Schools commissioning

Schools are at the heart of achieving better outcomes for children, young people and their families. For the vast majority of children and young people, school is the one service that they are in contact with more than any other. This means that commissioning decisions that affect schools and the commissioning that schools do themselves are crucial to achieving better outcomes.

Since the Commissioning Support Programme was launched we have worked with local authorities, headteachers and others to understand the support they need. 

Working with the sector we have identified the following aspects of commissioning that are most crucial to schools:

• Supporting Local Authorities to engage with Schools Forums & school networks.
• Commissioning school improvement & services for schools.
• Locality & cluster based commissioning.
• Supporting an effective mixed schools economy.
• Developing focused approaches for LAs and schools for improved outcomes and efficiency.
• Developing a whole area strategy.

We are supporting these aspects of commissioning though our bespoke support to all 152 local authority areas and through working with specific groups of key individuals, both regionally and nationally. This has  included one-to-one support for groups including  headteachers, Commissioning Champions, local authority Directors of Children’s Services and Chief Executives to help them understand how a commissioning approach consistent with the principles of understand, plan, do, review can be applied to commissioning and schools and contribute to improving outcomes.

Applying an effective commissioning approach around schools is even more important at a time of reduced budgets in the public sector. Our Outcomes and Efficiency methodology and associated offers of support is also very relevant to putting in place effective commissioning.

Support for commissioning and schools is one of three priority areas for the Commissioning Support Programme that we have identified through our work with commissioners. Our other two priorities are commissioning and the voluntary and community sector and commissioning for Outcomes and Efficiency.

Take a look at our extensive resources on schools commissioning here.

If you'd like to get in touch about any of the information on these pages, please email us.