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One of the complications that many professionals are noticing is the difficulty in balancing the perspectives of partnership working against individual organisation needs. How do you ensure that everybody is working within the same set of rules, whilst also allowing for the rules to be varied as necessary by the individual partners?
Procurement is a very good example of this. Each partner will have its own rules, such as: Councils have Standing Orders and Financial Regulations; Primary Care Trust’s work within the World Class Commissioning programme; and each individual organisation within the private and third sectors will have their own procedures (if they actually have something). How do you ensure that the Children’s Trust agree a set of rules that encompass all of these, especially as many probably contradict each other?
In Bromley we have tried to tackle this. Through our Commissioning Aims, Principles and Processes document we have develop a set of core ‘rules’ that have been endorsed by our Trust Board. We are also using our stakeholder group for commissioning, the Commissioning Reference Forum, to then try to share the message. For example, at the last meeting in April, the Forum received a presentation from a representative from the Department for Children, Schools and Families on a general topic: “what is good procurement”? For more information on this group, visit: www.bromley.gov.uk/community/youngpeople/trust/About+Trust/Commissioning+Reference+Forum+-+Summary+of+Events.htm
I, and many of my colleagues, would be interested to hear how other Children’s Trusts are managing this balance, not just in procurement, but across the whole commissioning cycle.
London Borough of Bromley/Bromley Children and Young People Truste: michael.watts@bromley.gov.uk
Hi Michael
This looks very interesting. I have started to draft some principles (following consultation with anumber of stakeholders, providers as well as commissioners) for the procurement part of commissioning which I hope will be the basis of a discussion across partner organisations, and eventual agreement for all those in the Children's Trust. However, I would be really interested in seeing a copy of your document if possible. I couldn't locate it easily on the link that you have given and wondered if you could email it to me please? naomi.compton@derbyshire.gov.uk
Thanks!
Naomi
Hi Naomi
You can view the document on the CSP website on the following page: http://www.commissioningsupport.org.uk/cs/media/p/202.aspx
I hope that this helps - if you need any more info, please let me know.
Many thanks
Michael
I have posted an example of a sub-regional concordat, sounds grander than it actually is. The guiding principles are listed mid way through the doc - I have found the interaction with EC Law facinating especially the form of words used to describe what an agreement is; When working on these issues some years ago I happened by chance to learn that most of the LA's ( 27 in total) had agreed and mandated haromisation in all area's except health and social care - (largely because getting a decent economic baseline of activity was problematic) it maybe worth seeing if similar exists where you are. It was really empowering to know that all CEO's had signed off on the approach. Perhaps, even more important now as the Total Place pilots are developed.
