Jonathan Goolden

Partner
Department Regulatory & Public Law

About Jonathan

Jonathan is the firm's Compliance Officer for legal practice, and member of the risk management team. He specialises in investigations, compliance, regulatory and offshore wind energy.

Jonathan is a highly experienced regulatory and public sector lawyer and former senior manager. He trained as a solicitor in Manchester, London and Brussels before joining Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in 1991. In 1993 he moved to Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council initially undertaking planning and corporate work, before managing a litigation and social services legal team. He was seconded to the Council's Internal Inquiry team investigating serious corruption and misconduct amongst senior staff and councillors.

In 1998, Jonathan became Secretary and Solicitor to Derbyshire Dales District Council and its monitoring officer. In 2000, he moved to Lincolnshire, becoming a Deputy Clerk and Monitoring Officer, then Clerk to Lincolnshire Police Authority. He left the Police Authority in 2004 to set up his own firm which he merged with Wilkin Chapman LLP in 2010 and he is currently based at the firm's main office in Grimsby.

He was a member of the core drafting team for INLOGOV working on the modular constitutions project for English local government and lectures widely on governance and ethical standards issues.

Together with his team of experienced former police and local government officers, he has investigated and led a large number of reviews of complex and politically high profile cases of alleged misconduct in the public sector. His investigation of Boris Johnson’s conduct as Mayor of London and Chairman of the then Metropolitan Police Authority in relation to the arrest of Damien Green MP was cited as an example of best practice of a high pressured investigation by Hull Business School in research for the Standards Board for England.

More recently, he has reviewed the handling of significant whistle blowing allegations in a mental health NHS trust, child safeguarding and taxi licensing issues at a district council and assisted a London Borough hold its first full council meeting after a major and very high profile disaster.

Jonathan advises a range of commercial and public sector bodies on information governance, including data protection and information security and is a member of the Humber Business Resilience Forum.

He sails regularly on the Humber and is a member of Grimsby Renewables Partnership and Team Humber Marine Alliance.

He is the Independent Person for North East Lincolnshire Council and North Lincolnshire Council and a trustee of Healing Multi Academy Trust. Jonathan is also the Clerk to the Enrolled Freemen of Grimsby, an endowed charity first established by royal charter in 1201.

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