When Gallagher was announced as the preferred broker for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), managing director of Gallagher’s public sector and education team, Tim Devine (pictured), outlined how the appointment represented the next step in Gallagher’s aim to be the broker of choice in this evolving sector.
Discussing this ambition with Insurance Business, Devine noted that Gallagher, which is already a major player in the public sector area, has added two people to the Manchester business over the last 12 months and, having doubled in size in the public sector business since 2014, intends to grow at a similar level again over the next five to six years.
In the GMCA’s business plan for 2019/2020, this combined authority body for the Greater Manchester area outlined its ambition to deliver on an ambitious regeneration and transformation strategy. Public procurement exercises tend to be formal procedures, Devine said, and the GMCA appointment was tendered to any brokerage that wished to respond to the opportunity. He highlighted how every effort was made to ensure that the scoring mechanism was above board to ensure that public monies were being spent fairly.
A key component of this process, Devine said, was an evaluation of the processes the chosen broker would put in place to evaluate the GMCA’s risk programmes, including setting appropriate coverage levels. For this, he said, Gallagher used the proposition it has developed in the public sector and education business which is built on its CORE360™ strategy.
It is unsurprising that the formal tender process for the preferred broker contract is such a thorough and intricate document, Devine said, considering the size of the constituencies covered by the GMCA. An evaluation of Gallagher’s service level management allowed the broker to provide evidence of its strategy and practical plan for the first six months of delivery, he said, which included clear KPIs as well as details of its available service teams and escalation processes.
Gallagher focused on its local, well-known and experienced teams being the driver for that, Devine stated, and outlined how the group includes three organisations already held by Gallagher as clients. This provided a demonstration of how the broker would also work with the members it did not already know, he said, and he believes that Gallagher’s strength and knowledge within the area lent significant credibility to its strategic development plan.
“We’re also able to use examples from both the North West and other areas across the public sector education business,” he said, “to evidence our methodology and how it works.”
The requirements of public bodies are very varied, Devine said, as they are very large and complex organisations.
“We like to be able to call upon the specialists within the other parts of Gallagher,” he said, “and detail all these people that you will have access to by awarding the contract to Gallagher.”
An essential consideration in Gallagher’s successful bid to become the preferred broker for the GMCA was the factor of social value, Devine said. He outlined how since the Social Value Act 2010, there has been an increased prevalence in public bodies wanting to see how suppliers to the public sector are going to provide support to local communities.
Supporting local communities has long been a key emphasis for Gallagher, Devine said, and, as part of the broker’s contract with the GMCA, it agreed to return a share of its earnings to support a local fund for helping local communities.
“We also suggested,” he said, “that when we start engaging with insurers, claims providers and legal partners, that we work with them to help grow that fund.”
There is, Devine said, a substantial charitable push throughout Gallagher as a whole. He outlined how support has been given to a variety of clubs and associations from a Project Rugby event in Leeds to working with Yorkshire Carnegie to support local people.
“Social value needs will vary from one council to another based on their locale,” Devine said, outlining how the needs of each community must be considered on a bespoke basis, and with this recent appointment, the actual requirements of the Manchester and North West area had to be very carefully considered.
Gallagher’s capacity to do this is aided by its 70 offices throughout the UK, which, he noted, have helped set the broker apart from its competitors as it remains locally based and independent within the communities in which it operates.
“We’ve remained a local community broker,” he said.
