When Wendy Sagar who is Head of Education Finance at Southwark LBC asked us for an interim Central Finance Manager, Dave Lincoln visited her because it was important to understand exactly what Southwark wanted before we responded. “Intelligent empathy is the key to ensuring long term, stable relationships with the public sector” says consultant Dave. Public Sector Consultants had already worked with Southwark LBC in 2005 when Eleanor Kelly was interim Director of Finance and subsequent review meetings with the Council emphasised further the Company’s approach to quality, value for money and professionalism.
On 13 June 2005, David Elcock arrived on site. Southwark had been a failing LEA and was just reaching the end of a Strategic Intervention. David was soon busy reviewing the structure for the Finance Team, reflecting changed responsibilities following the end of direct Government involvement. During the course of the assignment, a piece of consultancy work arose to review the Department’s VFM assessment to ensure that the Council’s CPA Use of Resources score was maintained. “Once again, we needed to listen and interpret; identifying the exact need before shaping the brief” said Mr Lincoln.
Our team was assembled for the review and they carried out an internal assessment of the Education Department before benchmarking it against other London authorities. We worked in partnership with the client, setting targets and providing regular interim reports. We brought a mix of skills to the project. David Elcock’s prior knowledge of the culture of the Department was a huge advantage. Richard Harbord brought a strategic view point. Project Manager, Dave Lincoln continually engaged with Wendy and, David Siddall (pictured) proved his capabilities in manipulating and analysing large amounts of data.
As a result we produced a suite of information which included trends, costs and budgets in a graphical format, all of which had been determined and agreed with the client. “It can be used as an aid to policy making, a tool for challenging managers and can lead to a better understanding of the educational priorities which enable future service plans to be made” concluded Mr Elcock.
Client Wendy commented “David, Dave, David and Richard enhanced further the Company’s reputation for delivering services efficiently and effectively. Clearly Public Sector Consultants are developing a specialism in relation to Education Finance.”
