Sarah Hayward is a former Council Leader, having led Camden Council from 2012 to 2017. Sarah is unusual, as she has also worked as a senior Local Government officer, and so has rare experience of both political and impartial leadership. As leader of Camden Sarah oversaw a gross budget in excess of £1bn, leading the council through an unprecedented period of political, policy and financial change. She delivered a wide range of transformative policy, including making Camden the largest builder of council housing in the country at the time, leading national policy debates on issues as diverse as High Speed Rail, adult apprenticeship and the impact of and response to migration.
Both before and after politics Sarah worked as both a central government civil servant and senior Local Government Officer. At both Slough and Croydon, Sarah led the reshaping of front line and back office services to rebuild council’s following effective bankruptcy. At Croydon Sarah oversaw a huge range of complex service, that affected day to day lives of residents from waste collection to domestic violence support. At Slough, Sarah was charged with beginning the overhaul of failing back office services like Human Resources, IT and Customer services.
Since 2024 Sarah has used this experience to provide a range of consultancy and advice to both the private and public sector on how to drive change. Sarah first become an associate for GPG in 2018 and has worked on a range of projects including, Egypt, Tanzania, Jordan and Bangladesh.