The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), formerly known as the Sheffield City Region, is a devolved authority representing the four local authorities of Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield.
Established as part of a broader devolution agenda aimed at stimulating regional economic growth, SYMCA has evolved from a small, relatively immature organisation into a major regional body currently managing over £1.9 billion in capital funding across 23 active programmes and much more in terms of promoting Economic Growth in the region. In its early days, the Authority relied heavily on manual, spreadsheet-based processes for grant management and performance reporting, sufficient when overseeing lower volumes of projects and programmes. However, as the scale and complexity of its responsibilities grew, so did the operational requirements and the need to search for a digital solution that could support its expanded mission.
The Challenge
Peter Hague is a Programme Performance Officer at the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, part of a Programme Delivery team that oversees the development, assurance, and delivery of a growing portfolio of projects and programmes across the region. When he first joined in 2017, there was one programme overseen by a team of three. But when the number of programmes grew, and the regular reporting expected was getting ever-more challenging to pull together, the need to expand the team and analyse the processes for handling more data became apparent.
Peter and the team found themselves constrained by the outdated processes and paper-based tools they were using that required reconsideration. Now, the team has grown to manage over 320 active projects across 23 programmes, so the move to Verto has been imperative as relying on spreadsheets, Word documents, and endless email trails was not a sustainable option.
Before Verto, there was no single source of truth, and it was difficult to capture project data in a consistent way, leading to resource-intensive quality checks and labour-intensive reconciliations between teams. For instance, each year the Finance and Performance teams spent a great deal of time reconciling the financial data each held, the ability to share and draw down the data from VERTO immediately helped ensure this task was less labour intensive.
Timely performance reporting was another critical pain point. Compiling the data senior leaders needed often took days. The lack of integrated tools also made it harder to connect development and delivery teams with external stakeholders like local authorities and private sector partners.
The cumulative effect was frustration, inefficiency, and a growing recognition that the tools they’d long depended on, such as MS Word, Excel, and email, had been outgrown for this purpose.
The Solution and Impact
“I walk into the office now and see Verto on everyone’s screen. It’s part of the culture. That was always my goal.”
The point SYMCA realised they needed a better solution came when even the most well-intentioned fixes, like the manual processing of highlight report spreadsheets, became unmanageable.
External project managers at local authorities were expected to complete and return these manual spreadsheets, which created a cycle of delay and frustration. Reporting to senior leaders was a time-consuming ordeal, with data located across files and folders.
Recognising the unsustainable situation, the team went to market and chose Verto as the platform to support their next stage of growth. With Verto in place, they were able to introduce automation, standardised processes, and a single source of truth across their programmes.
The decision to implement Verto marked the beginning of a long-term evolution, not just of systems, but of mindset.
“It wasn’t just about the software. We wanted to standardise our processes, align ways of working across the organisation, and work through cultural change too.”
Beyond scoring highest in the formal evaluation, Verto stood out to SYMCA because of its flexibility and the confidence it gave him to build a system around recognised project management standard. As someone with a strong background in programme and project delivery, Peter appreciated the way Verto could be configured to reflect structured workflows like PRINCE2. Speaking to other LEPs who were existing Verto customers gave him real insight into how it could evolve with their needs
“It wasn’t just a product, it was a platform we could shape, with a community of public sector users who were already making it work,”
SYMCA phased the rollout in a pragmatic way, and over time, the impact has been transformative.
Verto now supports the work of an expanded Programme Delivery team and a broader network of users across the Combined Authority. The ability to produce timely reports using Power BI has improved, although there is still a need for control points due to the complexity of data being drawn from Verto, helping senior leaders to focus on action, not admin.
“And they ask, ‘Is this report up to date as of the end of March?’ and I can say, ‘It’s as of a minute ago.’”
That real-time insight has made it easier to hold constructive conversations with delivery partners, flag at-risk projects, and keep chief executives informed and engaged. As the system grew, so did the organisation. More teams came on board, and new needs surfaced. But SYMCA kept sight of the end goal.
“We ran the manual systems in parallel for a while, but after about a year we made the decision: this is it. We’re switching off the old way. We’re going all in on Verto. If we keep reverting, we’ll never change the culture.”
Now, the platform is deeply embedded in the organisation. Monthly reports that once took a week to pull together are generated in seconds.
The system has also improved collaboration across departments and enabled Programme Delivery to focus on more strategic tasks. From spreadsheets to a sophisticated, connected operation managing hundreds of projects with increased confidence. Verto has helped South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority take control of its growing portfolio of Economic Growth programmes.
“We’ve got our executive managers using data held into Verto now because they’re getting good stuff out of it.”
Advice to future Verto customers
Now that Peter and the team have the benefit of looking back on their experience, he is now in the position to advise other organisations considering Verto to start with a solid foundation: take time to understand your business processes and ensure they are as stable as possible before implementation. From there, define your requirements clearly, roll out Verto in manageable phases, and be proactive in managing expectations across the organisation. Looking back, one thing he wishes he’d known earlier was the power of Power BI.
“It gives you the ability to check data integrity and produce meaningful reports and dashboards that really resonate with senior leaders. If you can do that well, Verto really shines.”
