Hampshire County Council

Background

Hampshire County Council contracted PCMG to review their telecoms billing covering voice and data services for overcharges and potential cost reductions.

Telecoms are a considerable expense for the Council in maintaining essential services for the community, with an approximate spend of £785k each year.

In an initial call to discuss the requirements for a telecoms audit, the Council team pointed out that billing from their main supplier was difficult to understand and could therefore contain opportunities.

The challenge

The Council team provided copies of all their invoices, covering approximately three years, along with a copy of the original agreement.

To start scrutinising the billing, PCMG approached the supplier directly for backing data for these invoices, as it contained the itemised data required for analysis.

This revealed that approximately 40 invoices had been produced under the same account per year. However, these covered different elements per invoice, which understandably convoluted the billing.

The PCMG team then scrutinised the Council’s invoices line by line across all rental, call and one-off charges to validate them.

The solution

In an initial review, the PCMG team was able to highlight potential errors. However, further information was required.

The Council provided copies of all their Contract Change Notices, which validated further queries. All confirmed recommendations were then presented to the Council for approval to proceed. The findings were subsequently submitted to the supplier for response, with the Council copied in throughout.

Recommendations from the audit uncovered multiple billing issues, including:

• Regulatory charging errors
• Duplicate charges
• Charges not ceased at the correct time
• Incorrectly charged contract rates

To resolve these matters, PCMG liaised with the supplier, providing detailed evidence and reviewing the issues in meetings. The supplier agreed with the evidence and methodology before progressing to credit and correction.

The results

For the untrained eye, such recoveries would likely have remained hidden within thousands of lines of invoice data. However, PCMG’s expertise, drive and determination — combined with a methodology refined over decades — enabled the Council to achieve significant recoveries and ongoing savings.