Banking-grade senior expertise — eight years in data protection, most recently at a top-five UK bank — applied to UK SMEs through a single-consultant practice run with deliberate care. Led by Varnham, supported by carefully-deployed AI tooling.
For the work where judgement matters — the granular gap analysis, every advice note, every signed assessment — the substantive interpretation is personally mine. Eight years in data protection, most recently inside a top-five UK bank, applied directly to your circumstances. The framework that produces your free compliance snapshot is one I designed and maintain; the snapshot itself is generated automatically from your responses.
Maintaining records of processing, drafting first-pass artefact structure, monitoring regulatory developments, generating the structured compliance snapshot from your assessment responses, assembling audit-ready documentation. The work that is mechanical, repeatable, and weighs heavily on a sole practitioner — handled by carefully-deployed AI tooling within frameworks I design, validate, and maintain.
A data protection consultancy that uses AI must be exemplary in its own AI deployment. The banking-sector experience is precisely what qualifies the consultancy to use these tools safely and lawfully — and to advise clients on doing the same. The substance and the operating model are accountable to the same person.
Most engagements begin with a free assessment of where you stand. From there, the path is structured so that each step is the right step — and the work that needs to happen, happens.
From the gap analysis, organisations that benefit from continuing engagement move to a retained DPO arrangement. Three retainer tiers are available, distinguished by the hours included each month. Standalone work — a one-off DPIA, a breach response, a training pack — is also available at the published hourly rate.
Engagements come from organisations across many sectors. Three are named here because the consultancy carries verified, hands-on experience that goes beyond regulatory familiarity — the kind of depth that comes from operating inside the sector, not from advising it from outside.
Eight years in the data protection function, most recently inside a top-five UK bank — FCA-ICO dual reporting, banking-grade DSAR handling, breach response under regulatory scrutiny, complex international transfer governance. The depth informs every engagement with a regulated financial services client, and it informs the consultancy's standards across all sectors.
Trustee at Derwent Rural Counselling Service, a Derbyshire-based therapy charity. Direct experience of how data protection obligations land at trustee level — beneficiary data, funder data sharing, safeguarding records, vulnerable-data governance. Charity work is approached from inside the sector, not from outside it.
School governor at Whittington Green School. Direct experience of how parental consent, safeguarding records, SEN data sharing, and statutory data sharing with local authorities work in practice — including under the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code. Education work is approached with the operational reality understood.
Engagements from organisations in any other sector are welcome — including healthcare, professional services, technology, retail, and manufacturing. Where the work is substantive, the depth is built around your specific obligations. More on how sector-specific work is approached →
Most engagements begin with the free compliance snapshot — that route is on the assessment page. If you have a general query, a specific question, or want to discuss something that doesn't fit the snapshot route, the intake form is the way in.
No automated marketing. No follow-up sequence. No surprises.
The snapshot is the entry route for compliance assessment. The intake form is for general queries — referrals, retainer interest, specific questions, anything that doesn't fit the snapshot route.