SWBC involved in 'Commissioning for Outcomes' framework
SWBC has been actively involved in a short term City wide Commissioning Task and Finish Group, established in response to concerns being raised by the VCF sector regarding:
- The further development of commissioning, largely replacing a grant based relationship between public bodies and the VCF sector
- Some of the current experiences of procurement and tendering; the VCF sector raised concerns regarding experience and skills of both commissioners and VCF organisations, and concerns around open opportunities to ‘sell’ the added value of their work.
- A joint desire to support the development of intelligent commissioning, to develop innovative services which met the needs of local people and communities.
Former SWBC Director David Qualter was sponsor for the ‘commissioning for outcomes’ strand as part of the overall group. Key recommendations from this strand include;
- Moving towards commissioning for outcomes, using a common framework across the system- it is recommended that the Outcome Star is used and developed.
- The focus on the measurement of outcomes by commissioners should be commensurate with the length and nature of the contract and be realistic.
- VCF sector should adopt, and commissioners recognize, a method of measuring social return on investment.
- Forecasting ‘added value’ and outcomes should be explicitly built into the procurement process.
Please click on the links below to download the reports for full details of the groups work:
Commissioning task force final report
Workstream report 1 - commissioning for outcomes
Workstream report 2 - commissioning for transformational services principles
Workstream report 3 - market development principles and good practice framework and checklist
Workstream report 4 - skills and competancies final report
