Charlie Kershaw

Following consistently excellent feedback in my first year of the Impact Graduate Programme, I was asked to apply, successfully, for a full time BA internal consultancy role and have since worked and led on a number of projects designed to reduce costs and improve council performance. My work in these projects have included:

• Creation of new processes and panels designed to increase flow of money from the NHS into placements for SEND and Social Care Children - saving £1.2million in 24/25. This project displayed my ability to contribute to team problem solving and build strong relationships with external partners.
• Redesign of Subject Access Request service including a restructure, investment in AI software, and a streamlined process. Following interviews and workshops with key colleagues, I analysed current performance data, developed recommendations, wrote the business case and successfully presented my recommendations at each Directorate Leadership Team Meeting. Implementation is currently going well.
• Digitisation and process redesign of the Licensing Service including workshops, interviews, and complex stakeholder management. This targeted project has already saved c.£15k and is projected to save >£50k in FY26/27 and beyond. An extremely challenging stakeholder required me to be thorough, proactive, and build productive relationships with client team members.
• Data analysis & financial modelling for the Legal Services Review. Presenting data visuals detailing legal usage data and modelling the impact if key services were to use in-house staff rather than external firms (on average £90k cheaper per year). Both demonstrate my quantitative problem solving ability.

Having been accepted onto the highly competitive 'Impact: The Local Government Graduate Development Programme' (formerly NGDP), I spent the first year as a graduate internal consultant in Wokingham Borough Council's Business Change Team. This involved 3 different placements:

• Placement 1: Graduate Business Analyst. This involved a number of different projects including data analysis, benchmarking, and report writing for a restructure in the Planning Service and the redesign of a complex commissioning process for high cost SEND children. Both enabled me to demonstrate my numerical ability and helped me develop my expertise in workshop facilitation and stakeholder interviews.
• Placement 2: Digital BA & Stakeholder Engagement Lead for the Digital & CRM Team. Highly involved in the council's fast paced, multi-million pound project changing CRM system. I firstly took on requirements gathering and development preparation following the previous BA's abrupt departure before then being responsible for creating a training programme for 100+ users and being their first port of call during all go-live activities. This project demonstrated my ability to learn fast, problem solve creatively, and work with a variety of stakeholders. All services went live on time and there were no issues with usage post go-live.
• Placement 3: Graduate Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer and member of the Policy & Strategy Team. Wanting to gain more high level leadership experience, I took the initiative to ask for a placement with the COO. During this placement I was able to: present at Corporate Leadership Team Meetings; synthesise findings from consultations to help formulate the new Council Plan; and lead on the development of a new Power Bi dashboard for the CEO and Directors.
• In addition to my placements I successfully completed CMI's Leadership & Management Level 7 qualification during which I was praised for my clarity of writing, independent research, and logical arguments. I also found fascinating interviewing a number of senior leaders to help formulate my work and learnt a lot about effective leadership as a result.