Independence
Pelagram's value rests on one claim: that when we tell an owner whether a delivery holds, we have no reason to say anything other than what we found. Every assurance firm makes that claim. It's worth exactly what the constraints behind it are worth.
So this is the constraint. What we won't take money for, what we do when our interests aren't clean, and what happens when independence can't be maintained. It's public because a commitment nobody can check is a marketing adjective.
Edition 2026.1 · effective 2026-07-27
Our fee doesn't depend on what we find. It isn't a percentage of savings identified, isn't contingent on a delivery passing a gate, and isn't reduced if we report nothing wrong. An assurer whose income improves when the news is good — or when it's bad — is measuring their own incentive.
No referral fees, no commissions, no reseller margin, no revenue share, and no payment for introductions — from the delivery team, from the platform vendors they chose, or from anyone hoping to be chosen. If a tool or a supplier appears in one of our recommendations, we aren't being paid by them, and we'll say so on request.
No equity, no options, no directorship, and no financial interest in the builder or in a vendor whose product is under review. Where anyone at Pelagram has a personal relationship with someone on the delivery team, it's declared before the engagement starts and recorded in the engagement file.
This is the one that takes the most discipline, and it gets its own section below.
Pelagram is primarily an assurance firm, but not exclusively. There are engagements — usually where an owner needs the obligations defined and then needs help actually getting them delivered — where we take a build-side or delivery-partner role. That work is legitimate. It's also the opposite of independent.
Pelagram does not provide independent assurance on a delivery it has a stake in.
On any given programme Pelagram is either the independent assurer or a party to the build. Not both, not sequentially, and not through a separate entity.
Setting the standard of care, writing technical requirements, and specifying acceptance gates are done for the owner, before and outside the build. That work stays available to us on a programme we later join — but the moment we join, we're no longer the party who verifies compliance with it. Someone else has to hold that pen, and we say so to the owner in writing.
The owner is told, at the point it becomes relevant, that Pelagram has a delivery interest and that our reporting on that programme carries it. Nothing we produce on such a programme is presented, described, or marketed as independent assurance.
Working with a delivery firm on one programme doesn't compromise our independence on an unrelated one — but it's a relationship, so it's declared to any owner whose engagement involves that firm, and it goes in the register.
We'd rather write this down than be asked about it in a sales meeting and have to improvise. An assurance firm that claims it has never had a conflict is either very new or not telling you something.
The delivery team can check findings for factual error and have their response recorded alongside. They can't have a finding removed, softened, downgraded, or delayed. If a factual challenge changes our conclusion, we change it and say why.
Severity is assessed against the consequence to the owner's business, on our scale, published in the Rules. It isn't negotiated with the party whose work is being rated.
The builder's or ours. If a finding is material to a go-live decision, it goes to the owner when we find it, not at the next scheduled report.
Where we couldn't verify something — access was refused, evidence didn't exist, the environment wasn't available — the report says so and says what it means. A gap recorded as a gap is worth more to an owner than a gap quietly rounded into a pass.
Before an engagement we check for financial interests, prior work with any party involved, personal relationships, and any competing engagement with a party whose interests differ from the owner's.
Anything found is disclosed in writing before we're appointed, along with what we propose to do about it: decline, ring-fence, or proceed with the conflict on the record. The owner decides, not us.
The duty is ongoing. Conflicts that appear mid-engagement are disclosed within five working days of becoming known.
We end an engagement, and tell the owner why in writing, if:
We don't walk away quietly. Withdrawal is stated, and the reason is stated — an assurer who leaves without explanation leaves the owner with a false sense of a clean bill.
Relationships that could bear on our independence are listed here, with what we won't do while each one stands.
No standing relationships are currently published in this register. Where an engagement's terms permit disclosure, its entry appears here.
The standard we assess against is published in full in the Rules.
Anything that could compromise any of this gets disclosed in writing before you sign. Start with a Sounding.
