Our values

We are independent consultants who live and work in the North of England. We have a high degree of personal commitment to the area. Our aim is to help public, private and voluntary organisations in their task of improving the quality of life for people who live here.

Because we are self-employed, our success depends upon us working with you to produce a satisfactory result. We are not part of a big organisation and can, therefore, be very flexible, working with you in ways that are going to achieve your goals – able to change direction within the course of a job, if that is what is needed. The end product of our work with you may not always be what you thought you needed at the start of the job – but it will be something that you will use.

We will work very closely with you to ensure that we share a clear understanding of the task from the beginning through to the end. We will act as a sounding board to help you develop ideas and policies if that is what you want, but we ensure that you have complete ownership of the results. We are very clear that our task as consultants is to enable you do your job, not take responsibility for it away from you or to get in the way of what you want to achieve. Therefore, we will always wish to schedule regular contact with you as part of any contract and to be clear about which tasks you will need to do yourself and which we can take on, on your behalf.

Our years of experience of working in Cumbria have given us excellent local contacts, not only within the county itself, but also within regional organisations such as the North West Development Agency and Government Office for the North West. We are in the process of developing these links further with work in other areas of the North of England. We feel that this personal contact is extremely valuable. It enables us to focus quickly on the key people to speak to with any given project and it very often speeds up the response.

We both have other things that we do – things that link us into the wider community and into the business world. Therefore, the advice and support we offer isn’t academic – we speak from current experience of the real world. Whilst we each have our specialisms, our breadth of experience makes us good generalists. This is a useful attribute in a world where holistic solutions delivered in effective partnerships is the key to regeneration.