc
Rob Smith
Senior Consultant
BA, LLB
Stuart Beresford
Senior Consultant
BSc, LLM
Alice Hartley
Consultant
MA (Distinction), BA (1st Class Hons), BA
Catherine Lofthouse
Senior Consultant
BSc (Hons), BCApSc, MDiet, RD
Esther White
Senior Consultant
BA, MCom
Jack Haddow
Senior Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons Philosophy)
Kylie Berg
Business Development Manager
MEnvStud (Distinction), BSc
Annie MacDonald
Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons)
Alice Palmer
Consultant
BCom (Management and Psychology)
Pauline Van
Consultant
BCom(HRMan&StratMan), MBA(BusConsulting&Innov)
Daniel Gambitsis
Consultant
BA(Pol&IntRel&English), LLB
Mary Bollen
Consultant
LLB/Ba (Human Geography)

Regulatory Analysis, Advice, Drafting + Implementation
We provide the necessary consideration of both regulatory and non-regulatory solutions to policy problems. We look at the nature and scale of the issue at hand, before identifying and analysing a range of potential solutions. We can also provide implementation services to ensure smooth roll-out of regulation.
Our services include:
- Providing advice to agencies on giving effect to the Government’s directions on regulatory stewardship
- Developing regulatory and non-regulatory solutions for policy problems
- Developing legislation and regulations in a number of countries
- Undertaking regulatory impact analysis and drafting regulatory impact statements
- Legal analysis and the design of regulatory instruments
- Project management
- Producing Cabinet papers and Drafting Instructions
- Consultation and engagement with sectors
- Evaluations and reviews of legislation, programmes, processes and agencies.
- Developing best practice guidance, training and capacity building.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

Project + Programme Management
Allen + Clarke can assist you with planning and implementing substantive change projects.
Whether it is a policy, business change, or service design or implementation programme of work, we can apply our considerable experience to make sure it is systematically and thoroughly planned and implemented.
Our senior staff can pull together and lead teams to define and achieve your change goals.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

Business/Service Change + Review
Allen + Clarke has undertaken over 150 projects that have had a substantive focus on applying business change processes and methodologies to ensure that business changes are successfully planned and executed.
Business Change Planning and Implementation: we have undertaken the development and review of strategies for a number of clients and worked with executive teams and boards to change business processes.
Business Process Improvement: our work has included reviews of service delivery and the development of options for improvement.
Customer Service Improvement: our work includes testing expectations and experiences of service providers and consumers to improve service and processes. This involves applying our extensive toolbox of consultation and engagement methodologies in a wide range of sectors and settings.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

Consultation + Engagement Processes
We take pride in our ability to engage and work in a variety of cultural settings. Our experience ranges from engaging with Māori and Pasifika communities, sector groups, businesses and individuals to engaging in other countries to working alongside vulnerable people within a community (for example, those with disabilities or those who have experienced violence or discrimination).
With every group, we tailor our approach. This usually involves discussing options for engagement with the client and then reaching out to the group to seek their advice on how they would like the engagement to occur. We know our limitations – we bring in partners to assist or lead engagements where communities or groups have very specific engagement preferences (e.g. kaumatua or community leaders taking a lead role).
Our staff have experience in managing some very important, and sometimes rather fraught, public meetings as well as small community group consultation meetings. Such meetings have been quite difficult and, in some cases, very emotional for all concerned, and have necessitated very careful planning and execution. We have needed to be flexible and allow meetings to ‘go where they need to go’ but still be able to bring them back on track when needed.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

Strategy + Planning
Allen + Clarke helps its clients develop Strategic and Operational Plans, Action Plans, Output Plans, and other planning documents. We have experience across a broad range of sectors (including working for government and non-government entities) and in focussing entities on identifying where they want to head, and how they can get there.
We have considerable experience in assisting government agencies to review or develop inter-sectoral strategies with multiple stakeholders. We help to unite different sectors and stakeholders towards common goals.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

Machinery of Government Advice + Support
For Government agencies:
Allen + Clarke staff have worked across the entire public sector (as public servants, and as consultants).
We can:
- Provide our clients with hands-on support getting stuff done – developing Cabinet papers, departmental reports to select committees, responses to Law Commission reports and petitions, Official Information Act responses, briefings to Ministers, budget bids, planning processes, regulatory impact statements, etc
- Provide advice on wider public sector/state sector processes and expectations, and the best means of advancing priority interventions
- Support staff with training and mentoring on machinery of government topics
See our free desk guides.
For businesses and Non-government organisations:
We can assist with you to understand political, institutional and regulatory developments and will provide clear, strategic advice tailored to achieve your goals.
We offer a blend of policy, legal and political expertise and can assist in preparing position papers, business cases, responding to public consultations, advising on the parliamentary and political process, and devising suggested amendments to proposed legislation.
Allen + Clarke is well placed to advise our private sector clients on how best to interface with the bureaucracy – and with Ministers and Members of Parliament. We are not a public relations company but rather focus on helping our clients develop sound business cases that are framed how the Government likes to see them, and submitted at the right time.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

International Development Assistance
We regularly undertake international development assistance projects in the Pacific and Asia.
We have also worked further afield in countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. We help with projects aimed at improving the social and economic conditions in developing countries, whether through developing local policy and drafting regulation, undertaking reviews and evaluations to identify areas for improvement, or increasing local policy capability through training.
We work collaboratively with people, partners, and organisations in-country along with external funding agencies such as the World Health Organization, the New Zealand Aid Programme, the United Nations Population Fund and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.
Our approach to International Development is based on respect, humility and service. We recognise and strive to operate effectively under internationally-recognised aid principles including the OECD’s “Development Assistance Committee (DAC)” criteria and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click here to view our Policy team members.

Policy + Regulatory
We have significant experience in the provision of policy advice and government support across all stages of the policy cycle. Our staff are highly experienced in research and problem definition; design and implementation of policy, regulation and programmes; and review and evaluation.
We have staff with expertise in constitutional policy, human rights law, privacy impact assessment, gender analysis and other cross cutting themes which can be applied to ensure all our work meets statutory and government policy requirements. We have hands-on experience with a broad range of institutional, operational and business models that government agencies apply.
To see some examples of our work, click here.

Policy team members
Matthew Allen
Managing Partner (New Zealand)
BSc, MA(Appl) Env St, Dip Env Hlth
Paul Houliston
Managing Partner, (Australia)
MPhil
Anna Gribble
Practice Lead (Governance, Secretariat + Programme Support)
BA, BsC, DPH
Calvin Scott
Senior Consultant
MA, MPP, PhD
Emma Ward
Practice Manager
BA (1st Class Hons), MPM (Merit)
Jacqui Haggland
Practice Lead (Policy + Regulation)
BA (1st Class Hons), MAdLitNumEd (Distinction), GradDip Tch (Sec)
Jason Carpenter
Senior Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons)
Nick Leffler
Senior Consultant
MA (Hons), MSc
Robyn Haisman-Welsh
Senior Consultant
PhD (Oral Microbiology), BDS
Rob Smith
Senior Consultant
BA, LLB
Stuart Beresford
Senior Consultant
BSc, LLM
Alice Hartley
Consultant
MA (Distinction), BA (1st Class Hons), BA
Alice Palmer
Consultant
BCom (Management and Psychology)
Annie MacDonald
Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons)
Catherine Lofthouse
Senior Consultant
BSc (Hons), BCApSc, MDiet, RD
Daniel Gambitsis
Consultant
BA(Pol&IntRel&English), LLB
Esther White
Senior Consultant
BA, MCom
Jack Haddow
Senior Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons Philosophy)
Mary Bollen
Consultant
LLB/Ba (Human Geography)

Evaluation + Research
We undertake evaluation + research work in New Zealand, Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Our work spans health, international development, education, social services, transport, workplace health and safety, indigenous peoples’ development, justice, environment and local government sectors.
Our experience ranges from completing rapid reviews of stand-alone programmes or projects, specific data collection or analysis tasks, through to multi-year evaluations of complex and complicated policies and suites of programmes. We are experts in a full range of qualitative and quantitative techniques and tools.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click below to view our Evaluation Brochure
Our Evaluation + Research Team
Ned Hardie-Boys
Practice Lead (Eval+Research)
BA (Hons), MA
Anthea Oliver
Senior Consultant
BSc, BA (Hons), MA (Merit)
Carolyn Hooper
Consultant (Eval+Research)
MA (Applied) SocSci Research, PhD
Fiona Scott-Melton
Senior Consultant (Eval+Research)
B.Comm, M.Comm (Hons), PhD
Marnie Carter
Senior Consultant (Eval+Research)
BA, PGDipSSER
Mathea Roorda
Senior Consultant (Eval+Research)
MA, PGDipSSER, PhD
Nick Leffler
Senior Consultant
MA (Hons), MSc
Pounamu Aikman
Consultant (Eval+Research)
BA Māori Studies (1st Class Hons), MA Anthropology (Distinction)
Robyn Bailey
Senior Consultant (Eval+Research)
BSocSci, DipSocSci, PGDipSSER (Distinction)
Sarah Renals
Senior Consultant (Eval+Research)
DipNurs, BA(LrngDiff)(Hons), BSc(ComHlth)(Hons), DipProjMgt, MA(Eval)(1stClassHons)
Annie MacDonald
Consultant
BA (1st Class Hons)

Governance, Secretariat + Programmes
We have extensive experience providing public and private sector organisations with bespoke secretariat, governance and programme design, management and implementation services. Our approach to service delivery means that clients can choose what they need from the full range of secretariat services we offer.
- Strategic planning – Strategy is everything! We will work with you on your strategic plan, including clearly defining goals, objectives, accountability, actions and measurable outcomes. We will develop a vision based on your values and the results you seek.
- Best practice governance – We will review your governance needs and propose a model or revised approach tailored to your unique circumstances.
- Governance processes – We provide governance policies and procedures, risk management advice, manage appointments to roles, and prepare corporate documents.
- Implementation – We will support you to put in place policies and programmes, deploy and assign resources, develop tools and training, and undertake monitoring and reporting.
- Smart change – We will help you design operating models, frameworks and ways of working to successfully implement change.
- Evaluation – Has it worked? We will develop measures and monitor the effectiveness of implementation and what has been achieved.
- Secretariat and board support – Making sure your meetings run seamlessly: from logistical arrangements to minutes and managing fees and payments, preparing board papers and technical reports, advice and recommendations.
- Governance advice – We provide governance policies and procedures, risk management advice, manage appointments to roles, and prepare corporate documents.
- Inquiries, tribunals, and reviews – We are experts in the establishment, operation and close-down of government inquiries and royal commissions.
- Project management and coordination – We will project manage the whole initiative or provide support and advice at any stage.
- Programme management – We can implement complex programmes of work, while keeping stakeholders informed and engaged.
- Complaints system – We will design complaints systems and processes and manage complaints.
To see some examples of our work, click here.
Click below to view our Change + Optimisation Support Brochure | Click below to view our Strategy + Governance Brochure | Click below to view our Secretariat + Programmes Brochure |
---|---|---|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Our Secretariat + Programme Support Team
Anna Gribble
Practice Lead (Governance, Secretariat + Programme Support)
BA, BsC, DPH
Kelley Reeve
Practice Manager (GOVERNANCE, SECRETARIAT + PROGRAMME SUPPORT)
Catherine Lofthouse
Senior Consultant
BSc (Hons), BCApSc, MDiet, RD
Jennifer Locke
Senior Consultant
BCom
Luke Scullion
Consultant
BAppSc, PGDipSci, MSc (Distinction)
Sally Armitage
Consultant
Monique Tuifao
Consultant
Anton Davis
Senior Consultant
BA
Michelle Meads
Senior Consultant
Prosci® Certified Change Manager