As a business, we are always planning ways that we can enhance our client services. We’ve been busy making some big decisions and changes to our structure to ensure we’re poised for growth. Client service has been at the heart of Scrutton Bland for over 100 years and never more so does this remain the case.
In the past 12 months, you have probably seen that we opened our Bury St Edmunds office and have made various exciting recruitments to our Partner team. We’re also delighted to announce the promotion of a further three existing employees to the Partner team. Congratulations to Ben Cussons (Business Advisory), Emma Clifton (Business Advisory) and Simon Hurren (Private Client Tax).
You may have also seen that our insurance arm, Scrutton Bland Insurance Brokers Limited has been acquired by the Jensten Group as they extend their UK coverage, and now forms part of the One Broker brand in the East of England. This was an important step for the insurance team as it means that they will continue to be supported in growth, offer continued stability, and preserve our regional connection. We will continue to work closely with the insurance team, as they operate out of the top floor of our Colchester office on Colchester Business Park.
To help us achieve our growth plans for the accountancy part of the business, I am delighted to announce that we have secured investment from Sumer, the UK’s leading mid-market accountancy practice. Scrutton Bland becomes a regional Hub and forms part of Sumer’s strategy to form like-minded Hubs throughout the UK, focused exclusively on the SME market. Sumer will provide us with access to capital for investment – giving us the ability to buy other leading local firms whilst focusing on our strong core people values and client focused service.
Over time, it will provide access to new services, new technologies, best practices, more resource, and will enable us to better support you, our client.
We are now one of nine regional Hub firms to become part of Sumer and are really excited about the future and the opportunities this presents. We have plans to acquire other firms around the region as part of our growth strategy and will share more information about this when we are able to.
Please be assured that this will not change the service or team that will continue working alongside you. It is important to us that we convey that we value working with you and look forward to continuing to do so in the short, medium and long term. However, there will be a few changes that you will notice, such as: new letters of engagement being shared with you over the next few months and new bank details which will be highlighted on our invoices going forward.
Thank you for your continued support and stay tuned for more business updates soon.