Frankham Consultancy Group is fully operational despite Covid 19 lockdown

Frankham Consultancy Group has successfully relocated all of its operations to the homeworking environment in order to comply with UK Government restrictions on social distancing in the workplace. We are proud to announce that we achieved the closure of all of our offices prior to the HM Government’s lockdown orders on the evening of 24th March. This was achieved by Frankham Consultancy Group Ltd and its subsidiary companies, Frankham Risk Management Service Ltd, Lane and Frankham Ltd and Frankham Projects Ltd.

You can access our websites at:
www.Frankham.com
www.frankham-rms.com
www.frankham.com/service/business-specialists/lane-frankham
www.frankham.com/service/planning-and-development-consultancy/development-consultancy

In recent years Frankham has invested heavily in technology to achieve this step change in our culture. We could never have envisaged having to close our offices under the current circumstances and we regret that this tragic event has been the first live test of our systems. But remote working has been part of our strategy for some time in order to reduce travel time and cost of travel, reduce office space and further reduce the carbon footprint of our office facilities . We have mobilised the workforce with a significant investment in laptop computers to embrace this culture. This follows on from our Unified Communications solution, which enhances our ability to collaborate with work colleagues and supply chain, with such features as instant messaging, presence, voice calls, meetings and sharing desktops.

In concert with the ability to work remotely from our office hubs, we have developed robust solutions for ensuring security of our IT systems. ‘Cyber Essentials+’ is a Standard (backed by the UK Govt.) to address malicious risks originating from the Internet, typically termed Cyber Threats. Created for UK Businesses, it was formed to help organisations understand what to do and where to start when it comes to Cyber Security. The net result is to reduce the risk of a company becoming a victim of internet fraud and cyber-attack, and to enable them to become a more robust and confident business in the complicated and fast moving world of commerce. Frankham is delighted to have achieved this accreditation in 2019 and this means that our mobile workforce can handle client data from remote locations with complete confidence.

We have been speaking with clients since the Coronavirus threat first emerged and it became apparent that buildings where the public congregate, such as schools, libraries, theatres, swimming pools and community halls could possibly be closed. Of course this happened last week and has proved a hammer blow to our education operations and community culture. However, it does present opportunity to get access to these buildings, ostensibly empty of personnel, thus allowing planning of repairs, replacements, and adaptations to these facilities to meet future needs.

During this difficult period, we have also been developing our strategy to address the issue of working safely to mitigate the risk of infection both to our surveyors and engineers and to client staff. Our conferencing software allows us to obviate the need to meet in person to discuss opportunities or verbally report progress with contractors and clients. We can share computer screens to mark-up drawings and documents and we can even pass computer screen presentations to others in the meeting to introduce, point to and mark-up their own documents.

With respect to site work and the carrying out of essential survey work during the lock down period, we have developed our risk assessments to take into account working in facilities and sites, but keeping close attention to and achieving social distancing for the protection of all. Our aim is to keep the wheels of the property and construction industry turning whilst at the same time complying with the rules of safety and the law.

If you are required to instruct any work through OJEU, we have a number of global Frameworks that we can use to take your projects forward at speed, without the need for any other cumbersome and time consuming procurement process.

Please refer to our website (www.Frankham.com) to understand the services we can deliver for you. Please also note that we have several sub-consultants on our approved list should there be a need to appoint them to undertake surveys, CCTV, GPRS, Acoustic Assessments, Soils Investigations etc

The management and staff of Frankham Consultancy Group and its subsidiaries therefore would be pleased to discuss with clients any opportunities that might be progressed during the COVID 19 pandemic restrictions.