Stuart St. V Fitzgerald, Vice President
Stuart is a management consultant who has gained over 20 years’ procurement and performance management experience within the private, public and voluntary sectors. In 2001 and after a rigorous selection process, Stuart was trained as an affiliate inspector for the Audit Commission and has since conducted some 50+ service and corporate inspections of local authorities across England & Wales under the CPA and BV inspection regimes.

With Stuart’s lifelong interest in all things cultural, this experience enhanced his enthusiasm for leisure, libraries and museum services and many of these inspections have been focussed in these fields. Stuart was commissioned to undertake 2 strategic reviews of library services and successfully bid for £3m of Big Lottery Funding for the same 2 authorities in the south of England in 2006. Both library services continue to make significant improvements based on their recommendations.

Jim Lynch, Vice President
Jim Lynch is a widely experienced and highly respected cultural and leisure consultant, who has more than 20 years' experience in operations and consultancy. Current clients include the largest local authorities in England, Cadbury Schweppes plc as well as schools, voluntary organisations and charities.

Jim brings to all consultancy assignments an exceptional degree of analytical ability and the inter-personal skills to relate easily to the people at the heart of the project. He has detailed knowledge of community issues such as inclusion, improving educational attainment and crime reduction and the role of libraries and cultural services in addressing them. Jim works with the Audit Commission on its team of Cultural Services and CPA Inspectors. Working with the Commission, Jim has completed inspections with authorities as diverse as the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Merton amd Sefton MBC.

Jim also has experience in the museums and galleries sector at such prestigious venues as London’s Natural History Museum and the Museum of Transport in Coventry. He also produced the initial market assessment and business plans for the Cadbury’s World attraction in Bourneville. He has an enviable track record in successful funding bids with a total of over £20 million gained on behalf of clients including the library services at Merton and Bournemouth.

Jim’s experience across the range of cultural services has enabled him to examine the full range of management options available and to assess the way they help, or hinder, delivery of wider objectives. This has convinced him of the importance of a mixed economy in the library sector and the positive role for a company of LSSI’s standing.