About
'Their collective knowledge and experience is unrivalled. The unique blend of senior public sector service, combines to provide you with insight and foresight that is without parallel.'
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Rob Davis, February 2015
Following collaborative success on a number of highly acclaimed training programmes, we decided to pool our qualities to deliver market leading learning experiences. Critical-Link Ltd brings together the experience and knowledge of four individuals, each recognised experts in their own field. We provide coherent and effective learning and consultancy across a wide range of business development and resilience issues.
Critical-Link offers expertise from the UK intelligence and security community, Cranfield University, the emergency services and business sectors to identify, develop and secure your critical links.
All of our staff have recognised teaching qualifications from post graduate certificate in education to recently attained Award in Education and Training (AET).
Through our programmes, clients from the private and public sectors have changed the way they see the world. We've helped them identify their vulnerabilities and view their relationships in a different way. Our insight has allowed them to develop trusted partnerships to achieve organisational change..
When required, we draw on leading experts in allied fields to ensure that each programme has the best learning outcomes and is tailored specifically to individual business or organisational needs. The panel includes some of the most thought provoking, engaging and entertaining speakers.
Critical-Link Ltd - the company
Critical-Link Knowledge
Our focus is on organisations and individuals who can benefit from drawing on experts from particular fields to provide you with insight. Mapping your organisational challenges to our experts and exchanging knowledge provides you with foresight.
Critical-Link knowledge management is our process of capturing, developing, sharing and effectively using organisational knowledge. It refers to our unique multi-disciplined approach to achieving organisational objectives by making the best use of your knowledge and ours.
We exemplify this approach in our consultancy, training ethos and methodology. By sharing our extensive knowledge, businesses and public sector agencies can build on both core sectors of expertise to achieve change.
Who We Are
Stephen Hawker CB
Chairman
Stephen served as a senior member of the United Kingdom intelligence and security community. Since leaving government service in 2006 he has worked as an independent consultant providing insight to government and the commercial sector in the UK and overseas on national security and intelligence issues.
Peter Simpson
Executive Director
Peter was appointed by the UK govt in 2018 as a Deployable
Civilian Expert in Counter Terrorism (OPP). He served as a senior officer in London Fire Brigade and spent 4 yrs seconded to the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command. Leaving in 2009, he designed and delivered the National Inter-agency (CT) Liaison Officer Programme. He has worked extensively overseas for Cranfield University
Roger Young
Director
Roger served as a Chief Superintendent in the UK Police service. He was appointed by Cranfield University in 2004 as Programme Manager and has the responsibility for design and delivery of counter terrorist and crisis management training on behalf of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, delivering programmes in Africa and South-East Asia.
Tony Dixon
Director
Tony served as a senior officer in the London Fire Brigade and spent 3 yrs seconded to the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure. He has extensive experience in training, operational audit & assessment. He was responsible for design & delivery of training initiatives to thousands of operational staff.
His work is recognised nationally both in the UK and overseas.
Critical-Link Associates
We work with leading UK experts to ensure that each programme has the best learning outcomes and is tailored specifically to individual business or organisational needs. The panel includes some of the most eminent people in their field.
Our Associate panel includes:
Mark Scoggins
Solicitor Advocate
Dr Bill Peace
Senior Research Fellow
Mark is a Solicitor Advocate and a leader in health & safety and environmental law, with extensive experience in Public Inquiries. His principal practice is the defence of organisations and individuals in regulatory and civil cases. Mark represented the Metropolitan Police in the health and safety prosecution against the service over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station in July 2005. He is a partner of Fisher Scoggins Waters.
Bill is a security and intelligence professional of 30 years standing. Most recently he served in the leadership of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). Prior to that he worked for the National Criminal Intelligence Service and in various Civil Service roles embracing policy and operational aspects of defence, security, intelligence, counter-terrorism and protection. Bill is currently Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Kings College, London.
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Stephen Hawker CB
Stephen Hawker served as a senior member of the United Kingdom intelligence and security community. Since leaving government service in 2006 he has worked as an independent consultant providing insight to government and the commercial sector in the UK and overseas on national security and intelligence issues.
He is a former member of the Advisory Board of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence and has worked with other IT and Defence primes. He has undertaken significant assignments at Board level in the public sector including Capability Reviews of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), benchmarking reviews of overseas security and intelligence services, and other capacity building and training in Africa and the Middle East. In 2011 he undertook an independent international review of security clearance arrangements for the government of New Zealand.
Stephen is a Non-Executive Director of FCO Services and is a member of the FCO Consular Management Board. He was specialist adviser to the ID Cards Commissioner and to the House of Lords sub-Committee on the EU Internal Security Strategy in 2011; and worked with the Home Office Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) in reviewing and assuring for the 2012 London Olympics.
As a Visiting Professor at Cranfield University he has worked with the UK Defence Academy at Shrivenham, and was a keynote speaker at the Fire Service College on the National Inter-Agency Liaison Officer (NILO) programme. He is a lay member of the Governing Council of the University of Reading, and a Fellow of the Institutes of Engineering and Technology (FIET) and Civil Protection and Emergency Management (FICPEM).
Peter Simpson MSc, G.I. Fire Eng, FICPEM.
Peter was appointed by the UK Government in 2018 as a Deployable Civilian Expert in the field of Counter Terrorism (Overseas Protect & Prepare). He has a Masters Degree in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management and is a graduate of the Institution of Fire Engineers. He is a Visiting Fellow of Cranfield University at the Defence College of Management and Technology, Shrivenham and a former visiting lecturer at UCL on the Countering Organised Crime and Terrorism MSc course. He is an honourary member of the US Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) and regularly mentors students on the Comparative Government for Homeland Security module of the Homeland Defense Masters course.
He has extensive international experience working with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Cranfield University, lecturing on counter terrorism and crisis management to post-graduate students, emergency services, civil sector and government personnel in many countries.
From 2010-2013 Peter was Course Director at the Fire Service College delivering the National Inter-agency (CT) Liaison Officer (NILO) programme. The multi-agency course designed by Peter and now the national standard - gained an international reputation for being one of the most demanding and rewarding courses in the emergency services' community. The NILO course has produced a national cadre of highly specialised liaison officers from the Police, Fire, Ambulance and Military, focused on CT and critical incident management.
Peter served as a distinguished senior command officer in London Fire Brigade until 2009. He spent 4yrs seconded to the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command from 2005- 2009. His work included pre-planned counter terrorism operations, consequence management response and developing closer working relationships with Police and a wide range of government, military and local partners.
During his career he authored national policy, conducted a government review of rescue doctrine at terrorist incidents and was principal policy architect for a £3m government trial for the first multi-agency terrorism response team.
He was lead UK CBRN terrorism advisor to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and in 2006 he successfully mapped and negotiated a ten-country agreement on regional crisis management and CT security planning for the Caribbean Community (CARRICOM).
Roger Young FICPEM
Roger has an extensive strategic and operational background in the British police service following 32 years service with Thames Valley Police. He retired in 2000 at the rank of Chief Superintendent having specialised in crisis management, contingency planning, firearm-incident management and training. His operational postings included being the Police Area Commander for southern Buckinghamshire and the Operations Manager in Milton Keynes.
He is a qualified trainer; sporting events planner; firearms incident and air crash scene commander. Following a number of years as the chairman of promotion selection boards he wrote a practical guide to preparing oneself for the rigours of selection interviews and now lectures widely on the subject to many public service audiences.
Following his retirement from Thames Valley Police he worked as a private consultant for a number of British charities and UK-based blue-chip companies where he advised and guided strategic teams in their planning for and mitigation of disasters and crises. On a number of occasions he also acted as strategic and/or tactical advisor to similar organisations that were facing a variety of threats mainly from ‘animal rights’ activists.
Following this work, Roger was appointed by Cranfield University as a Programme Manager with the responsibility for the design and delivery of a number of counter terrorist/crisis management training programmes, principally on behalf of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO). He successfully delivered a number of long-term programmes in Africa and South-East Asia where the focus of the work has been on establishing command & control in a crisis, multi-agency co- operation in contingency planning, developing preventative skills and the management of the consequences of a crisis.
Since 2010, Roger has been delivering presentations and exercises based on crisis management issues to the delegates attending the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. In particular, he has worked with delegates attending the International Training Course on Security Policy (ITC), a course that has rightfully earned a global reputation for learning and expertise on current and future security challenges.
Tony Dixon MSc, G.I Fire Eng, PgD
Tony is a specialist in risk, crisis and disaster management and training design and delivery. His expertise is based on 32 years as an emergency service professional operating at senior command levels and in specialist niche capabilities. He was Deputy Director of the National Inter-agency Liaison Officer Programme at the Fire Service College for 4 years.
During his career, he was responsible for designing, developing and delivering unique training initiatives to thousands of operational staff within the London Fire Brigade. He has extensive experience in operational command audit and assessment.
He is a proven leader and a highly motivated achiever, with a long track record of successful delivery in a diverse range of challenging operational and management roles. This was shared in his secondment, for a number of years, to the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure.
His work is recognised at national level both in the UK and overseas for advising and developing organisations and their people, challenging and perfecting their planning, training and response capabilities to disruptive challenges.
His extensive operational experience is matched by his academic study; Tony has an MSc in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management from the University of Leicester. He also holds a post-graduate Diploma in Training Management and is a Graduate of the Institution of Fire Engineers.
Mark Scoggins
A graduate of Cambridge University, Mark has been based in the City of London since his call to the Bar in 1983. Mark appeared for the British Shooting Sports Council in the public inquiry arising out of the Dunblane school shootings. His notable cases include defence of Balfour Beatty in the Health & Safety Executive prosecution over the Heathrow Express tunnel collapse of 1994, and representation of Thames Trains at the public inquiry into the October 1999 collision near Ladbroke Grove.
In a five-week trial ending in June 2003 Mark led the successful Old Bailey defence of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens and his predecessor Lord Condon on all ten charges brought against them by the HSE arising out of roof falls suffered by patrolling police officers.
Appointed by Balfour Beatty on the October 2000 derailment at Hatfield. In July 2005 and after a 6-month trial he helped win the acquittal of its railway arm on all corporate manslaughter charges it faced arising out of that incident, and in 2006 succeeded on its appeal against sentence for admitted health and safety failings.
Mark represented the Metropolitan Police in the health and safety prosecution against the service over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station in July 2005.
Among his other health and safety, regulatory and environmental work are cases arising from construction, pipelines, waste reclamation, fish farming, flooding, pollution, drinking water contamination, asbestos removal, electrocution, confined spaces and EU public procurement.
Dr Bill Peace
In SOCA, Bill had responsibility for developing the intelligence management strategy and related capabilities. This included establishing the open source intelligence unit and overseeing information legal issues such as the operation of authorities under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and compliance with the Data Protection Act. He led the development of approaches to intelligence exploitation through 'big data' analytics and data fusion, and worked on problems of corruption by organised crime.
Bill also led the UK's national Financial Intelligence Unit, which resided in SOCA, managing a significant element of the national response to the threat from money laundering and terrorist financing, including the UK's regime for national reporting of suspicious financial activities and transactions. In addition he held portfolios for managing strategy, international law enforcement cooperation through Interpol, and corporate risk.
Bill Holds MA and PhD degrees in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.