Business Case Lead

Most business cases get written. Fewer get approved. This role is measured on the second. You will own the interlinked business cases underpinning a major outsourcing and transformation programme in central government, turning dispersed input from commercial, finance, service design and operations into a single investment story that holds together under scrutiny at departmental and Treasury decision points.

What you will actually do:

• Secure approval at each decision gate, first time wherever the evidence allows.
• Hold one coherent investment narrative across multiple interdependent cases, so that scrutiny finds consistency rather than contradiction.
• Land an options appraisal decision-makers trust: a defensible route from longlist to shortlist, honest treatment of uncertainty, and a preferred option that survives challenge.
• Produce benefits, affordability and value-for-money analysis that finance and commercial colleagues will put their names to.
• Turn conflicting expert input into settled evidence, resolving disagreements over assumptions rather than passing them upward.
• Map the approvals path: who signs, what they need, by when, and what would make them refuse.
• Tell the SRO early when the case is weak, while there is still time to fix it.
• Leave behind templates and assurance standards the department can run without further external support.

Where the role sits:

Reporting to the engagement lead, with a working line into the client's Programme Director and access to the SRO. You will sit at the centre of the programme rather than inside a workstream, drawing on subject matter experts who do not report to you, directing one to two supporting analysts, and partnering with the client's finance business partner and commercial lead.

What we are looking for:

• A record of leading public sector business cases through to approval under the Five Case Model and HM Treasury Green Book. Approved, not drafted. We will ask which body approved them and when.
• You will need real financial analysis capability across cost modelling, net present value and net present social cost, optimism bias, sensitivity analysis and switching values, and benefits quantification.
• You will need to write in a way a Director General can read once and act on.
• You will need to run a case where the experts disagree, and make the call yourself.
• Experience on large-scale outsourcing, market engagement or operating model programmes, where the investment decision was genuinely contested, matters more here than the number of cases you have touched.
• Useful but not essential: familiarity with the 2026 Green Book and the separated programme and project guidance; Treasury and NISTA approvals routes; GMPP reporting; commercial literacy under the Procurement Act 2023 including the competitive flexible procedure; an accountancy qualification or economics background; Better Business Cases practitioner certification.
• If you have sat on the approving side as well as the advisory side, say so. It tends to show.

Clearance:

Live SC clearance is required at the point of application. Clearance sponsored by a large central government department is an advantage and shortens mobilisation considerably. We cannot sponsor new clearance for this engagement.

Rate:

We have not fixed a rate. Tell us what you work to and we will have that conversation early rather than at offer stage. As a guide, we are benchmarking this role in the region of £650 to £800 per day depending on level.