Developing a new strategic commissioning department.

1. Commissioning
Practice Lead
Craig Williams,
12th September 2018
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2. Commissioning Practice
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Successful commissioning is about delivering the right outcomes at the right cost and is
therefore a core part of achieving good value for money.
Working
together
Issues and
Risks
Governance
Training
Programme
Talent
Management
Framework
for internal
Services
WCC

3. Commissioning Strategy – A Blueprint
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The worry among some chief executives was that commissioning was too often a new term
for straightforward procurement, used to put a fresh spin on old ways of working
PROCESS
How work flows through from Strategic Commissioning to Delivery/Finance and
back to Strategic Commissioning
ORGANISATION
The people, structures and capabilities to deliver the process
TECHNOLOGY AND TOOLS
The Technology, systems and equipment required to deliver the process and
support the organization
INFORMATION
The performance data needed to manage the process and help the
organization know it is on track. The knowledge required throughout the
process to be successful
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Working
together

4. Commissioning Practice
Agree how Strategic Commissioners and Delivery Leads will operate and work together in-
line with the agreed RACI* (recognising the nuances and complexities in each Directorate)
Working
together
Task/Activity
Commissioning Area
Strategic
Planning
Procuring
Services
Monitoring
& evaluation
Strategic
Commissioners
R, A C I
Operational
Commissioning
C A C
Commissioning
Support Unit
I R, A A
Delivery I A R
Finance I C, A R

5. Risks
Commissioning with Health
Still challenging in a
number of
“economies”. Is it real
or a distraction?
Provider Market
Increasing weak and
fragmented in a
number of economies
Demand
Commissioning is
demand led and
demand is too high
Skills
So we have the right
skills to ensure
transformed
commissioning is a
success
“It’s more about the analysis of the problem and the issue and the group of services and
taking a really good hard look at whether and how you could deliver it differently to get
the outcome that you want.”
Issues and
Risks

6. Governance for Commissioning
It faces real challenges commissioning in partnership with health and the police
and others, and fundamentally as a sector we are too inward looking…
Commissioning
Board
Deals with the project as it
develops and ensures it delivers
Stakeholder
Reference Group
Opportunity to bring together
Providers, users, etc. in a “co-
produced approach to deliver a
stronger commissioning offer.
Joint
Commissioning
Consider how this can be
appropriate governed. Plymouth
set-up a CIC to do this.
Corporate
Leadership Team
Overall responsibility for the
Commissioning (Project Board) to
ensure delivers Corporate agenda
Governance

7. A Technical Commissioning Programme
The first challenge to local government leaders therefore is to ask why, after a decade
or more trying to do commissioning, we haven’t created a supply of people with the
right skills.
Training
Programme

8. Strategy and Leadership Development
While local government sees commissioning as core to modern management, it also
perceives a significant lack of people with the right skills
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Skills/Competencies
Framework
Development
Programme
1. Commissioning
2. Leadership
Talent
Assessment/
Succession
Planning
Training Needs
Analysis
Talent
Management

9. Internal Services
There is no strategic sector-wide strategy for influencing and shaping supply side markets
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Market
Development
Explore market
capabilities and
benchmark against
internal services
Review Internal
Services
Benchmark current
internal services
Deliver
Deliver the required
outcomes of business
case
Strategy
Determine (via business
case, internal vs
externa;.
Framework
for internal
Services

10. Questions????
we are too inward looking, too concerned with our demand and not sufficiently curious
about how to understand and stimulate markets that can deliver
Working
together