PricewaterhouseCoopers and PEF

Mark Maitland, Director, Strategy at PricewaterhouseCoopers talks about the firm’s involvement with PEF:

“PricewaterhouseCoopers has been heavily involved with PEF since the launch of the foundation, and we continue to see it as a way of providing support to PEF and its charities, as well as building relationships and friendships with Team PEF.

“Our work has included auditing the foundation for the past three years, due diligence work in relation to specific charity investments, seconding staff to PEF, commercial reviews of charities, and most recently, a review of the commissioning market.

“This most recent piece of work was carried out by our Strategy group, working closely with a number of the PEF charities, including School-Home Support, Vital Regeneration and Fairbridge. The aim of the work was to get a better understanding of the statutory commissioning market for Children and Young People’s Services in inner London, focusing in particular on two key boroughs, Tower Hamlets and Westminster. The work highlighted the way in which boroughs look to distribute funds to charities, who makes the decisions, and what their expectations are for future funding. In addition, borough performance against agreed indicators was analysed to highlight how boroughs are measured, and the impact this might have on funding strategies. This work was carried out against a backdrop of uncertain funding in the future, with a new government trying to cope with a large budget deficit.

“The work highlighted the complex structures, organisations and processes supporting charity funding within local boroughs, and also the degree to which this changes by borough. Unsurprisingly, boroughs were pessimistic about future funding, after a number of years of growth, and there was recognition that there needs to be a drive for more efficiency, and more results-focused funding. We believe that PEF charities should look to get involved in commissioning earlier to help shape the objectives and position themselves to win tenders. In addition, in this changing environment, we believe that PEF charities should be seeking more diverse funding streams, planning for different contingencies, and sharing experiences and key lessons with other PEF charities.

“We are looking to continue our association with PEF as the foundation aims to go from strength to strength, despite the challenging public funding environment.”