The COVID19 pandemic has hit economies hard around the globe, however arguably the greatest challenge of all is faced by public sector organisations, trying to deliver essential services to their communities with limited budget and resource.
A recent article from the BBC included their analysis which suggested nine out of ten councils across England were likely to overspend versus budget this year, and referred to a “worrying laissez-faire” attitude within the Treasury about the potential budgetary crisis.
With this in mind, a low-risk solution such as a recovery audit can form a key component towards a strategy of easing some of this budgetary pressure, and with public sector frameworks set up especially to offer these solutions, procuring the experts to deliver the service has never been easier. Although each organisation is completely different, the average value of recovered cash from such exercises is in the region of 0.01% of annual spend, which accumulated over several years can be a significant sum of money.
Recovery audits within the public sector can range from an Accounts Payable review, focussed on identifying and recovering overpayments which slip through even the most sophisticated ERP systems, to a more deep dive spend analytics and contract review, to uncover previously unknown monies due back to the organisation.
Even a due diligence review behind existing third party software can identify and recover lost cash, whilst providing valuable learning opportunities about how to better use the software going forward.
Crucially for public sector bodies, these services “pay for themselves” as a percentage of the monies recoveries, so the risk is wholly on the supplier and there is no budget requirement for sign off.
If you’d like to learn more about recovery auditing for the public sector, feel free to get in touch with our team at [email protected] and we’d be happy to help you scope out a project, and start recovering cash, this year.
