Welcome to PPL

You will have heard from your employer about the proposed changes to People Plus Independent Living Services. The purpose of this web page is to give you more information about:

PPL
The proposed changes
An introduction to key members of the team
Answers to some of the questions you may have.

At the bottom of this page is also a link to a form to allow you to ask more questions, which can be submitted anonymously, if you wish.

About PPL

PPL stands for People Places Lives. We renamed the business in 2023 when the three existing shareholders completed a management buy-out. Prior to that, we were owned by an American parent company. Going back even further, we were originally called Shop4Support when we were first established in 2008 as a joint venture with the personalisation charity InControl.

Our vision is to be the #1 direct payments solution in the UK, working with health and social care organisations to empower People, strengthen Places and improve Lives by making direct payments easy.

Until recently, we also had a division that built and managed websites for local authorities. Over the last six months we have been separating that business out so that PPL can focus on its singular aim of making direct payments easy.

The biggest part of the PPL business is Virtual Wallet, which is a financial management platform for direct payments that processes approximately £10m per month of direct payments. Roughly half of the people that we support use Virtual Wallet as a self-service tool, with the other half being managed accounts. Our payroll offering was only established two years ago but is growing rapidly. Our smallest business area is our ILA team.

Around 60% of our revenues come from social care clients (local authorities), and 40% from health (ICBs).

The direct payment support services sector is a relatively fragmented market, with many organisations struggling to be profitable without critical mass.

Having separated out our website business, PPL now has a simple strategy is to become the recognised leader in direct payments in the UK, via a combination of organic growth and a small number of strategic acquisitions. Underpinning this strategy:

We have built our own in-house technology platform specifically for direct payments.
We have built a corporate infrastructure focussed around the direct payments sector.

The ILS business brings to PPL:

A strong reputation in the sector, primarily as a result of the skills and dedication of its staff.
An established ILA team (which is in its infancy in PPL).
Scale and experience, especially in payroll (which is still growing in PPL).

We believe the above five factors mean there will be significant synergies when the two businesses are combined.

Our five biggest clients in terms of revenue are: Hampshire & Isle of White ICB, North West London ICB, Hampshire Council, North Central London ICB and Powys Council.

Other council clients include Barking & Dagenham, Bolton, Cornwall, Devon, East Riding of Yorkshire, Edinburgh, Essex, Lincolnshire, Nottingham and Southampton.

Other ICB clients include Banes, Swindon & Wiltshire, Cheshire & Merseyside, Humber & North Yorkshire and Kent & Medway.

David Bowes

Director & Shareholder – David was one of the original founders in 2008. These days he looks after strategy and the finances. David originally trained as a chartered accountant, specialising in corporate finance and mergers.

David lives in Cheshire with his wife and three children, one of whom already has an EHCP. David is currently fighting with the council to get an EHCP for one of his other children. He has recently swapped his main hobby of road cycling for going to watch Leeds United.

Claire Hewitt

Director & Shareholder – Claire joined PPL in 2015 when the software company she co-founded was acquired by PPL. She leads on all client-facing affairs, including marketing and business development.

Claire lives in North Yorkshire and is based in our Richmond office. She has plenty of lived experience - one of her two children has special needs and she employs a PA to support her dad, who is living with dementia over 300 miles away. In her spare time, Claire likes pottering about in her garden, planning future holidays or walking her 3 dogs.

Lee Jones

Director & Shareholder – Lee was one of the original founders in 2008. He oversees all of our technology solutions.

Lee juggles PPL with other business interests outside of PPL, and divides his time between Cheshire (where his two daughters live) and Newcastle. Lee is a keen amateur musician in his spare time.

Chris Hirst

Head of Delivery – Chris joined PPL in 2021, having previously worked at NHS Shared Business Services in their PHB Choices business. He is client-facing and currently manages the ILA team, the onboarding team and the account management team. Since Chris joined PPL, our direct payments business has doubled in size.

Chris currently lives in Rotherham but is in the process of relocating with his wife and three children closer to our Richmond office. Outside of work, Chris is a keen runner and fan of Leeds United.

Karen Winstanley

Head of Support – Karen has been at PPL since day one. She oversees the support, helpdesk, payroll team and DP finance teams. Karen is qualified by experience, have previously been the only contact for all of those areas in the early days.

Karen lives in Wigan with her two dogs. Away from the office, Karen tends her horse and enjoys spending time with her young niece.

Ian Price

Head of Product Development – Ian has also been here since the very beginning in 2008 and previously worked within the Disability and Carers service. He is responsible for the ongoing development of our technology solutions, and oversees Quality Assurance and the team of software developers who work for our development partner based in Poland.

Ian lives in Preston with his wife and three dogs. He has two grown-up children, one of whom (Jake) also works at PPL. He managed a direct payment for a close family member from 2008, giving him first-hand experience of the challenges faced by the people we support. Outside of work, Ian can often be found in his Pico brewery (known as his garage to the rest of us) experimenting with new beer creations.

Alex Heron

Head of Technical Services – Alex had worked with David and Lee previously, and joined PPL in 2014. He is responsible for our internal IT as well as keeping all of our client-facing systems live and secure. Alex lives in Wigan with his partner. He has grown-up children and young grandchildren. Outside of work he can be found taking his two rottweilers on long walks.

PPL is in a secure financial position. We have been profitable in each of the last three years and we have a strong balance sheet.

PPL is privately owned by three shareholders (who are all active in the business). We have no external investors, loans or overdrafts. The acquisition of the ILS business is being funded from cash reserves within the business.

The main systems used by PPL are:

Virtual Wallet – This is ‘proprietary software’, meaning that it is owned by PPL. It is one of the things that sets PPL apart in the direct payments sector. It covers things like the referral process, DP setup, submission of timesheets and payments to PAs and providers. The closest equivalent within ILS is the CashFac system.
BrightPay – This is a third-party payroll system that takes inputs (timesheets) from Virtual Wallet, performs payroll calculations and produces payslips. The equivalent in ILS is Iris. The intention is to use one payroll system across the enlarged business, and we are currently evaluating the offerings from both BrightPay and the Iris Staffology Bureau solutions.
TopDesk – This is a third-party CRM and ticketing system used internally and for interaction with clients and DP holders. The equivalent within ILS is the Eclipse system. No decisions have yet been made, but the intention is to ultimately have one CRM and ticketing system across the enlarged business.
Lloyds Banking – PPL have recently moved from Barclays to Lloyds. One of the main reasons for this was to achieve integration between our Virtual Wallet system and our banking solution, in order to remove inefficiencies from the process. ILS currently utilise NatWest and the intention is for this to be migrated to Lloyds very early in the process.
Xellion – This is the third-party phone system used by PPL. The equivalent in ILS is 8x8. No decisions have yet been made, but the intention is to ultimately have one phone system across the enlarged business.

Our main office is in a modern office block on the outskirts of Wigan in Greater Manchester. The PPL office has 30 individual workspaces and two meeting rooms. The majority of our support, payroll and IT teams are based here.

We have a satellite office on the outskirts of Richmond in North Yorkshire. It can accommodate 10 staff.

The intention is to retain the ILS Blades office in Sheffield, giving us a third base.

The majority of existing staff work 2 days per week in the office (Wigan or Richmond) and the remainder from home. We believe that this is a good balance, but we recognise that this model does not work for all staff, particularly those in an ILA role.

Our formal letter to all affected staff stated that employees’ official place of work will remain the same and the Sheffield office will be retained for the foreseeable future.

About your employment

Our formal letter to all affected staff stated that we are fully committed to the protection of your existing terms and conditions and length of service. That remains the case.

Our formal letter to all affected staff stated that PPL have no current plans for redundancies as part of the transfer. That remains the case.

While it is non-contractual, PPL choose to support the principles of the Real Living Wage and expect to adjust salaries in May's payroll, to reflect the new uplift.

About the process

If you’ve bought a house, you will be familiar with the terms ‘exchange’ and ‘complete’. We have already ‘exchanged’, meaning that all the main terms of the deal are agreed.

We will ‘complete’ when the conditions specified in the agreement are met. The only condition is that we need a certain proportion of ILS’s clients to give consent to the deal. We expect those consents to be received during March, and it is hoped that the deal will ‘complete’ on or around 31 March 2026. At that point PPL will formally take over the running of the ILS business and the ILS staff will transfer to PPL.

PPL will take over the running of the ILS business, and your employment will formally transfer to PPL. A small number of ILS staff will experience some immediate changes (notably the switch from processing payments via NatWest to Lloyds). However, our intention is to (largely) run ILS as a separate business for the first few months whilst we evaluate and refine our integration plans. Accordingly, it is likely that it will feel like ‘business as usual’ in the early weeks and months.

The intention is to ultimately integrate the two business together. We have developed a three-phased plan:

Phase 1: Now until April/May 2026: We will largely operate as two separate businesses for the first few months. The exception to this is that the switch from NatWest to Lloyds will occur almost immediately. During this period, the IT teams will be working behind-the-scenes to migrate the main systems used by ILS over to PPL, whilst the leadership team works on refining our integration plans for Phase 2 and 3.

Phase 2: May 2026 – September 2026: The main objectives during this period are to migrate from CashFac to Virtual Wallet and start the move towards one universal payroll system. Our new combined organisational structure will start to take shape during this phase.

Phase 3: October 2026 – June 2027: We will complete the remaining integration strands during this period, including completing the payroll system migration, migrating to one CRM/ticketing system, migrating to one phone system and harmonising the staff T&Cs and rewards structure. The plan is to have completed all integration activity and be operating as one business from June 2027.

For the first few months, the intention is to largely operate as two separate businesses. There will therefore be minimal changes to the current organisational structure. Those ILS managers who are ‘orphaned’ (because their manager did not transfer to PPL) will report to Beth Finch during this period, who will join PPL’s Senior Leadership Team from day one.

During phase 1 of our plan, the leadership team will be evaluating and refining our integration plans for Phase 2 and 3. This will include developing a ‘to be’ organisational structure.

The PeoplePlus name has not transferred to PPL. Over the first few months, we will work to re-brand the ILS business as People Places Lives. Alongside this, there are some tweaks that we want to make to the PPL brand around product naming and website design.

In the meantime, ILS staff can refer to the business by using the People Places Lives logo or name, and adding the words ‘the new home for PeoplePlus Independent Living Service’.

Yes! All of our staff can choose two items of PPL-branded clothing. Those who wish to purchase more can do so, and we subsidise 50% of the cost of this. We will sort out the order in the first few weeks.

Until the deal completes (expected to be on or around 31 March 2026), you should simply carry on doing the great work that you have always done, in the same manner.

You can speak to your normal manager, or you can use the form below to submit a question. It can be anonymous if you wish, and we will publish all the questions and answers here over the coming weeks.