Some our success stories
The Tabernacle Global Ministries
Challenge:
ABFL was invited by Lex Associates LLP and Fortress Capital to assist the Tabernacle Global Ministries “the Tab” in sourcing development !nance to create a new D1 church building and to re!nance an existing mortgage on a Grade II listed former temperance hall in previous use as a Snooker Hall in Lewisham. This would create a second church for the Tab in the area to cope with its fast growing congregation and to provide a community hub for a range of services. The sum involved was just under £3 million.
Solution:
ABFL sourced appropriate lenders and managed a selection process, involving the Trustees of the Tab, and once the appropriate lender was selected, to then work closely with the Tab and its Project Manager to ensure that the lender and the Tab were able to agree upon terms conducive to funding the main development and !t out work and to complete the re!nance of the existing mortgage. This involved assisting the Tab to ensure that its reporting and modelling processes that the lender required were created and !t for purpose alongside the Tab’s own processes.
Results:
The funding due diligence work took nearly a year to complete, but the loan facility (including re!nancing) was !nally legally completed in November 2017, and work has now commenced on an 18 month !t out programme scheduled to complete by the end of December 2018 at the latest. www.thetab.org.uk
Northamptonshire County Council
Challenge:
ABFL was invited by Public Health Action Support Team CIC (PHAST) to project manage a 4 part workstream project for PHAST that was being delivered to Northamptonshire County Council (NCC). This is the second phase of work being undertaken by PHAST with NCC, following an initial strategic work phase from July to September 2014. The work involved ensuring timely reporting & production of series of deliverable covering: Information and Intelligence for Public Health Data; Healthy Hospitals – anpublic health awareness strategy for the county’s hospitals; Developing a Memorandum of Understanding between CCGs NHS Acute Trusts and
Northamptonshire County Council leading to the creation of a “Core O”er” of public health services, and !nally work on improving sexual health outcomes for the population of Northamptonshire.
Solution:
ABFL created a Programme Management O#ce function for PHAST and liaised with the NCC PMO in order to create a timely reporting, information sharing and meeting structure, using PRINCE 2 methodology. The project programme ran from October 2014 to April 2015 with an interim audit review in January 2015 and a !nal closure report for work delivered prepared in May 2015. ABFL PMO functional work was also responsible for managing the agreed budgets between NCC and PHAST.
Results:
All work was completed to time and budget. All reports were delivered in a regular and timely manner, both on PHAST systems and on the NCC SharePoint data management system, for dual audit purposes. Following on from this work, the Council commissioned a County Wide public health event called Healthy Northamptonshire. This one day multi faceted conference was project managed by ABFL working with PHAST and delivered in September 2016 with several keynote speakers from the Department of Health and NHS.
www.northamptonshire.gov.uk
Leeds City Council
Challenge:
As part of the Mutuals Support Programme (MSP) led by the Cabinet O#ce, Leeds City Council was seeking support to help conclude the transfer of its Learning Disability Community Support Service from Council ownership and control into a new Social Enterprise in the form of a sta” led mutual. The annual in-house budget for this work is in excess of £20m, and care services provide support to over 1000 adults with learning disabilities with a sta” team of around 650, accounting for 20% of the entire learning disability client “market” in Leeds. This process has been discussed internally by the Council since 2013 and with its key senior sta” employees and unions, and the aim was to ensure a smooth “go live” transition in 2015/16.
Solution:
Working as part of the consortium team led by Geldards LLP, ABFL (through Mike Deacon) worked closely with Leeds City Council to develop a business plan and Implementation Plan, to articulate the best route forward. This involved “checking and challenging” their existing business plan and assumptions, and then adapting a workable solution for all parties. The work was complex due to Council strategic reviews and complex tax, !nance, legal and governance issues arising during the process.
Results:
Our !ndings were iterated from July 2014 to June 2015, with a proposed “go live” date of 1 August 2015, after Leeds City Council approved the mutualisation process in March 2015, after our work had helped to iron out most of the key issues. A new Organisation – Aspire Community Bene!t Society Ltd, was created, with an appropriate legal and governance structure to ensure a smooth transfer and handover of contractual and sta#ng arrangements within an agreed 5 year core contract. www.leeds.gov.uk
Some Examples of Deals Arranged and Completed
€2m Invoice Finance Facility for German engineering company.
£400k Leasing Facility for Catering Equipment for a FE College.
£325k of Single Invoice Finance funding for a perfumery business.
£5m Floor Plan Funding Facility for a Slovakian manufacturing company. £750k Commercial Loan for long established property company.
£2.5m HP Credit Facility for Independent Fleet Management company. £2.5m Con!dential Invoice Finance facility for an Independent Fleet Management company.
£2.78m Development Finance Loan for a London church organisation.
Brent Council
Challenge:
As part of the Delivering Di”erently Programme for Young People (DDYP) led by the Cabinet O#ce, Brent Council was one of 11 Local Authorities seeking new ways to deliver Youth Services, despite facing future !nancial challenges. With support from the Cabinet O#ce under the DDYP programme, Brent Council was seeking ways to deliver its services in a more targeted and e#cient way, seeking a model yet to be determined that engages with the entire community including VCSE organisations, local business and most importantly, taking the views of young people and their communities directly into consideration.
Solution:
Working as part of the consortium team led by Geldards LLP, ABFL worked closely with Brent Council to develop various models within an Options Appraisal, which involved intense and direct interaction with all local stakeholders and senior Brent Council sta” to identify the most pressing issues, and to articulate a series of service options based on the available !nancial and human resources from 2016/17 onwards. These were proposed to Brent Council, together with an outline Implementation Plan. Results:
The report !ndings were submitted to Brent Council in April 2015 and to the Cabinet O#ce as the DDYP co-ordinator. Based on the !ndings and recommendations, Brent Council decided on its future Youth Services pathway for 2016/17 onwards in May 2015 and adopted our report to help them implement its agreed course of action.
www.brent.gov.uk
Public Health Action Support Team CIC
Challenge:
To create a Social Enterprise Community Interest Company for former senior NHS Public Health Executives wishing to establish a Public Health Consultancy in 2008.
Solution:
To ensure that a suitable business and public health partners were identi!ed to enable the organisation to be able to function immediately to serve its NHS clientele in the UK, mostly in England providing a range of evidence based public health research, consultancy and public health personnel and interim and consultancy support.
Results:
Mike Deacon was able to ensure that the correct organisational framework was created, using suitable banking, legal and accounting partners to ensure probity and proper establishment, whilst the organisation was busy delivering work. The establishment deliverables were concluded within a few months from conception. Mike assumed the role of Company Secretary in parallel with my long term consultancy position until November 2010 to enable the business to be soundly established as a niche professional public health consulting organisation. ABFL (Mike and Marion Deacon) continues to work with PHAST as consultants on various projects. www.phast.org.uk
During her career with the NHS/PHAST CIC, Marion Deacon has been responsible for the management and co-ordination of the following training programmes:
Training projects delivered include the following:
• Developing obesity care pathways (face-to-face and interactive e-learning)
• Portfolio Development for Public Health Specialists re:
– Public health intelligence and surveillance
– Leadership and collaborative working
– Evidence-based public health
• UKPHR Portfolio Training:
Provision of a training programme designed to support staff in developing the knowledge and
skills required to meet a variety of ‘Knows How’ gaps, as identified by the client, to assist with
successful registration to the UK Voluntary Public Health Register
• Informing Healthier Choices – Department of Health (DH): a national strategy to improve the capability and capacity of the Information and Intelligence (I&I) workforce and to support the personal and professional development of the I&I skill base of the wider public health workforce (see separate Case Study)
• Weight Management Programme, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• Breastfeeding Review, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• Mental Health Needs Assessment, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• NHS Berkshire – Managing 10 events across the county for the public regarding the rollout of new commissioning services (consultation and awareness)
• National Public Health Leadership Programme (DH): a residential/modular programme for people working in the NHS, Health Protection Agency, universities, local government, voluntary sector, as part of the Chief Medical Officer’s Project to Strengthen the Public Health Function
• Health: Everyone’s Business – a 6-month course for senior level Local Authority staff in roles that influence council policy
• Influencing without Authority
• Leading Remote Teams
• Managing Change
• Public Health Practitioner Development Skills Programme (validated as Postgraduate Diploma of Special Study in Public Health Practice – University of Westminster): a 6-month programme for health visitors, midwives, practice nurses and environmental health practitioners
• Public Health Awareness Skills Learning Sets: a series of interactive workshops that raise awareness of the need for public health and health services development skills (wider public health/community public health)
• UKPHR: London Top Up Training Programme for generalist/defined specialists wishing to join the Voluntary Register
• Faculty of Public Health Part A Revision Programme: a series of 10- weekly seminars for public health practitioners and trainees wishing to sit the FPH Part A Membership exam. Seminar involve working through the exam syllabus, including critical appraisal, data manipulation, epidemiology, statistics, health protection/communicable disease, health economics, organisation and management, medical sociology
• Development and provision of resources for the HealthKnowledge website – a public health information repository www.healthknowledge.org.uk