AoC Finance Conference and Exhibition 2025

Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) is a not-for-profit charity that gives back to the education sector and a one-stop procurement shop for all your procurement needs, with a vision of being the education sector’s procurement partner of choice. Did you know that all our surplus revenue is given back to the education sector via our Giving Back which is focused on SEND, wellbeing and absenteeism, to date we have donated £1.5m back to the education sector.

Drake Lane provide market leading software and consultancy services to the education sector, including colleges and higher education institutions. Our specialist focus is quality, curriculum and financial planning, funding, audit and data analysis. · 4CAST – curriculum and financial planning software to simplify the complex! · SCORE – ILR / funding optimisation and audit / Ofsted compliance software.

Reduce energy costs across your estate by 60% and accelerate Net Zero progress without upfront capital investment. eEnergy achieves this in three ways:
•Reduce: Energy efficiency solutions including LED lighting .
•Generate: Onsite solar energy generation.
•Charge: Electric vehicle charging for staff and visitors.
With our £40m green energy fund, we provide off-balance sheet funding with compliant procurement via approved frameworks. We’ve delivered over 1000 successful projects, helping our clients save over £100m.

Providing high quality consultancy and interim services for a range of business areas; MIS, Quality, Curriculum, Admissions, Student Services, IT/ICT/ILT and Finance. Our full-time and associate consultants bring a wealth of experience and a breadth of skills and abilities to the assignment. They are able to make an immediate difference to your organisation. With high order people and communication skills, combined with technical experience and knowledge, they can provide value added consultancy and interim solutions.

Welcome to HaysMac, where expert advice and financial excellence support further and higher education institutions. Based in London, we are a chartered accountancy and tax advisory firm delivering a range of services across the UK including audit, taxation, outsourcing, and business support. Our team of specialists bring a hands-on approach, providing institutions with top-tier audits, financial solutions, and reliable assurance. Our commitment to the sector ensures our clients receive the highest level of service.

At Mindful Education, we produce flexible, award-winning, blended learning courses and apprenticeships that continue to set new standards in digital education. Designed and built by in-house teams, our courses deliver a compelling mix of academic expertise, technology and creativity, bringing learning to life and achieving outstanding results. Working in partnership with hundreds of colleges and employers, we support thousands of learners each year, helping people to take the next step in their careers.

Purlos is an EdTech software company dedicated to empowering education providers to connect with students, enhance their learner journeys, and achieve positive outcomes. Founded in 2018, Purlos has since gone on to become one of the fastest growing and most innovative software providers in the country, helping institutions achieve their goals and make a meaningful impact on the lives of their students.

Mary is the Chief Financial Officer at the University of Portsmouth and chairs the British University Finance Directors Financial Reporting Group. The Financial Reporting Group is responsible for drafting the new Further & Higher Education Statement of Recommended Practice for approval by the Financial Reporting Council.

Imran is a Senior Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, where he leads work on further education and skills. His research focuses on the funding and finance of post-16 education in the UK, and the evaluation of government skills programmes. He leads the analysis of further and adult education spending for the IFS’s Annual Education Spending Report and has published on the economic returns to post-16 qualifications. Imran is also a contributing author to the IFS Deaton Review, co-writing the chapter on educational inequalities.

Cat Hayes is Head of Adult Further Education Funding at the Department for Education. She is responsible for the development of funding policy in non-devolved parts of England, as well as working with Strategic Authorities (largely Mayoral Combined Authorities) on the national picture.

Andrew is the Director of Funding and Financial Oversight at Operations and Infrastructure Group, Department for Education and joined the department in January 2023.

Andrew has been a civil servant for more than 20 years. Before joining ESFA he worked in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Andrew is an economist by training and has a breadth of experience including Strategy, Operations, Contract Management and Finance.

Mark is a chartered procurement professional and Procurement Act 2023 ‘Advanced Practitioner’ with 35 years’ private and public sector procurement and contract management experience. Mark joined Crescent Purchasing Consortium in 2019, returning to the coalface of delivering procurement services to clients before promotion into the Learning & Development Lead role in 2024. Mark’s remit is to develop procurement best practice within CPC and to support CPC’s wider membership with the knowledge and tools needed to instil this ethos across the education sector.