About 1st Planner

Rob is the creative and driving force behind 1st Planner, who had an early career project managing and planning large programmes of school replacement and expansion schemes for national building contractors after completing construction Management Degree at Salford University in 2000.

Passionate about driving waste out of the construction process, Rob has always strived to deliver more for less and together with Lou established 1st Planner to support Local Authorities, Diocese and Multi-Academy Trusts to plan their school rebuilding and expansion projects with the 'Lean' programming and project control tools that he developed during a 14-year period working on school building projects across the country.

After starting the 1st Planner consultancy business, Rob recognised that there was a huge amount of opportunity in making best use of the existing school estate through the use of data and realised that by combining population and detailed asset data, massive capital and revenue savings could be made for our clients through the development and application of bespoke and unique sufficiency/efficiency analysis tools.

Rob loves developing systems, processes and tools to continually push the boundaries of how technology can provide positive impacts, which has culminated in the development of our unique 'Optimise' population/asset planning and funding identification platform that provides our clients with all of the necessary insights to transform their existing education and wider publicly owned estates to improve experiences and outcomes for the cohorts that they are responsible for. Some may say that Rob's business is also his main hobby as he absolutely loves what he does for a living.

Rebecca joined 1st Planner in 2013 after completing a degree course in Criminology and Sociology at Manchester University and has supported Rob and Lou with the day to day running of the business as it has grown and evolved over the last 11 years.

Becky is incredibly meticulous with her work and oversees her team of Project and Production Managers who complete the collection of huge amounts of data to feed the tools, systems and processes that Rob has continually developed since establishing the 1st Planner business.

Becky is responsible for overseeing the completion of the BB103/BB104 sufficiency analysis, efficiency assessment, development planning and funding identification for school remodelling and refurbishment projects and engaging with 1st Planner's clients to manage the smooth planning and delivery of our commissions.

Married to Chris, Becky is a loving mum to their spirited 6-year-old son George and proud beagle owner. Life's an adventure filled with laughter, learning, and lots of tail wags. Always balancing family, fun, and a little bit of chaos with heart and humour leading the way, all whilst keeping Rob on the straight and narrow.

Phil joined 1st Planner in 2014 after an early career working in the design, costing and delivery of interior fit-out projects in schools across the country.

Phil supports Becky with the completion of BB103/BB104 sufficiency & efficiency assessments along with the identification of capital funding to support with the delivery of the resulting projects.

He has a very keen eye for detail and a very thorough approach to identifying opportunities for 1st Planner's clients.

Phil is engaged to Emma and dad to their 8-year-old daughter Paisley and 2-year-old son Oscar and has a dachshund puppy called Pepper. As a keen supporter of Matlock Town Football club loves nothing more than to watch the mighty Gladiators play their home matches at the Causeway Lane Stadium.

Alastair joined 1st Planner in 2016 as an apprentice straight from school after completion of his GCSEs.

Initially Alastair was a Project Co-ordinator and as a result of his incredible IT skills has stepped up to lead on the development of our brand new 'Optimise' Power BI strategic planning dashboards.

He is always determined solve the problems both we and our client's face and to develop tools that provide innovate and transparent solutions.

Alastair and his partner Eboni are in the process of buying their next home for themselves and their Labrador Lola and loves nothing more than skiing and other outdoor pursuits.

James joined 1st Planner permanently in 2024 after completing an Astro Physics Degree at York University and working part-time for the business since 2019.

Through his academic studies, James has developed considerable experience with solving incredibly complicated problems with complex equations and coding.

He supports Alastair with the development of the data collection, collation and processing for 'Optimise' with our Microsoft Fabric analytics platform, the presentation of the dashboards within Power BI and maintaining our website.

James is currently hunting for his first home with his girlfriend Mia, and they love nothing more than international travel and keeping fit together. No dogs yet but getting a golden retriever or St Bernard Mountain dog is part of their plan.