SERVICES
Two core services.
One clear purpose.
Stone Owl Partners offers two focused service lines — designed to take any complex institution from knowing what needs to change to having actually changed it. Both draw on expertise built across commercial hospitality and Oxford collegiate operations, and are available to universities, independent schools, heritage venues, and similar organisations.
OUR APPROACH
Focused. Practical.
Implementable.
Every engagement is scoped and costed before work begins, so senior leadership and finance committees have a clear, controlled investment with defined deliverables. There are no open-ended retainers, no billable-hours surprises, and no recommendations that exist only on paper.
Work is calibrated to the institution — paced appropriately to the academic or operational calendar, sensitive to the governance processes that shape how change gets approved, and written in a form that serves both the operational team and the governing body, board, or senior leadership team.
I
Operational Process Audits & Reviews
A structured, independent review of operational processes — benchmarked against best practice and delivered with clear, actionable recommendations.
A structured, independent review of operational processes — benchmarked against best practice and delivered with clear, actionable recommendations.
Many institutions have a clear sense that certain things could work better — but lack either the bandwidth or the independent perspective to examine them systematically. An operational audit provides exactly that: a structured, external review of how an institution's non-academic or non-core operations function, where the gaps are, and what a realistic improvement pathway looks like.
All audit work draws on commercial hospitality best practice as its benchmark — the standard against which service-delivery operations can most usefully be measured — while accounting fully for the specific constraints, culture, and governance of the institution.
Typical areas covered include:
— Housekeeping and accommodation
— Catering and food service workflows
— Conference and events management
— Facilities and maintenance scheduling
— Governance and reporting processes
— Front-of-house and reception operations
— Cross-departmental communication
— Staff scheduling and resource planning
— Supplier and procurement processes
Findings are delivered as a professionally written report with an executive summary suitable for presentation to a Finance Committee, Governing Body, Board of Governors, or senior leadership team. Every report includes a prioritised recommendation list with an effort/impact assessment and a proposed implementation pathway.
LIGHT TOUCH
£1,200 - £2,500
1-2 departments. 2-3 days on-site
STANDARD REVIEW
£4,000 - £8,000
3–4 departments ·4–6 days on-site
COMPREHENSIVE AUDIT
£9,000 - £14,000
Full operations · 8–12 days on-site
II
Project Implementation Support
Hands-on support to turn recommendations into working practice — from SOP development to change management and workflow redesign.
A structured, independent review of operational processes — benchmarked against best practice and delivered with clear, actionable recommendations.
Operations teams in universities, colleges, and schools are busy. The day-to-day running of a residential, catering, and facilities operation leaves limited bandwidth for the focused work that meaningful process improvement requires. Implementation support provides that capacity — working alongside the institution's staff to translate recommendations into clear, documented, and sustainable processes.
This may follow a Stone Owl Partners' audit, or it may build on an internal review that has already identified the direction of travel.
Typical implementation projects include:
— SOP development and documentation
— Departmental workflow redesign
— Change management — Fellowship, Board, or SLT
— Facilities and maintenance scheduling
— Staff scheduling and resource restructuring
— Supplier review and procurement improvement
— New system or technology implementation
— Conference operations process redesign
— Quality and performance framework design
DAY RATE
£600 - £800
Per day - depending on project complexity
FIXED-FEE PROJECTS
By agreement
For clearly scoped, defined deliverables
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A note on how engagements begin
Every engagement starts with an exploratory conversation — no cost, no obligation. The aim is to understand whether there is a genuine fit between what your institution needs and what Stone Owl Consulting can provide. Every institution is different — the first conversation is about understanding yours. If there is a fit, a scope of work and fixed fee are agreed before any work begins. There are no surprises.