UK councils, NHS trusts and other public bodies handle very substantial payment volumes — cash through libraries, leisure centres, parking, planning and licensing fees, court fines and school meal payments; card and online receipts across hundreds of service lines; and large treasury portfolios run under statutory duty. Payments and treasury costs are scrutinised by audit committees, elected members, external auditors and the public, and statutory finance officers are personally accountable for value for money.
The Section 151 Officer — the council's statutory finance officer — carries personal legal responsibility for the council's financial management. Demonstrating value for money on procurement requires more than a signed contract: it requires documented evidence that the terms obtained are competitive against the market at the time they were agreed. That evidence is what our work produces.
We can be appointed through regional purchasing consortia and NHS procurement routes where an authority prefers to use an existing framework rather than run its own process.
Where an authority prefers to appoint through Crown Commercial Service, we can be engaged under the relevant framework for financial and treasury advisory services.
We sell no product of our own, and where we hold a referral arrangement with a provider the authority is told before any introduction is made. The recommendation is whatever works for the authority.
The people who attend the meetings are the people who do the work. A Section 151 Officer or Chief Executive deals with a peer, not with a junior associate working under a partner's name.
The review produces written benchmarking evidence in a form audit committees and external auditors can use, which is usually as valuable to the authority as the saving itself.
The first conversation takes half an hour, costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If there is nothing here for you, we will say so.
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