For councils, public-sector leaders and consulting partners
Public Sector Transformation: making complex change deliverable
Senior transformation leadership informed by more than 20 years designing, implementing and operating the technology and services on which councils depend.
Public Sector Transformation
- Strategy & Assurance
- Technology & Supplier Delivery
- Operating Models & Service Design
- Performance & Delivery
Applied across these environments
- Education
- Early Years
- Children's Services
- Social Care
- Youth Justice
- Housing
- Revenues & Benefits
- Local Government
- Digital & Technology
- NHS
The proposition
One proposition, four capabilities.
Each capability is part of the same proposition, applied across the public-sector environments shown above.
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Strategy & Assurance
For important programmes that are not yet set up to deliver, or where sponsors need an honest, senior view of whether they will. Ownership, decision rights, governance and sequencing put in place, then reviewed candidly for the SRO or sponsor.
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Performance & Delivery
Where delivery has drifted, a re-baselined plan and the decisions the sponsor needs to take. Where a programme needs accountable leadership rather than review, Graham can take the role as Interim Transformation Director, Programme Director or retained senior adviser.
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Technology & Supplier Delivery
Senior client-side leadership for supplier-led technology change. Outcomes, responsibilities and acceptance criteria are clarified so suppliers are held to what the service needs, with experienced challenge before procurement, implementation or contract decisions.
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Operating Models & Service Design
For when new technology, new suppliers or new structures mean the way the service works has to change too. Systems deliver little until processes, roles and accountabilities change with them.
Career-wide experience
Experience across UK local government
Direct professional experience across 145 named local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, alongside wider education-sector responsibilities in Northern Ireland.
- 145
- Named local authorities
- 20+ years
- Local-government and public-sector technology experience
- 4 UK nations
- Geographic and sector experience
This is career-wide experience, not a list of Golden Sky clients. The form of involvement varied by authority and period, and authorities are named as they are today.
Northern Ireland: wider education-sector responsibility
Service areas of experience
Where Graham has shaped products, implemented technology or led change:
- Education & Early Years
- Children's Social Care
- Adult Social Care
- Youth Justice
- Housing
- Revenues & Benefits
- Corporate & Digital
Where Golden Sky helps
The gap between decision and delivery.
Councils often have a clear strategy. The harder task is turning that direction into a working service: clear ownership, a credible sequence, a supplier delivering what was intended, and teams ready to work in a new way.
- The programme is approved but not mobilised. Without early ownership, governance and sequencing, cost and risk build before delivery has properly started.
- Strategy has not become an executable plan. Ambition without dependencies, decisions and capacity behind it cannot be governed or assured.
- Delivery is drifting and confidence is falling. Sponsors need an objective view of where the programme really stands, and a practical path forward.
- A supplier-led implementation is off course. When requirements, responsibilities and acceptance are unclear, the authority carries the risk without the control.
- The authority needs a stronger intelligent client. Suppliers bring deep product knowledge. The authority needs equivalent experience on its side of the table.
- New technology needs new ways of working. Systems deliver little until processes, roles and accountabilities change with them.
Three offers
What Golden Sky provides.
Offer 01
Mobilise & Assure Complex Transformation
For important programmes that are not yet set up to deliver — or where sponsors need an honest, senior view of whether they will.
When to engage
- An important programme has been approved but not properly mobilised.
- Strategy or a business case has not translated into executable delivery.
- Governance, ownership, sequencing, dependencies or decisions are unclear.
- Delivery is drifting, or sponsors are losing confidence.
- The board needs a senior, objective assessment and a practical delivery path.
What Graham does
- Diagnose. An objective test of whether the plan will work in the operational environment: ownership, dependencies, adoption, readiness and sequencing — not just governance on paper.
- Mobilise. Ownership, decision rights, governance and sequencing put in place, with a credible first-phase plan.
- Assure. Periodic or retained senior review, reporting candidly to the SRO or sponsor.
- Reset. Where delivery has drifted, a re-baselined plan and the decisions the sponsor needs to take.
Relevant experience
- £10m+ programmes. Supplier-side SRO accountability for three public-sector education technology transformation programmes, each valued at more than £10m, with Hampshire, Staffordshire and a North Wales consortium.
- Hampshire. The Hampshire programme covered maintained schools and wider education services, including SEND and inclusion support.
- Sponsor engagement. Direct work with senior council sponsors, including governance across a six-authority North Wales consortium moving to a common hosted solution with harmonised processes.
- Service-delivery mobilisation. Through Solution Focused Education, led mobilisation and implementation of a commissioned workstream within Lewisham's Maximising Wellbeing at Home adult-social-care transformation, working across four major care providers.
Typical outputsDiagnostic report · Mobilisation plan · Governance design · Sequenced roadmap · Sponsor decision log · Assurance reports
The £10m+ programmes were supplier-side executive roles, accountable for Capita's delivery within each authority's governance. The Lewisham workstream was commissioned from Solution Focused Education, of which Graham is a director.
Offer 02
Client-Side Supplier & Technology Delivery Assurance
Senior client-side leadership for supplier-led technology change.
When to engage
- A supplier-led implementation is drifting.
- Requirements, responsibilities or acceptance criteria are unclear.
- Service outcomes, technology delivery and commercial expectations are misaligned.
- The authority needs stronger intelligent-client capability.
- Supplier governance, escalation and accountability need strengthening.
- A procurement, implementation, transition or supplier decision needs experienced challenge.
What Graham does
- Requirements & acceptance. Clarifies outcomes, responsibilities and acceptance criteria, so suppliers are held to what the service needs.
- Delivery review. An objective look at the supplier's plan, resourcing, progress and risks.
- Supplier governance. Escalation routes, measures and a working rhythm that keep accountability clear on both sides.
- Decision challenge. Experienced challenge before procurement, implementation, transition or contract decisions.
Relevant experience
- Product portfolio. Chief Product Officer accountability for more than 300 public-sector technology products across education, social care, social housing, revenues & benefits and digital government.
- Implementation. Led implementation functions delivering technology into councils, across multimillion-pound contracts and substantial recurring support relationships.
- Current operating role. UK market entry and operating leadership for Oksidia's Eepos platform: localisation, implementations, integrations with council finance and payment systems, migration and adoption.
Typical outputsRequirements and acceptance review · Delivery assessment · Supplier governance model · Decision paper
Graham knows how suppliers price work, resource contracts, prioritise roadmaps and read a statement of work — and, from shaping products around service needs, how the service has to run. For the authority, he tests whether requirements reflect the real need, whether workflows will work operationally, and whether supplier and authority are solving the same problem.
Offer 03
Service & Operating Model Redesign
For when new technology, new suppliers or new structures mean the way the service works has to change too.
When to engage
- Technology change needs new processes, roles or responsibilities.
- Accountability is fragmented across teams, suppliers or partners.
- Supplier and internal delivery responsibilities are misaligned.
- Structures no longer support delivery.
- A service needs a practical transition to a new operating model.
Relevant experience
- Capita PTIS. Restructured the approximately 100-person Professional, Technical and Integration Services organisation, taking its contribution to approximately £4m.
- Welfare Call. As Chief Executive, led organisational transformation in a 110-person organisation serving approximately 105 local-government customers, including restructuring, process modernisation and commercial change.
- Oksidia. Currently helping music services change how they operate — online applications, automated allocation and billing, finance integrations, redesigned administrative roles and analytics. The technology enables the change; it is not the change.
- Lewisham MWAH. Through Solution Focused Education, translated a strengths-based adult-social-care service model into structured frontline learning, implementation support and provider engagement for a commissioned workstream within the programme.
Where a programme needs accountable leadership rather than review, Graham can take the role: as Interim Transformation Director, Programme Director or retained senior adviser. See Fractional & Interim Leadership.
Experience across local-government services
Years inside the services councils run — not only the technology.
Graham's experience comes from shaping products, leading implementations, operating services and delivering technology and organisational change across local government. It is deep service-domain, operational, systems and implementation knowledge, combined with executive transformation and supplier experience. He is not a frontline practitioner or a qualified functional specialist in these services; that expertise stays with the authority's own leads and appropriately qualified specialists.
Education & Early Years
Systems, operational processes and implementation for school and education services, from admissions and SEND to early years.
- Education services and school support
- School admissions
- SEND and inclusion
- Early years
- Music education services
Capita implementation, consultancy and product leadership; the Hampshire programme; early career inside a council's Children's Services eServices team; Oksidia.
Children's Social Care
The technology, data and operating requirements of children's social care and care-leaver services, seen from the supplier, product and executive side. Not social work or statutory practice.
- Children's social care technology and services (Welfare Call)
- Care leavers (FocusGov's Care Leavers App)
- Social-care product strategy and case-management systems
Welfare Call, as Chief Executive; FocusGov, as Board and Strategic Adviser; Capita social-care products and product strategy.
Adult Social Care
Care-management technology and the operating change needed to deliver strengths-based services, including provider-facing implementation.
- Care-management technology
- Provider engagement and implementation
- Strengths-based service models
- Service transformation support
iESE case-management platform; Capita social-care products; Solution Focused Education's commissioned Lewisham workstream.
Youth Justice
Youth justice and youth services systems within a large local-government software portfolio.
- Youth justice
- Youth services
Capita product portfolio, including its extension into youth services and youth justice.
Housing
Social housing technology within a local-government product portfolio.
- Social housing
- Housing-related technology
Capita product portfolio.
Revenues & Benefits
Revenues and benefits systems, and integrations with council finance and payment systems.
- Revenues and benefits
- Integrations with council finance and payment systems
Capita product portfolio; Oksidia finance and payment integrations.
Corporate & Digital
Digital government products, and the implementation, migration and adoption of technology in councils.
- Digital government
- Technology implementation, migration and adoption
Capita product portfolio; technology implementation across councils.
Experience
A working record, not a claim.
£10m+ ×3
Programmes led as supplier-side executive / SRO
300+
Public-sector products as Chief Product Officer
110
People led as Chief Executive, Welfare Call
Selected public-sector evidence
Capita — public-sector technology transformation programmes
Supplier-side executive accountability for three £10m+ public-sector education technology transformation programmes, including Hampshire, Staffordshire and a six-authority North Wales consortium.
Read the case →Capita — restructuring Professional, Technical and Integration Services
Restructured the approximately 100-person Professional, Technical and Integration Services organisation, taking its contribution to approximately £4m.
Read the case →Capita — Business Integration and Organisational Transformation
As part of the senior leadership team, contributed to bringing together Capita's local-government and education software businesses under the Capita One organisation and brand: integrating previously separate businesses and aligning operating structures.
Read the case →Oksidia — establishing and growing the UK business
Co-founded and established the UK subsidiary of a Finnish SaaS company providing specialist education management software, and as UK Director leads its UK operations: more than 35 UK customers, and the company holds approved-supplier status through Crown Commercial Service frameworks.
Read the case →Welfare Call — Chief Executive
Chief Executive of a 110-person technology-enabled services business serving approximately 105 local-government customers, leading restructuring, process modernisation and commercial change.
Read the case →iESE — social-care SaaS business case and MVP
Built the business case, secured £250,000 of investment funding and led MVP delivery of a social-care case-management SaaS platform.
Read the case →Solution Focused Education — Co-founder and Director
Co-founded the business and developed its commercial strategy, proposition and delivery model; led mobilisation and implementation of a commissioned workstream within Lewisham's Maximising Wellbeing at Home adult-social-care transformation.
Read the case →How Golden Sky works
Senior, direct and clearly bounded.
Golden Sky is a deliberately small practice. Graham does the work personally, with no hand-off to a junior team. Findings come with the ownership, sequencing and decisions to act on, and every engagement has defined questions, outputs and duration from the outset.
- Conversation. Understand the situation and the decision the sponsor faces.
- Scope. Agree questions, outputs, duration and route to market.
- Deliver. Diagnose, mobilise, assure or lead, as agreed.
- Hand over. Leave ownership, governance and capability with the authority.
Where additional specialist capability may be required
- Technical architecture and engineering
- Cyber security, data science and AI implementation
- Legal and specialist contractual advice
- Full PMO and delivery-team capacity
- Frontline professional or clinical expertise
Golden Sky can work alongside the authority's existing specialists or appropriately qualified delivery partners.
Commissioning routes
Directly, through a partner, or through an intermediary.
- Directly by the authority. A council or public body engages Golden Sky itself.
- Through consulting firms and framework suppliers. As senior associate capacity within a partner's team. Any framework or call-off arrangement belongs to the partner and is the partner's contract.
- Through interim intermediaries. As a candidate for fractional, interim or programme-director mandates.
Conflicts of interest
Relevant interests are declared at the outset, every assignment is conflict-checked, and Golden Sky will not accept work where a conflict cannot be appropriately managed.
Graham's current roles at Oksidia and Solution Focused Education are declared as relevant interests wherever they bear on an assignment.
Resources
Take it away.
Read the Public-Sector Executive Brief summary · Download the PDF · How We Work · Fractional & Interim Leadership
Supplying technology to the public sector rather than commissioning change? That is a different brief: see Technology, SaaS & B2G Growth and UK Market Entry.
Next step
If a programme needs mobilising, assuring or turning round, start a conversation.
Every engagement starts with a conversation about the situation, and a clear mandate and outputs.