By Joanne Peters

Our team has extensive expertise in commercial ventures, including Local Authority trading companies and other alternative service delivery models.

These types of structures can bring considerable benefit to a council. However, at the same time, there are many risks and complications surrounding commercial ventures, which are often trickier to manage than traditional services.

We believe that a good governance framework is a critical success factor for the operation of any commercial venture or alternative service delivery vehicle.

Using our experience of working with, and in, local authority commercial delivery vehicles, we have developed a series of tailored healthchecks and diagnostics, which provide assurance that these vehicles continue to meet your strategic intent, are held to account, demonstrate value for money and, most importantly, deliver positive outcomes for residents.

As well as independent assurance, we can use these tools to support you to address challenges in relation to trading companies, such as poor risk management, conflicts of interest, deteriorating relationships, under-performance, value-for-money, reputational damage and compliance issues.

We can support throughout the lifecycle of a company, from developing the business case, to bringing a business back in house.

Remember, a successful local authority trading company needs to have all of the following:

  • A robust business case
  • A competitive strategy, business and commercial plan, along with an in depth understanding of the local market
  • The capability to deliver
  • A transparent and robust governance and scrutiny framework

At C.Co, we support organisations with solutions for all aspects of change management, enabling successful improvement and transformation across the public sector. When it comes to commercialisation, we can help explore options for improvement or provide support to insource services back into the council.

Get in touch with us so we can demonstrate how we can help provide you with independent assurance as to your current commercial ventures.