Collinson Grant supported AWE to shape, challenge and develop rigorous and practical business cases to secure investment to progress programmes.

Formerly known as Atomic Weapons Establishment, AWE Nuclear Security Technologies is an arm’s-length government body wholly owned by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Operating for over 75 years, it is responsible for designing, manufacturing and maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent for UK MoD. It is publicly funded and has strictly governed processes to control spending and ensure value for money.

AWE needed to develop a series of high-quality business cases to secure investment to progress important programmes. The complexity of the initiatives, combined with an evolving scope and multiple stakeholders, made it difficult to articulate a clear, coherent case for change.

Collinson Grant’s intimate knowledge of AWE, built over decades, and our understanding of the business environment helped us make the business cases compelling. The financial assumptions needed to be robust, the options fully explored and the overall narrative shaped to secure approval with confidence.

Our approach

Collinson Grant’s role was hands-on and end-to-end. We helped build the business cases from the ground up and ensured they could navigate governance successfully.

We focused on:

• Clarifying the case for change – we probed the underlying need for the business cases, tested assumptions and ensured a strong, evidence-based rationale
• Strengthening scope and options – we challenged thinking to ensure the preferred option was robust, deliverable and aligned to strategic objectives
• Applying HM Treasury guidance – we structured cases in line with the Five Case Model to ensure completeness and credibility
• Developing clear, concise narratives – we translated complex material into coherent, compelling business cases
• Testing the financials – we produced financial models, reviewed costs and funding to ensure the cases made financial sense and represented value for money
• Supporting governance and approvals – we prepared materials, anticipated questions and guided cases through internal and external review
• Engaging stakeholders – we worked with key contributors to build alignment, resolve issues and maintain momentum

We applied critical thinking and practical experience to ensure each case was built on solid foundations and could withstand scrutiny.

Why it worked

Our approach combines critical thinking, structured analysis and practical delivery. We focus on what matters, ensuring each business case is robust, coherent and positioned to succeed.

With Collinson Grant’s support, our client was able to maintain their operational capacity whilst navigating governance and progressing projects at pace. Our support enabled stronger, more defensible investment cases, improved stakeholder confidence and alignment, resulting in the successful approval of the business cases.

Alistair Kissock, Estate Development Lead, said:

“Collinson Grant brought focused, professional support at exactly the right moments. They quickly got to the heart of what we were trying to achieve, helped us make confident decisions with the evidence to back them up, and kept us focused on what would stand up to scrutiny. The result was a series of standalone business cases we could take through governance with clarity and confidence.”

Royal BAM Group (BAM) is a leading Tier 1 building contractor.  Its senior leaders asked Collinson Grant to help them review and redesign the UK & Ireland division’s organisational structure.

BAM had recently brought its regional and independent operating companies into a single UK & Ireland division and was now looking to pursue a more customer intimate strategy. This prompted a need to reconsider how the organisation was structured such that it could best serve customers and elevate embedded capabilities. The leadership team recognised that the existing design—developed during earlier consolidation would not deliver this.

We aimed to create a more coordinated, less complex organisation that could make faster decisions.

A clear view of the organisation and areas for change

We worked closely with the managerial team to understand the current organisation, its strengths, and the barriers affecting its work.  We found several performance limitations, including duplicated effort, inconsistent reporting lines, siloed working and unclear responsibilities.

We also examined how the structure affected communication and decision-making.  Like many large, project-based organisations, BAM needed to ensure information could move quickly and reliably throughout the business.  This meant removing layers of management that added cost and delay, and rebalancing spans of control that had become too narrow.

We developed options to solve these problems, concentrating on how the business faced the market and how work was coordinated between functions, projects, and regions.  We worked with the senior team to develop these options, from high-level design principles to detailed working practices, team structures, and accountabilities.

A practical understanding of how work is done

To support the redesign, we used Collinson Grant’s Process Activity Analysis (PAA)—a diagnostic tool that maps the core processes within an organisation and identifies who is doing the work and how much effort is being spent on each activity. This showed how work moved between individuals, departments, and business units, and where processes were vulnerable to handoff failures, duplication, or delay.

The analysis supported open, evidence-based conversations about which practices BAM needed to keep and which needed to change.  The PAA gave the managerial team confidence that the new structure was informed by how people did their work, not just how they were nominally organised.

Preparing for change and supporting implementation

We presented the proposed design to the senior leadership team and worked with them to define how key functions would operate in the new model.  We supported BAM’s change team to prepare for implementation helping them to translate the high-level structure into teams, roles, and reporting lines, and giving them the tools and guidance needed to lead the transition.

Mark Sheridan, Commercial Director of BAM UK & Ireland, with Simon Millman and Ryan McKnight from Collinson Grant

Callaway Care and Support is a specialist care provider of residential care and supported living for adults with learning disabilities, autism, complex health needs and behaviours of concern.  Its services are designed around a ‘pathway to independence’ model, combining 24/7 residential care with flexible supported living options to help individuals progress toward greater autonomy.  The organisation operates several homes and supported accommodation schemes across South East England, providing person-centred, holistic care that promotes inclusion, dignity and community engagement.

Callaway Care and Support engaged Collinson Grant to conduct leadership assessments for the organisation’s Managing Director and three care home managers.  Led by an experienced Occupational Psychologist, the work combined psychometric profiling with verbal and numerical reasoning tests.  This assessed each leader’s capabilities and how well these aligned with the company’s operational and people responsibilities in a complex, regulated care environment.  The assessment framework was designed around existing person specifications, allowing clear benchmarking of performance, behavioural style and leadership approach.

The outcomes gave the leadership team a clear view of individual and collective development needs.  This helped shape targeted coaching and succession planning.  The process also highlighted untapped potential among the care home managers, identifying those capable of taking on broader strategic responsibilities as the organisation continues to grow.  By using a structured, evidence-based approach, Collinson Grant helped Callaway Care and Support to strengthen its leadership pipeline and ensure its management capability remains robust, reflective and ready for future challenges in the health and social care sector.

Donna Thompson, Managing Director of Callaway Care and Support, said, ‘This process has helped us move forward, with more clarity, more alignment, and a stronger commitment to supporting our leaders.‘

The Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of NHS England asked us to support a couple of Trusts that had challenging financial situations.  The Executive team at Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust was under sustained pressure.  The leadership burden needed to be reduced and they needed additional capacity to be able to change.

It was clear from the outset that long-term improvement was only possible if the finance community took ownership.  So, our role was to provide temporary, focused support to stabilise and strengthen financial leadership throughout the Trust.

Our work included:

• acting as a ‘critical friend’ to the finance leaders, providing practical help, independent challenge and strategic capacity
• using the CFO’s influence to complete projects where necessary
• changing the Trust’s view of functional support
• helping change the functional mindset within finance.

We focused on people, processes and costs to build confidence, capability, and focus.  This was fundamental to creating a new environment within the function after the Covid-19 pandemic and the structural changes at the Trust.

The high-impact areas we worked on included: improving recruitment and roster controls, streamlining procedures for payroll and stock, and standardising governance and financial accountability throughout the Trust.  We worked alongside the existing teams, engaging key parts of the system while the rest continued to function.  It was essential for us to relieve pressure without causing disruption, working in real time and making adjustments as the system responded.

We developed better scenario planning and forecasting to help the organisation anticipate risks.  By improving accountability, local finance teams were capable and confident enough to lead and tackle challenges, with clear escalation routes for problems that could not be resolved locally.  With improved focus and clearer reporting lines, it relieved pressure on the CFO and the Executive team while maintaining their confidence.

These changes helped Mid and South Essex build a more resilient and self-sufficient finance function, which is better equipped to handle emerging and future challenges.

Dawn Scrafield, Chief Finance Officer of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“It was a breath of fresh air working with Collinson Grant. Their insight into public sector challenges was invaluable, and particularly able to draw on experience of different sectors which allowed fresh perspective. The support I received was value adding to the team as we were able to target the benefits to improve delivery and support development. To have a ‘critical friend’ of this nature was well timed and I would recommend to forming teams navigating challenging times!”

Phil Ross of Collinson Grant and Dawn Scrafield, Chief Finance Officer of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, at Southend Hospital

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) Trust provides urgent care and emergency response services in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, an area with a resident population of circa 7 million. The Trust also provides non‐emergency patient transport services in this area, and throughout East Sussex, Surrey and West Sussex, and a healthcare logistics service to NHS customers in Oxfordshire.

SCAS operates a mixed fleet of more than 900 vehicles and has an in-house fleet maintenance and management business. We have partnered with SCAS for several years, offering support to a variety of challenges.

• Our first assignment was to investigate a whistleblowing incident in the fleet organisation. We were able to promptly, thoroughly and objectively investigate the claims in a way that earned the trust of all sides and with valuable insights on how the fleet organisation could improve productivity and thereby vehicle availability.
• Observations we made during the investigation led to a wider piece of work to begin a process of change in the fleet organisation centred around systems, communications and productivity.
• We have also supported SCAS in a refresh of its strategy and a review of operational opportunities in the 999 and 111 call centres.
• SCAS identified an urgent need to improve the management of critical equipment and medical devices and asked us to assess the current situation and make recommendations. This led to a project to improve and implement new robust systems to better plan, control and report on the whereabouts and status. A key component of this work was to ensure the correct structural accountabilities were put in place.
• Our most recent work involves organisational redesign and the design of a third-party contractor management system to provide SCAS with increased visibility and control over performance.

Chief Operating Officer Paul Kempster said of our work ‘Collinson Grant have proved to be a trusted advisor in helping us to understand key issues that have been impacting on the performance of some business-critical areas that support the delivery of patient care. They have been very responsive to our needs, recognising the urgency required to understand the causes of some significant problems and then developing credible plans to address these problems with pace.’

Simon Millman, Director at Collinson Grant, with Steve Winfield, Clinical Operations Manager at South Central Ambulance Service, at the Blue Light Hub in Milton Keynes