PlaceSense
Get it funded. Get it moving. Keep it honest.
Senior independent advice on major public programmes and projects, for the people running them and the firms supporting them.
Programmes don't usually stall for lack of effort. They stall when the story doesn't land, when nobody is set up to decide, or when no one will say it has drifted from its original purpose.
I’m Andrew Alsbury and I founded PlaceSense to do three things: help programmes tell the story that gets them funded, get them moving, and keep them honest.
I've done it from every side: as the client, in the department setting the rules, in a council, at a contractor, and now as an adviser. I know what public clients get wrong about their private partners, and what private partners get wrong about public clients.
I work directly with public bodies, and as a named specialist inside larger consultancy and contractor teams. Most of my work has been in local and central government, education, building safety, culture and heritage, and PPPs, but the approach works in other sectors too.
Selected experience
Building Safety Programme (MHCLG)
After Grenfell I managed the Expert Panel and the Industry Response Group and drafted the guidance issued to building owners. When the £1bn Building Safety Fund was announced, I had six weeks to build the eligibility framework, design the assessment process, and open it to applications. Over the next eighteen months I reviewed around 1,300 fire safety reports and approved eligibility for 981 buildings, so their owners could move on to remediation.
Education
I wrote the £2.2bn business case that secured HM Treasury approval for the Priority Schools Building Programme, then ran its programme management office. I designed and launched the £440m Condition Improvement Fund, and completed the Property Data Survey of 18,830 schools, Europe's largest condition survey, which became the foundation for successive rounds of national school investment.
On Building Schools for the Future, I was the national point of contact for five London and South East authorities, guiding their projects, including PFI schemes, through delivery. I have also led the education sector nationally for Willmott Dixon and, as interim COO, built the Chartered College of Teaching from nothing through to national launch.
National Galleries Scotland
A national collection facility was struggling to make its case as an art storage problem. I reframed it around cultural access, regional equity, and the regeneration of Granton. The reframe is what unlocked the funding. The Scottish Government allocated £56m in the Spending Review, and approved the Full Business Case I wrote. I also wrote the National Lottery Heritage Fund bid that won a further £8.5m.
Recent work
Since starting PlaceSense, alongside the National Galleries Scotland work above, I have supported private sector firms with bids and delivery for public clients, and written business cases for another national institution and a historic building in Scotland.
About me
Most advisers know one side of public investment. I have been on all of them: in London local government; writing policy and approving investment at DfE and MHCLG; delivering as a national contractor at Willmott Dixon; advising at AtkinsRéalis; and now working independently with the senior people responsible for making it work.
That breadth is what PlaceSense is built on. I have helped local authorities make the case to national government, and helped national programmes understand what local delivery actually requires. Some of my biggest results came in sectors I was new to: I knew nothing about cladding before Grenfell, and hadn't worked in culture before National Galleries Scotland.
I usually arrive when a programme is under pressure: a deadline close, a case that isn't landing, or a decision nobody wants to own. Clients have thanked me for making a complicated position clear, and for staying patient and calm when time was short. I stay with the work until it's done, and I'll give a straight view along the way on what will stand up and what won't.
I set up on my own to do this work at the level it deserves: senior, independent, and without an overhead that gets in the way.
Better Business Cases accredited (HM Treasury Green Book). MSP Advanced Practitioner. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I write about public programme delivery at Rough Bearings on Substack.
Outside work I do improv, run tabletop games, go to a lot of live music, and take photographs.