Members

Meet the Team

KATO is run for its members by members.

The KATO committee is made up of members who are elected annually from and by the membership, The Officers of the Organisation shall comprise the Director of Operations, 2 Chief Officers, Treasurer and up to 7 Committee Members who will operate in accordance with the terms of reference within the constitution.

The constitution helps serve as a set of rules and principles that everyone agrees is the basis of how they want to be governed. The constitution sets out the ideals and goals we want to achieve.

Kirsty Hawkins

Network Manager

With a strong background in work-based learning, vocational education and training, Kirsty has worked in further education for over twenty years and overseen government funded contracts including AEB, Apprenticeships and ESF initiatives. She is passionate about education, skills, and empowering people.

More about Kirsty

Alongside previous leadership and management roles, Kirsty is a long-standing committee member of Kent Association of Training Organisations (KATO) and Non-Executive Director of Social Enterprise Kent.

In 2020 Kirsty made the decision to embark on the ambition to become self-employed, starting a business that supports training and skills organisations offering support, advice and collaborative working, the KATO Network Manager role underpins the aim and passion to support and collaborate with skills and training organisations.

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David Knox

Director

David has worked for The Education People and Kent County Council for the last eighteen years and has worked previously with different training providers. He has worked in the apprenticeship arena for the last 20 years. 

More about David

David has a wealth of experience, knowledge and since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy has been working with schools to understand how they can best use the levy.

He has gained a range of experience in the welfare to work arena, managing a variety of different back to work programmes from work experience, work tasters to apprenticeships across the county.

David’s been working on employer engagement across the county and developing the apprenticeship offer to promote the benefits of apprenticeships to schools, young people, parents and businesses. His role is to create and develop county wide opportunities for apprenticeships and work experience through employer engagement, partnership working, within KCC and other local authorities for the benefit of the local community. He has worked on different trailblazer groups in the development of new apprenticeship standards. He one of the directors of KATO (Kent Association of Training Organisations) working with the local training providers in Kent, to help support the development of the training available across the county. Working to providing strategic overview and facilitating collaborative activities between education providers, training providers and employers to support the progression into the world of work.

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Tim Rowe

Director

Tim is the owner and founder of eTraining Limited. MBA trained Tim started the company in 1998 with a strong commercial background and this has translated into excellent employer relations. 

More about Tim

The company now holds direct contracts with the ESFA for Apprenticeships, Traineeships, AEB funded back to work programmes and Adult Learner Loans. Ofsted Grade 2 and Matrix accredited, eTraining is also on RoATP, the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers. In addition being an Endorsed Training Provider for Skills for Care means that eTraining can deliver a suite of management training courses to Social Care management teams in the South East.

Tim has been a member of KATO for many years, more recently a committee member and since 2019 a Director. In this role he is able to assist KATO in the Apprenticeship and Back to Work arenas ensuring that the work KATO carries out is useful and helpful to those who also work in that sector.

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Committee Members

Pauline Smith

About Pauline

After many years in the education, skills and employability sector I have extensive knowledge and experience of the challenges and opportunities facing the independent training provider, public and voluntary sector. I want to support and champion the amazing work of our network of providers who are changing the lives and empowering so many young people and adults.

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Daniel Ratcliff

About Daniel

Daniel has been working in the Skills arena for approaching 10 years. Since 2018 he has led all Skills & Employment related work for Medway Council, including wide ranging projects such as, apprenticeship grants, supported employment, enterprise adviser network and support for care leavers.

Since 2020 Daniel is also responsible for Medway Adult Education, and all related adult learning, including schemes such as Multiply and the development of a new learning and skills hub.

He is a committee member for KATO, providing a local authority perspective and enjoys working with local training providers.

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Mark Easton

About Mark

Mark has worked in Education and Training for the past 40 years funded through DFE/ESFA and hold a variety of certification appropriate to this sector including: Teaching, Strategic Management, Resource Management, H&S, GDPR/DP/IG, Safeguarding/Prevent. I am a member of the Senior Management team at CLS and an active member of numerous KCC senior officer forums. I also have in depth experience of Ofsted, ESFA audit and other regulatory/legislative requirements.

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Katie Lloyd

About Katie

As the Partnership and Integrations manager for a national training and employability specialist organisation, I have made a strong commitment to ensure at every opportunity I unite local training providers, Charites, projects and funders to adopt joined up thinking and collaborative working, to support unemployed people, local enterprise and institutions across Kent, regain economic stability in the aftermath of Covid-19. I can draw on my knowledge and experience in this multidimension role that enables me to work with the regional team for Restart and national PeoplePlus divisions. I support senior management and frontline staff to assist participants, employers and the wider community to gain positive employment outcomes, while supporting the wider business needs.

I have always been passionate about upskilling people to be the best versions of themselves, overcoming barriers and achieving their goals and aspirations, whether that was in my role as a teacher, a research assistant at Swansea University, an employer in the Health and Social Care industry or a Community Facilitator on the Work and Health programme. My belief is that learning is key to success and growth.

Coming from a health and social care background, I have a MSc. in Gerontology, therefore I have keen interest in ageing through the life course and supporting older people ‘s ongoing development.

Key achievements have been an outstanding grading from CQC for a new service, achieving outstanding teacher status from Ofsted, establishing an apprenticeship and distance learning offer for health and social care provision across East Sussex, additionally, developing the only measure of its kind for perception of people with dementia.

I look forward to utilising my knowledge to support KATO and its members in the future.

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The Constitution

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