Consultants to the Visitor Attraction Sector
Public investment in heritage and culture, whether through City Region and Growth Deals, levelling up and regeneration funds or local authority capital programmes, is increasingly assessed against the HM Treasury Green Book and its Five Case Model. These are not applications for the faint-hearted. They are among the most challenging and time-consuming cases to build, they call for a level of detail few other funders would ever ask for, and they often take more than one submission to satisfy reviewers. We have developed fourteen business cases for nine clients, from a Business Justification Case for a project of under £2 million to an approved Full Business Case, and we know how to make a cultural project speak the language of an economic appraisal without losing what makes it worth doing.
HM Treasury Green Book business cases for heritage and cultural capital projects
What we do
Strategic outline, outline and full business cases
We prepare cases at every stage, from the strategic outline case that secures a place in a programme to the full business case that releases funding. Each follows the five cases, strategic, economic, commercial, financial and management, in the structure programme offices and government assurance teams expect.
Economic appraisal
Having prepared many Green Book cases we are used to helping clients identify their options in the first place. The answer often lands on a phased approach, which sets realistic targets for each stage while building the skills and confidence the client team will need to deliver. We then build the options, define the counterfactual, quantify benefits and costs, apply optimism bias and discounting, and set out the net present social value and benefit cost ratio with the sensitivities that show how robust they are. We present the results so a non-economist trustee and a Treasury-trained reviewer can both follow them.
Financial, commercial and management cases
The economic case gets the attention, but applications usually stand or fall on whether the money works. We model capital budgets, funding packages, grant claims and cash flow, address subsidy control, and set out procurement, governance, risk and benefits realisation. We also prepare the appendices programmes ask for, such as carbon categorisation, equality assessments and assurance returns.
How we work
We work closely with the client and often its accountant, because the figures in a business case must agree with the accounts and the operating forecast. We check every claim, source every figure and write in plain English. Where the evidence is thin we say so and set out how it will be strengthened, which reviewers respect more than overstatement.
Experience
Our fourteen business cases span every stage of the Green Book process, from strategic outline cases that secured a place in a programme to an approved Full Business Case. Work in 2026 alone includes the strategic outline and outline business cases for Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, the strategic outline case for Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre, the Business Justification Case for Canvas in Dundee and the outline business case for Dundee Museum of Transport’s new home at the Maryfield tram depot. Earlier cases have supported a planned new science centre, a major comic-based attraction and the redevelopment of two internationally important maritime attractions.
Who this is for
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Museums, trusts and cultural organisations applying to City Region and Growth Deal programmes.
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Councils and arm’s-length bodies preparing capital cases for cultural assets.
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Project teams who have a strong idea and need it translated into the Five Case Model.
Ready to talk it through?
Email paul@xcentuategroup.com
or call +44 (0) 7824 376390
