This Case Study illustrates the benefits of hiring J C Gill and Co to work with you to secure programme and project management turnaround, process improvements, strong transparent governance & delivery of key priorities in complex partnership settings.

1. The Issue
Interim Programme Consultant at
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire
Local Enterprise Partnership
The Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local
Enterprise Partnership (SSLEP) was formed in
2011 to bring businesses and local authorities
together to drive economic growth. It has an
ambitious vision to create 50,000 jobs by 2021.
SSLEP identified significant weaknesses in the
systems and processes it was using to manage
major investment programmes. These issues
resulted in delays and lack of clarity regarding
project milestones and expenditure.
Finance allocated by Government was not fully
utilised. Moreover, flaws in the decision-making
process meant business cases were being
reviewed with insufficient objectivity and not
enough thoroughness.
The Solution
SSLEP needed to bring in someone senior from
outside the organisation with experience of
working in public/private sector partnerships
who could review the LEP’s procedures and
drive its programme forward. This would entail
undertaking due diligence of all projects,
including risk management, and putting them
back on track for delivery.
“We needed someone external to come in and
look at how we were progressing our
programme,” says SSLEP Economic Partnerships
Manager Peter Davenport. “We were intending
to employ somebody in a permanent role but
we couldn’t secure the ideal person.
Consequently, we turned to the interim market.”
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local
CASE STUDY
Enterprise Partnership

2. The Candidate
Chris Gill, the successful candidate, is a Fellow of the
Royal Institution of Chartered surveyors and a
Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management
Institute. He has a long track record in economic
regeneration, property asset management and
business change.
“I have built a reputation for working across the
interface of really challenging public/private
partnerships and this was very much a turnaround
opportunity,” says Chris. “This assignment was about
putting more structure and transparency into the
management of the programme and getting things
done.”
It was vital for SSLEP to maintain credibility in the
eyes of Government. To do so, business cases needed
to be independently reviewed and challenged. Chris
set about developing and introducing a set of
monitoring reports, deep dive reviews and a
transparent assurance framework. These are being
used by SSLEP as a template going forward.
Chris was based at SSLEP’s office but made a point of
spending time at the offices of various partnership
members – to share knowledge and “build up trust”.
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The Outcome
“I gathered together information on each of the
projects and then started to challenge the partners
because I was concerned that some of the projects
weren’t particularly well grounded – and they
weren’t,” says Chris. “Once I’d dug around, I found
that one of the flagship projects was fatally flawed.
There was a massive amount of optimism bias.”
On closer analysis, Chris discovered that one project
in particular would require considerably more
funding than had been estimated unless substantial
changes were made. “Working with and challenging
the delivery partners we agreed and implemented a
turnaround plan with a number of workstreams
which pulled that project back on track,” he explains.
Chris’ original six-month contract was extended and
he spent almost a year and a half at SSLEP.
Peter believes that although Chris sat with the rest of
the team his “independent provenance” was
beneficial in demonstrating credibility and rigour to
Government and other important stakeholders.
Chris was very good at working as part of the
team and relating to people,” says Peter. “One
advantage of interim tendering is you tend to get
better quality people than you would if you advertised
a vacancy. You get people with a bredth and depth of
experience. For us, that was incredible helpful.
Case Study: Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local Enterprise