Commissioning Overview
Why is the Skills Academy focusing on Commissioning?
As the landscape of care provision changes, commissioning of social care is becoming much more commonplace as a method of delivering care and commissioning skills will be critical to ensure that the workforce is well equipped to do this. One of the Skills Academy’s specific remits is a focus on improving commissioning skills within the sector. Our work on commissioning provides an opportunity to work within the wider context of Personalisation to ensure that people who use services and their carers drive the commissioning process.
What has the Commissioning programme delivered so far?
An opening workshop was held in central London in March, bringing together employers, existing commissioners and service-users to guide the establishment and focus of the project. The workshop successfully identified what commissioning means to people working in this area of the sector, emphasising particularly that commissioning is a lot more than purchasing. The workshop also looked at the underpinning skills needed for commissioners to be effective in their roles. It was agreed that to be successful, local commissioning must have a clear purpose with a compelling overall and overarching strategy, vision and design, to become more than the sum of operational parts.
The participants from the Workshop have formed a commissioning reference group to support the development of the project. The members of the group include commissioning managers, directors, strategic commissioning managers and developers, commissioning officers and directors and consultants from small, medium and large private employers as well as service users.
The National Skills Academy for Social Care has selected two companies to deliver both projects. Spirit Evaluation will deliver the case studies project. The National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTI) will develop the e-learning modules project.
What is the Commissioning programme doing right now?
A process is being established between the Skills Academy and Spirit Evaluation and the National Development Team for Inclusion to make sure that the development of both projects is as efficient as possible. The meeting established the need to be flexible, to respond to the information that is available. It was also agreed that the Skills Academy and Spirit Evaluation will be in communication throughout the process. This will allow the Skills Academy to ensure that the projects are moving in the right direction and that everybody is thinking on the same page.
It was decided that a beneficial use of resource would be to use the Skills Academy’s website to obtain information such as case-studies and examples of commissioning. We are currently seeking any practical examples of good practice in commissioning. It was agreed that lessons can be learnt from examples of good and bad practice of commissioning. For example, case studies will be useful to illustrate how people listen, gather and interpret information as well as how a difference in commissioning is really achieved.
What is the next step for Commissioning?
The Reference Group agreed that an interactive web facility, enabling online discussion and communications would be ideal as the vehicle for the project’s outputs. This facility will be designed with the intention of enabling sharing of good practice, supporting problem solving together, providing information and access to sources of advice, training and help.
This facility will be developed to be directly accessible to all those who might benefit from it, not just those who see themselves as service users in a formal sense. We hope that this facility will enable people’s experiences to be captured and become a powerful source of stories and information with which to influence local leaders. The facility will enable collaboration across localities and support capacity building for user- and carer-led organisations.
How can you get involved in the Commissioning programme?
Please use the email below to find out more about how you can be part of the project.
Find out how you can help us by providing examples of commissioning practice.