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With an annual budget of £500 million, Natural England was created to conserve and enhance the natural environment, bringing together English Nature plus elements of the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service. “Our objective was to create an organisation that was far more than the sum of its parts,” says Adrian Belton, Executive Director, Operations. A key challenge was to merge activities from the three organisations involving 63 locations and 2,500 people, within challenging time scales – and expert interims from Campion Willcocks played pivotal roles.

The challenges of change
“The new executive team was appointed only six months before vesting,” continues Belton. “There was a major programme of work to complete – much more than six months' work. There was a clear need for professional programme and project management to ensure delivery on time.” This saw a focus on five workstreams: strategy, planning and performance; finances, resourcing, governance and risk; organisational development; infrastructure including systems and property; and communications. “I'd worked with Campion Willcocks before and they've always provided good people,” says Belton. “They understand and in many cases have anticipated my requirements precisely.” Campion Willcocks placed Neil Hawker as Programme Director, Henry Cohen as a Programme Manager, and Martin Flint as a HR Project Manager.

Hawker was responsible for the overall programme to create Natural England as a new Non-Departmental Public Body. He says, “This involved considerable organisational change, rationalisation of the estate, and the merging and redevelopment of IT infrastructures and systems. A major change in culture was also required.” Cohen covered all organisational development workstreams, including staff-related matters around organisational structure, pay and grading, terms and conditions, and policies and procedures. Flint managed three key projects that migrated HR and payroll systems from the founder organisations into Natural England's Oracle environment.

The right matches
“I was pleased with how well the Campion Willcocks Associates fitted-in and was delighted with their work,” says Belton. “The insights and skills they provided were directly responsible for successful outcomes: for example, Neil's previous experience, in particular at the Serious Organised Crime Agency, was invaluable. He'd done this before, merging different organisations into one. That was very beneficial. Similarly, Henry made a critical contribution to organisational development. The process went smoothly despite it being no easy task: for example, getting 2,500 people matched into their roles within a very tight time frame. He brought not only the ability to manage but also contributed heavily to the work itself. Following his contract, Henry was retained as our acting Director of Organisation Development. And Martin's sterling work included ensuring payroll systems migrated successfully. Everyone got paid and only one or two minor corrections were required – a great result.”

Another activity had a real impact on the bottom line. “Neil helped us evaluate and assess the options around whether to set up our own IT department with 80 staff,” says Belton. “This needed serious work to evaluate the options, gain Board support and implement the recommended option – which, in this case, was not to set up IT in-house. With Campion Willcocks' help we saved a significant amount of money, in set-up costs and ongoing operating. What they recommended and we agreed was to use Defra's existing outsourcing arrangements for IT.” Savings achieved ran into millions of pounds.

Belton adds, “Natural England had to hit the ground running and that's what the people from Campion Willcocks helped us to do. We needed people with the expertise to get it right - that's what Campion Willcocks provided.”

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