Tony Breslin has developed the Use Your Vote concept and campaign over a number of years, drawing on his extensive background and networks in Citizenship Education and public participation. Over the past twelve months he has developed a team to take the initiative into the public realm which includes Phil Bowen at Pigeon Penguin (who is developing the useyourvote.com website), Kate Dixon at Dixipix (Kate is a former BBC television and radio producer who worked for many years on The Sunday Politics), Richard O’ Sullivan formally co-founder at Callisto Design (who is responsible for the Use Your Vote and Breslin Public Policy brand identities), and Tony Thorpe, author of the Citizenship Foundation’s award winning Young Citizen’s Passport and a co-founder of the Foundation (for his drafting of much of the text).
Tony would like to place on record his thanks to Paul Tipper at Dijit for helping him to secure the useyourvote.com domain and to his friends and former colleagues at the Citizenship Foundation (now Young Citizens) for their continuing encouragement and support. Ann Bowen-Breslin, Bev Amaechi, Kevin Harris and Mike Moores have been a constant source of expertise, inspiration and wisdom throughout the development process.
The seed-corn funding for Use Your Vote comes from Breslin Public Policy Limited, and the copyright for the project remains with the business. Breslin Public Policy Limited has registered Use Your Vote, useyourvote.com and the associated brand identity as trademarks.
Dr Tony Breslin’s books, Lessons from Lockdown: the educational legacy of COVID-19 (Routledge, 2021) and Bubble Schools and the long road from lockdown (Routledge, 2023) chronicle the experiences of teachers, learners and school leaders during the multiple local and national lockdowns of the early 2020s. The final text in the series, Reschooling Society After Lockdown, will be published in 2025. His reports, A Place for Learning: putting learning at the heart of citizenship, civic identity and community life (RSA, 2016), and Who Governs Our Schools? Trends, Tensions and Opportunities (RSA, 2017), have made important contributions to the debates about the role of adult and community learning and Further and Higher Education in a post-industrial age, and the nature of school governance in a new landscape of academies, federations and MATs. In recent years, he has come to prominence as an education commentator across a range of broadcast and print media outlets.
A DFE accredited National Leader of Governance and the founder of the Use Your Vote campaign, Tony’s own experience in education, participation and the voluntary sector is extensive. A teacher by profession, adept at working across all educational phases, and a curriculum development specialist, he was the founding Independent Chair of the Pathways for All Post-16 Strategic Board hosted by Kent County Council and is a Trustee at Agora Learning Partnership and a Corporation member at West Herts College Group. He was formerly Chair at Bushey Primary Education Federation (where he remains a Board Member) and Chair of the Education Committee at Anthem Schools Trust. In August 2024, he will become Chair of the Corporation at West Herts College Group. Previously, he has served as Chair of the awarding organization, Industry Qualifications, the public speaking social enterprise, Speakers Bank, and the educational charities and membership associations, Human Scale Education and the Association for the Teaching of the Social Sciences. In addition, he has served as a Trustee at Adoption UK, the Association for Citizenship Teaching and Enfield Education Business Partnership.
A former Local Authority School Improvement Adviser, Chief Examiner at GCSE and Principal Examiner at A level, he is also known for his work as CEO at the Citizenship Foundation (2001-2010), the influential education and participation charity, where he developed the concept of the Citizenship-Rich School, and his work in the governance arena, where his engagement as a Consultant Trainer at HFL Education means that he works with school governors and leaders in primary, secondary and special education on at least a weekly basis, either online or on site.
Tony is a champion of the social curriculum, professional and vocational education, community engagement and lifelong learning, themes that are common in a wide-ranging publications list featuring over 120 articles, papers and texts, and in the work of the successful social impact consultancy that he leads, Breslin Public Policy Limited.
tony.breslin@breslinpublicpolicy.com
Breslin Public Policy Limited, which trades as Breslin Social Impact, Transform Education and Transform Governance (in partnership with Permuto Consulting), was established in September 2010; focused on education, participation and the voluntary and community sector, it works at the interface between public policy and professional practice.
Current and past clients include Adoption UK, Babcock Education, Beyond Philanthropy, BMAT Trust, the Bridge Group, Brighton and Hove City Council, the British Educational Research Association, the British Olympic Foundation, the British Paralympic Association, Bury Council, Cambridge University Press, Central Bedfordshire County, Character Scotland, Cornwall County Council, Culture, Creativity and Education England, the Diana Award, East Sussex County Council, Hampshire County Council, Haringey Adult Learning, HFL Education, Hull and East Riding Governance Network, Kent County Council, Keynote Educational, the Local Government Association, Kent County Council, the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, the London Centre for Leadership in Learning, the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), Lifelong Learning London Central, Local London, the Mercers’ Company, Modern Governor, the National Education Union, the National Governance Association, Navigation Learning, Newman Catholic College, Oasis Community Learning, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, Ofqual, the Orwell Youth Prize, PiXL, Plymouth Marjon University, the Royal Society for the promotion of the Arts, Scholars Education Trust, Stevenage Sixth, Stockport Governors’ Association, The Sixth Form College Farnborough, The States of Guernsey, the University of Bedfordshire Student Union, the University of York Department of Education, Uprising and V-Inspired.
