Independent Audit & Investigation, Critical Controls

Does this feel familiar?

You’re accountable for outcomes, not just delivery.

Your name is attached to decisions, not just recommendations.

You’re living with a sense of unease that won’t go away.

You have enough autonomy to act when something doesn’t feel right. And you’re expected to use it.

You know this script, and where it can lead.
If it does, it lands with you.

Where the cost of being wrong is highest.

People safe and well, with clarity on what keeps them that way.
Environmental obligations met, with evidence you can stand behind.
Critical equipment reliable, not just assumed.
Security and resilience, with confidence it will withstand adverse intent.
Operations stable, through disruption, change, and constraint.
Trust and reputation protected, before scrutiny forces the issue.
Partner and third-party risk visible, where accountability can blur.
Customer impact prevented, before customers feel it.

Your gut tells you to take notice

It’s the uncomfortable sense that something is off, and you wouldn’t be able to defend why. You recognise it when:

Performance is strong, but you can’t explain why it's strong.
Nothing has gone wrong for a while, and that starts to feel uncomfortable.
Change is happening faster than your understanding of its implications.
Controls look complete on paper, but you haven’t seen them tested under real conditions.
A near miss felt lucky.
You realise you are relying on competence, goodwill, or heroics instead of design.
You can’t tell whether the silence in the system means stability or blindness.
You’re about to sign something that carries your name.

This isn't panic, it's pattern recognition. You need a grounded view of whether things are actually under control.

Do you really understand what happened?

Attention is now on your decisions, and on the basis for them.

Emotions are high. Consequences are real. The pressure is on.

Explanations are already forming, but certainty is missing. You don’t want this repeating, and stakeholders expect it won’t. Without a clear, rigorous understanding of what really happened, you are exposed to it happening again.

You need to know how this happened.

Not reassurance. Not stories. Evidence.

What matters now is stabilisation, disciplined focus, truth, and a way forward grounded in reality.

You already know what won't fix this

Asking people to try harder, without understanding the drivers of performance.

Pre-packaged programmes before reality is understood.

Tick-box assurance. Paperwork instead of confidence.

Advisory theatre, foregone conclusions.

Self-preserving, open-ended engagements.

Specialists who arrive with answers and leave before clarity is established.

From Unhealthy Unease to Grounded Confidence

Calm first. Then Control.

The unease you are feeling is not weakness. It's information.

When performance looks strong, there are usually only three explanations: luck, problems being suppressed, or systems deliberately designed to produce the outcomes you want.

Only one of those is healthy and sustainable.

Resolving unease requires examining what success is built on, and the conditions that shape behaviour, particularly when nobody is watching. Then making success deliberate. Predictable. Sustainable.

The way forward is not around discomfort, it is through it. You don’t have to walk that path alone. But you do have to face into it.

Progress rarely comes from doing more. It comes from seeing clearly, deciding deliberately, and acting precisely.

Where Independent Support Makes the Biggest Difference

Operational Reality and Drift

An objective view of how work is actually carried out, and how it may have slowly changed over time.

Causal Chain Integrity

Examining whether warning signs exist across the full pathway to failure, especially upstream where incidents are seeded.

Health of Organisational Controls

Assessing whether the controls relied upon are sufficient, resilient, and effective under real operating conditions.

Capability and Culture

Everyday behaviours, competence, and the human performance conditions that shape them, especially when nobody is watching.

Golden Hour Stabilisation

Preserving people, evidence, and context in the immediate aftermath, before truth is lost or distorted.

Independent Incident Investigation

Objective assessment of what happened, scaled to match seriousness and potential consequences.

Reconstructing the Causal Chain

Reconstructing how controls were weakened, bypassed, or absent across the full system.

Sense-Making Under Scrutiny

Supporting clear thinking and interpretation while under regulatory, board, or workforce pressure.

Calm first. Then Control.

What the first step looks like

We start with a short, structured orientation conversation.

This is a focused discussion, free of charge, designed to clarify what you are dealing with and whether focused support would genuinely add value.

The aim is not to diagnose problems or design solutions, but to answer a small number of important questions that often remain implicit or untested.

By the end you should have enough clarity to decide whether to proceed with some targeted work, pause, or take a different path altogether.

01 Shape sensing: We put form to the situation you are in.

Whether unease is emerging quietly beneath apparently stable performance, or whether something has already happened and confidence has been disrupted.

This matters because different shaped scenarios demand specific responses, and treating them the same is where organisations lose time and traction.
02 Outcome anchoring: We make explicit what needs to be true for this to feel resolved.

Not in terms of activity or assurance, but in terms of confidence, decisions, and what you need to be able to stand behind.

This helps separate what actually matters from what is simply noisy or urgent.
03 Fit and intervention sketching: We assess whether independent support is likely to add real value, and whether Evolution are the right partner to provide it.

Where it is helpful, we outline the kinds of interventions that typically make the biggest difference in situations like yours, without designing or committing to any of them.

The purpose is to give you enough of a map to decide what, if anything, should happen next.

What you gain

Orientation when things feel unclear.

Relief from carrying unease alone.

Decisions grounded in reality, not hope.

Confidence built on evidence, not assertion.

Typical Engagements

ORGANISATIONAL CONTROLS External

Regulator audit of flood risk arrangements

SITUATION

UK Environment Agency scheduled flood risk audit ahead of a planned site visit.

WHY IT MATTERED

Senior management wanted confidence the arrangements would stand up to scrutiny, without relying on luck.

SUPPORT PROVIDED

Independent review of arrangements. Areas of exposure identified. Senior leadership briefed on gaps and closure measures. Processes and procedures rebuilt into a clear, defensible written scheme of control. Presented to regulator.

Regulator awarded highest possible score. Senior manager unease resolved. Site team coached and left with clarity and future-proof ownership.

Flood Risk Bow-Tie Analysis Written Scheme of Control Process Document Operational Procedures Coaching

INCIDENT INVESTIGATION In-House

HV Switching Near Miss Investigation

SITUATION

A routine high-voltage switching exercise resulted in a near miss despite the presence of long-standing Safety Rules intended to prevent it.

WHY IT MATTERED

Scrutiny was immediate. Leadership needed an objective account of what happened, and whether controls were being applied with the rigour depended on.

SUPPORT PROVIDED

Objective review of the near miss and the application of Safety Rules in practice. Delivered a decision-ready briefing and a prioritised set of actions to restore discipline.

Drift from critical verification steps became visible. Written instructions were being relied on where active confirmation was designed to be the safeguard. What needed reinforcing was clear.

Incident Investigation Work Imagined vs Work Done Analysis Evidence Capture Barrier Analysis Human Factors Analysis

Competence and Culture External

Competence framework review for major hazard facility

SITUATION

A key role-holder departure exposed reliance on tacit knowledge. Role coverage and competence were not visible as a single, shared picture, and day-to-day work extended well beyond what job descriptions captured.

WHY IT MATTERED

Leadership needed confidence that critical functions were covered and sustainable through turnover, not dependent on specific individuals remaining in post.

SUPPORT PROVIDED

Role and function mapping across the organisation to reveal true scope, interfaces, and single points of dependency. Role profiles and a competence framework built around critical tasks, with practical assessment criteria and a clear route to strengthen resilience.

Dependency risk became visible. Leadership left with a decision-ready route to improve competence assurance and reduce vulnerability to staff movement.

Role & Function Mapping Critical Task Analysis Competence Framework Design Competence Assessment

ORGANISATIONAL CONTROLS External

Safety Case review of major accident scenarios

SITUATION

It was not clear whether critical hazard scenario controls were adequate and reliable, and that knowledge sat with individuals, not the organisation.

WHY IT MATTERED

Leadership needed defensible evidence that critical controls would hold in the highest consequence scenarios.

SUPPORT PROVIDED

Independent review of controls for the highest consequence scenarios. Assurance activities documented and mapped to make verification, degradation risks and evidence gaps visible. Findings briefed to middle and senior leadership.

Leadership gained a clear, defensible picture of what the plant relied on, where assurance was strong, and where assurance needed strengthening.

Bow Tie Analysis Critical Control Review Assurance Mapping Knowledge Capture Evidence Gap Analysis

If any of these matter to you, it is usually the right moment to talk.

Your Invitation

The first conversation is simply a chance to think out loud, without commitment or consequence.

Where you are now is enough to begin.

[email protected]

When accountability sits with you

Are you sure

Does this feel familiar?

You know this script, and where it can lead.
If it does, it lands with you.

Where do things feel most fragile?