Warwickshire Compact
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MANAGING REALITY - A REPORT ON THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR'S EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH WARWICKSHIRE'S PUBLIC AGENCIES COMMISSIONING AND PROCUREMENT SERVICES

This report should be of interest to all Third Sector Providers of Health and Social Care and other contracted services with the Public Agencies in Warwickshire.

This report demonstrates that there is much room for improvement in the way services are commissioned and procured from Third Sector Providers in the County.

Good practice guidance issued by various Government Departments and the Compact is included to enable staff in both the Public and Third Sector to better understand what is required and what needs to be implemented in these complex processes.

The report also makes a number of recommendations not only in respect of the Public Agencies but also for Third Sector organsations.

To download a copy of the report please click here.

The Improvement and Development Agency (I&DEA) and the Cabinet Office have recently said that there are eight principles of good commissioning. These are:

• Understanding the needs of users and other communities by ensuring that, alongside other consultees, you engage with the third sector organisations, as advocates, to access their specialist knowledge

• Consulting potential provider organisations, including those from the third sector and local experts, well in advance of commissioning new services, working with them to set priority outcomes for that service

• Putting outcomes for users at the heart of the strategic planning process;

• Mapping the fullest practical range of providers with a view to understanding the contribution they could make to delivering those outcomes

• Considering investing in the capacity of the provider base, particularly those working with hard-to-reach groups

• Ensuring contracting processes are transparent and fair, facilitating the involvement of the broadest range of suppliers, including considering sub-contracting and consortia building, where appropriate;

• Ensuring long-term contracts and risk sharing, wherever appropriate, as ways of achieving efficiency and effectiveness; and

• Seeking feedback from service users, communities and providers in order to review the effectiveness of the commissioning process in meeting local needs.

We need to make sure all commissioners embed these principles into the way they work and then that they then apply them each and every time they are reviewing an existing service or proposing a new one.

When you read the report you will understand why these principles are needed.

But commissioning is only half of the picture. The next task is to clearly set out the principles of good procurement. The task over the next few months is to see how we can all work together to agree what constitutes the principles of good procurement.

If you have ideas that can be condensed into similar short statements please email them to compact@wcava.org.uk

Compact Commission Newsletter

Please click here for the latest edition of Insight, the quarterly newsletter from the Commision for the Compact.

Warwickshire Compact signatory organisations

There are now 57 signatories to the Warwickshire Compact

Find them in the Signatory Register.

Look in the Library - Information and Reports Section - to find out how to become a Signatory Organisation.

National Context and Local Issues

The first “national” Compact between the Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector was established in 1998.

A Compact Secretariat, based at the offices of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ Head Office in London was set up and overseen by the Compact Working Group. The Secretariat’s work is funded through the Home Office Active Communities Unit.

Since then five national Codes of Good Practice have been produced and all Government departments are expected to implement this guidance in their dealings with the voluntary and community sector.

The Government expects there to be a Local Compact in every area and advises that all public agencies, such as Borough, District and County Councils, Primary Care Trusts, Learning and Skills Councils and the Police etc, as well as voluntary and community organisations should all be signatories.

With the Government’s greater emphasis in its modernisation agenda on public sector organisations being much more focused on seeking the views of their service users and the public at large when planning their services, there has never been a greater need for the Compact’s good practice guidance than there is now. It is to hoped that the newly formed organisations, when established, will see the relevance of the Warwickshire Compact to their work and that they will make the effort to become signatories and to implement the good practice guidance of the five codes.

The Compact is all about organisations in both sectors recognising the need to put into action the good practice Compact ways of working that are necessary to strengthen and improve their relationships with their partner organisations for the benefit of local people.

The voluntary and community sector in Warwickshire can, with appropriate support and better partnership working, not only help the public agencies working in the County to achieve their strategic objectives, but also help to ensure that local people with specific needs get more help.