That is the moment I am most useful. Independent consultancy for organisations facing a consequential choice, where people hold different versions of the problem, the evidence will not settle it on its own, and somebody still has to be able to defend the answer long afterwards.
My judgement was formed in strategic commissioning inside local government. Deciding what evidence was credible enough to act on. Telling genuine need from asserted need. Working out what could survive procurement, what a provider market could realistically deliver, and what would actually make a difference to somebody, in conditions where there was never enough money and a decision still had to be made anyway.
So I know what an idea has to survive before an institution will act on it, and I can usually tell a real constraint from a habit that has been dressed up as one. That is not a defence of how systems work. Most of what I do now is testing them.
Almost every piece of work starts as one of these. Rarely with a brief attached, and often with the wrong one named first, which is why the scoping is done around what is actually happening rather than around a product.
Different views around the table, evidence that does not settle it on its own, and a choice that has to be defensible long after it is made. The work is getting the evidence, the assumptions, the constraints and the real options visible enough to decide with your eyes open.
Testing it properly before anyone commits. Whether the need is evidenced or asserted, what already exists, who is best placed, whether there is a credible route to funding or investment, whether anybody could actually deliver it, and what would have to change for it to move.
Data, professional knowledge, lived experience and the things people know but have never written down, brought into one picture, with what is known kept clearly separate from what is being assumed.
Where money, governance, incentives, accountability or organisational interest are quietly pulling against the thing everybody says they want. The blockage is rarely the one being discussed in the meeting.
Following real pieces of work end to end rather than reading the process document, and finding where effort disappears, where decisions travel further than they need to, and what would actually relieve it.
Being straight about what is genuinely open to influence, what is already fixed, where power over it sits, and what will be different because people took part. Without that it is consultation wearing a better coat.
Strategy, evaluation, co-production, governance, funding cases, service review, operations. I use all of them, and not one of them is the thing you are buying. They are tools I reach for once I understand what is actually going on. What you are paying for is someone who can make sense of a situation, test what is being claimed, say plainly what the evidence will and will not support, and help you decide.
The approach does not change with the sector. What changes is what is contested, who holds the power, and what counts as evidence.
A way of working rather than a fixed methodology. It flexes with the size of the question, but the shape stays the same.
We start with what you already hold: your data and reporting, and the knowledge sitting with your team, your board and the people you serve or sell to. Almost every organisation knows more than it has ever had time to put in one place.
We bring it together and work through it with you. What is actually going on, what is already working well, what keeps getting in the way, and what matters most next. This is the part that usually gets skipped, and it is the part that changes decisions.
Priorities become practical: a plan, a framework, a case for funding, a redesigned process, a way of measuring that finally tells you something, then handed over properly, so it is yours.
“Hayley asked the questions nobody internally was able to ask, and did it in a way that left the team stronger rather than defensive.”
Four packages, plus bespoke support for anything that does not fit one. Every price is days multiplied by your tier rate, and the tier is set by turnover, so smaller organisations get the same work rather than a reduced version of it.
An honest look at how you measure and report what you actually achieve.
Following how work actually moves, and finding where it stops.
Lived experience built into design and delivery, not consulted at the end.
Independent evaluation with learning at its heart, not judgement at the end.
Flexible senior capacity for the work that does not fit a package.
You do not need a scoped brief. A first conversation costs nothing and is usually enough to work out whether this is the right kind of help.
Practical consultancy for public systems, commercial enterprises, founder-led organisations and community interest companies.