Our Approach
Getting projects back on track
What we do
Contracts can be thought of as a journey. There are three phases - a beginning, a middle and an end - a commercial lifecycle running from inception to expiry. To be successful there are three key elements that must work in harmony - people, process and systems. Failure can be foundational - a failure across one or more of these three elements. Or it can occur during one of the three phases, and most often in the transition from one to the other.
Working at the intersection between public and private, our goal is to create and manage engagements that deliver equitable outcomes for all - customers, providers and citizens. Contracts don’t come more complex than those between the public and private sector given the criticality of the services they provide for. Public private partnerships, many now approaching mid-life or beyond, are particularly sophisticated and lengthy and if left to fail the outcome can impact us all.
Our unique approach to mid-life contract management, as well as preparation and delivery of handback and expiry, not only gets projects back on track, where they need bringing back on track, but ensures they remain there, and ultimately that they deliver an outcome that satisfies all parties involved.
A focus on equitable outcomes
Why we do it
We passionately believe that partnership between public and private has the power to deliver great outcomes. We have seen this evidenced in the many successful projects delivered across the UK. However, there are also too many instances in which projects are allowed to go off track and all too quickly a blame game starts and the principal winners in this situation are the law firms.
This is not an inevitable outcome. However a combination of an adversarial approach by too many consultancies and an inability to focus on the value of what the project set out to deliver means all too often failure is simply accelerated.
We know that a focus on equitable outcomes and a relentless commitment to collaboration, value and our unique and proven process gets projects back on track without the high costs both in terms of money, and trust.
Independent and value focused
How we do it
At Curshaw Commercial our motto is ‘Do the right thing and do the thing right’. That means that our focus is on outcomes not fees. We work on a fixed fee basis to ensure that costs are predictable and controllable. We are agnostic in terms of who we work with but we will only work with organisations who will commit to a fair and equitable outcome.
Our clients include funds, project owners and directors and contracting authorities. Our unique RPD (Review and Reset, Prepare, Deliver) approach enables course correction at any point in the contract lifecycle. It also creates an effective handback strategy and process to ensure contracting authorities are well set up to ensure value continues to be delivered past contract expiry.
What makes us different
The Curshaw team is a group of individuals each with a track record of initiating, managing and resetting large complex projects across the public and private sector. Between them the team has worked on over 75 project handbacks over the last 10 years as well as some of the largest and most complex real estate and capital programmes.. They have been involved in some of the most complex and critical public private contract negotiations including COVID-19 vaccine supplies and post-Brexit reforms to UK Government policy implementation including the successful, and award winning exit from the very first PFI expiry, a 20-year £13.3 billion contract.
People
Effective processes require the right balance between flexibility and rigour. Our standards based approach, developed, iterated and augmented over time on multiple large PFI projects and deployed at scale across PPP portfolios has become the industry standard for objectively assessing project performance with an evidential basis and creating and implementing trackable improvement initiatives.
Process
Behind all of our engagements is a bespoke tool that draws on real time FM data that automatically assures performance, drives service improvement, sustains Resets and smooths the way to handback. It is a Software as a Service, cloud based product connected to maintenance standards, a Project’s CAFM data, and an electronically recreated version of the contract to conduct automated analysis and provide augmented insight into Project performance and compliance with contractual processes.
Accessible to all project stakeholders, it provides a single source of truth to all stakeholders with a user interface that is intuitive and easy to use whether you are a public sector body or private sector provider
Platform
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