Commissioning is the cyclical set of activities that looks at how we can make the most efficient use of available resources (be they money or people or buildings) to meet the needs of the public.
In many cases it takes more than one agency to provide all the services vulnerable children & families need to support them. In these cases, we need to develop Joint Commissioning to make sure all those agencies work together in the best way to meet the needs of the people who use their services. You may have heard of a few different commissioning models - for example Every Child Matters, or 
The Institute of Public Care Model (132KB) but all follow the same 4 basic phases:
1. Analyse
What do your service users think of current services and where could they be improved? Is there unmet need or a lack of capacity in current services. Who isn't able to access services they need currently, and why not? What data do you have to indicate how current services are performing and what outcomes are being delivered?
2. Plan
How best can needs be met? Where are the gaps in the system, and what can we do about them? Have other areas successfully tackled similar problems in a way we can learn from? What needs to change for current services to better meet the needs of young people and families and how can we use existing resources most effectively?
3. Do
Once we have analysed all our data and research in the steps above, we should have a good idea of the changes we need to make to services to improve them and make them as accessible as possible. If the services we have currently are unable to meet these changes we may have to openly tender for new ones, or change the working arrangements of providers if they can be adapted efficiently.
4. Review
Services will constantly need to evolve and change to meet changing health, social and economic needs. Once we have reconfigured services we need to constantly review whether they are delivering the improvements in outcomes that we expected. If they are, we must understand why this is and use it to help inform the way we plan other services, and if not we need to analyse further to see where improvements can be made.
If you are new to commissioning the Staffordshire Children's Trust Joint Commissioning Framework 2010 ( 1.14mb) helps explain all this in detail.
We have also developed a Staffordshire Children's Trust Joint Commissioning Toolkit 2010 ( 877kb) that you can use to check your own practice and develop knowledge. These are currently being rewritten as slimmer, more concise documents for 2011 and should be ready by late spring 2011.
Useful Link:
The Institute of Public Care
If you require any information about the Children & Young People's Joint Commissioning Unit please contact:
Martyn Baggaley
Children & Young People's Joint Commissioning Unit Manager
Email: martyn.baggaley@staffordshire.gov.uk
Telephone: 01785 278710.
Last Modified:
07/02/2011 14:13:40
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