We were extremely pleased with the process and outcome of our CEO appraisal. It was very insightful! It has been an absolute pleasure working with Campbell Tickell Associate Consultant, Anne McLoughlin throughout, and feedback from colleagues, board and others mirrors this sentiment.

The recommendations of the appraisal have provided finance and governance members with a solid base to set new objectives with our CEO. It has certainly helped us in terms of reviewing and refreshing our internal appraisals for senior management.

Campbell Tickell supported us with a review of our Embedding Excellence action plan, concerning our governance arrangements. With excellent sector knowledge and an expert senior associate consultant, Kathryn Bull, they were also easy to deal with. CT were objective but fair, and certainly did not give Connexus an “easy ride” with their review. They provided us with a genuinely value added service and were excellent value for money. Additionally, they gave excellent assurance to the Board and precisely the service we asked for!

The masterclass was a really informative event. The speakers were knowledgeable and thought provoking and the workshop offered positive and practical options to improving approaches to governance and engagement.

Thank you Campbell Tickell for organising an excellent webinar on how to effectively engage with our customers. Your knowledge of our sector combined with your well respected reputation enabled you to attract an appropriate range of relevant and informed speakers. We will certainly be using the recording of the webinar as part of our training for staff.

Our board and senior team has received excellent advice, insights and steers on a few pieces of important work recently. The candid and constructive approach from CT consultants challenged our thinking and supported much better business outcomes than otherwise I think we would have achieved. It has all helped progress our business and added value when and where we needed it. Much appreciated.

Stephen Bull heard and understood our requirements and delivered the project in such a way as to add value to the business.

Hilary Gardner was focused and professional and was instrumental in moving the project forward, keeping it on track and maintaining a critical friend role throughout. Support from Sue Harvey was also invaluable.

Campbell Tickell worked with us over a number of months to develop our Strategic Plan 2020-2022. Kathleen McKillion and Nicola McCrudden expertly guided us through the process, getting to know HAIL and what we were about. Liaising with a lot of stakeholders and ensuring everyone was heard and reflected in the plan is not an easy task but I really believe that we have that in our final document.
Both were very professional and easy to work with. Big thanks to all the team!

SPEAR engaged Campbell Tickell to lead on the recruitment of a new Chief Executive recently. From the start CT showed a clear understanding of what Trustees and the charity needed from a new CE and they carried out a professional and wide ranging search to attract a strong field of candidates. CT supported SPEAR throughout with clear guidance, analysis and assistance through responsive and prompt action and ensured the best possible outcome for the charity. We now look forward to our new CE arriving in May.

It has been a pleasure to work with Campbell Tickell on our recent GDPR project for Soha. You have made a huge, practical difference to our compliance, processes and understanding of GDPR issues.

Radius was developing a funding strategy, with implications for our tenants and future business.
Under the expert facilitation of Campbell Tickell, we risk assessed our operating environment, business opportunities and investment priorities, culminating in a plan to take us forward over the next 5 years. Their practical insight into the challenges of the UK social housing sector enabled our Board to guide discussions towards a tangible and coherent action plan.

We’d like to give a big thanks to Campbell Tickell for their support in our preparation for the Regulator of Social Housing’s IDA. Sue and her team engaged with the Board and executive team to maximise the benefits beyond regulatory performance and to rehearse the key interviewees.

During our IDA we received really positive feedback, particularly around our documentation. The ‘top tips’ summary sheets for each topic and the briefing notes that we prepared with CT’s support were very effective. And we were in a confident position following the interview preparations, which stood us in excellent stead for the real thing!

Excellent engagement and high quality challenge, providing great insights as well as a very useful and thorough review of the fundamentals. A real value adding service as well as being good Value For Money.

CT were easy to work with. The process was good and we had a good range of candidates.

One Housing was going through a period of change and transformation. At the start of the process we wanted to gain some good intelligence about our people – their values and their views of us. We worked with Campbell Tickell to carry out a CultureScan.

The work gave us vital insights into how the organisation really works – as opposed to how we thought it did. It highlighted real strengths for us to work with; for example that many staff valued and recognised our commitment to diversity and this was a key part of their work experience. But we also found challenges – our commitment to empowering front-line managers, for example, was not a reality to many, who felt decision making was slow. The scan gave us a better sense of our overall culture, and also identified the pockets where local cultures were different. Perhaps most importantly, it gave us a strong sense of what we need to do to create the vibrant, focused, fun culture that we aim for.

I would like to thank Campbell Tickell for their help and support during the recruitment of a new Chief Executive. From the initial reply, to our tender invitation, it was clear that CT’s attention to detail; searching out our needs and the support to the senior members of the board to refine their thinking; made all the difference to the final outcome. The innovative approach employed to involve the full board has been commented on and the final agreement by them made the selection of the best candidate a relatively simple matter. The list of potential applicants was wide and varied and gave us the opportunity to test the market and line up a new CEO to fit our needs in the next stage of our development. It was gratifying to note that the panels of Trustees and CT’s own interviews brought out the same results. This gave the board a measure of confidence added to their own thoughts in the final analysis. The whole process was designed to involve as many of the board as wished to take part, with the final selection of the last 3 being attended by the full board. This gave the necessary buy-in by the board and was handled in an innovative way with presentations from the candidates. I would have no problem in recommending Campbell Tickell for recruitment or other work in our space, you seem to have a great and detailed understanding of the needs of our sector.

Campbell Tickell provided excellent support as our Senior Team developed and refined our latest business model facilitated by BRIXX. Our Board wanted to ensure that this year’s business planning cycle included rigorous stress testing of a wide range of scenarios and that Board members fully understood the combination of risks that combined to create our perfect storm. Campbell Tickell’s enabling work facilitated the Board as they identified and reviewed our key risks and their impact. This enabled the Board to challenge senior management effectively on the Association’s mitigation plans.

We secured development funding through the Life Chances Fund to develop three Social Impact Bonds. We commissioned Campbell Tickell to help conduct research and support the development of a business case for full applications to the Life Chances Fund. I found CT to be professional, knowledgeable and accommodating. Their support and work has resulted in us making two full applications to the Life Chances Fund. I would recommend CT. Liz and Shaun were brilliant.

We commissioned Campbell Tickell to advise and support the development of our current ambitious and forward-looking Housing Strategy, ‘Building Together for a Strong Future’. We found that the team had a range of expertise and skills sets which were used to good effect over the course of the project. Our experience of Campbell Tickell was that they worked well in conjunction with council officers as part of a rounded and interactive project team. With support and advice from Campbell Tickell we now have an adopted Housing Strategy that reflects the council’s ambitions for the future.

We engaged Campbell Tickell to undertake some facilitation and review work with our Board of Management. This work included interviewing all Board members, and then facilitating a Board workshop on effective modern governance within a bilingual work environment, which resulted in the delivery of a clear outcome report with recommendations on Board member recruitment and training, Board agenda structure and a refocus on strategic issues and emerging sector risks.

This work was delivered on time and within budget, and assisted the Board and the Executive Team in reviewing the strategic governance and accountability of this large scale stock transfer association at a pivotal point at the end of its first five years. We definitely gained from the experience which James and his team brought to the workshop, and their honest and challenging approach was effective in moving the Association’s governance thinking forward.