Commission incomplete: exploring the new model for purchasing public services from the third sector

Abstract

The concept of commissioning has risen in prominence

Social enterprises and public health improvement in England: a qualitative case study

“…This is a finding that echoes debates about commissioning public services from the third sector more generally, which suggests that in practice, service provision may be more 'business as usual' than radically different. What happens in practice is a contingent outcome of local networks as much as policy drivers 16,17 , and public health practitioners working within social enterprises may not be doing anything different in practice from those in other types of organisation 18 . Despite its limited geographical scope, and reliance on reports of practice, the findings of the present study document a growing role for social enterprises in public health provision, with risks and potential benefits that need further exploration at the level of population health.…”

The contribution of the voluntary sector to mental health crisis care: a mixed-methods study

“…CVS8 Similarly, the issues described are often less of a systemic nature and seemingly more down to local instances of what could be considered to be poor practice, or the sense that quite simply poorand ultimately counterproductivedecisions are being made: 'cutting their nose off to spite their face because of contracts based on price, for which they have then got a worse service than they would have done for not much extra money'. As has been noted in previous research on commissioning, 123 these issues are often of a longer-term nature, for instance when grants pre-date the advent of more contemporary commissioning processes:…”

The commissioner’s perspective: the lived realities of commissioning children’s preventative services in England and the role of discretion

“…There have been multiple rationales presented for commissioning from a focus on increasing choice, devolving decision making to local areas, increasing public services efficiency whilst making them more accountable, transparent and opening services to a wider set of providers (HM Government, 2011). Further rationales have included increasing value for money, encouraging increased joint working and information sharing, as well as creating shared and pooled budgets (Rees at al, 2017). The arrival of the Coalition government in 2010, intensified a commitment to use commissioning as a mechanism to reform and reshape the landscape of public services (Rees, 2014), and subsequently drove forwards a 'commissioning agenda' principally, as outlined in the Open Public Services White Paper, a heightened commitment to outsourcing public sector services and a commitment to the concept of 'payment by results' (HM Government, 2011).…”

“…In short, the landscape of commissioning remains contested, and has been summarised by various actors in different ways (Body & Kendall, 2019;Bovaird et al, 2012;Rees et al, 2017). As a result, considerable variation in how this process has been adopted remains, leading to confusion in both theory and practice (Macmillan, 2013;Miller & Rees, 2014;Rees et al, 2017), alongside differential emphasis applied to the different parts of the commissioning cycle (Rees, 2014). Whilst the term commissioning has been adopted widely in discourse, establishing a single definition remains problematic.…”

“…According to Miller and Rees (2014) 'policy portrays Commissioners as the strategic overseers of a mixed economy of welfare, using their purchasing and influencing power to ensure that the publicly funded system is shaped to achieve the required outcomes within the resources available' (p.145). Nonetheless, as the 'lynchpin of the commissioning approach' (Rees et al, 2017), there is limited research into the role of Commissioners, particularly as the individuals who are responsible for these processes and are tasked with the coordination and management of the commissioning process. Often discussed in the literature in homogenous terms, the Commissioner becomes an apparent singular form, at time appearing to lack individual agency, voice and power, whilst working in multidimensional situations governed by market forces, and commonly responding to significant social need, as in the example of children's preventative services.…”