The government needs to create a market for provision if it is going to hand over delivery of public services to independent providers through outcome based payments.
The Government will soon publish a white paper that will set out its direction on delivery of public services.
The Institute published a short introduction to some of the difficult problems faced in the design of new commissioning arrangements in December. On 20 January, the 2020 Public Services Trust held an event to launch their toolkit for commissioners.
New markets could be used as an opportunity to give providers scope to join together contracts where similar services are being provided to similar users with similar needs.
Commissioning, done smartly, could end the need for separate silo based contracting in health, employment, reoffending and skills. It provides an opportunity for commissioning to succeed where the machinery of Whitehall often fails – to allow single providers to offer services to support a range of departmental outcomes to individual users.
By agreeing on common approaches across Whitehall, there is the potential for services that are more user friendly and better value for money.
Better commissioning
To take advantage of this opportunity, Whitehall needs to become a better commissioner. It should look carefully at:
- New skills. This is a complex task that requires understanding of the needs of end users, the capacity of the market and contract management. Whitehall should identify the specific skills it requires in commissioning and build teams to focus solely on this task;
- Co-ordination. Whitehall departments should, as far as is possible, agree to have a common level for commissioning and a common approach to contracting, tendering and payment schedules. The easier it is for bidders to weave together contracts, the broader the scope and the lower the transaction costs in developing markets; and
- Transparency. This is a learning process. To make sure that success can be tracked, independent providers should be obliged to provide data and information to create adequate opportunity to evaluate and ensure value for money. A light touch, minimum data set should be agreed across Whitehall to allow comparisons to be made between different providers.
- staging payments to create certainty in the market before outcomes are delivered
- creating capacity by transfer of public services into the private or voluntary sector
- generating financial support for small organisations wishing to gear up services.
- Topic
- Public services