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Top Tips on Commissioning for Social Value

Focus on relationship building to establish a co-productive approach. Understand

each other’s priorities for development and create opportunities for commissioners

and social purpose organisations1 to come together and share ideas.

Understand what the local market wants and what people need now and in the

future. Track how people use their Personal Budget. Consider commissioning social

purpose organisations to find out what local communities want and improve co-

design and co-production of services.

Engage elected members on commissioning for social value.

The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 encourages incorporating social value in

procurement but service specifications need to improve, with a better

understanding of “outcomes”. We need to work together to design processes for

evaluating social value outcomes and build them into procurement processes.

Be honest and decommission services if they are not working. This applies as much

to the social purpose sector as to any other provider.

Social purpose organisations need to market themselves more to promote their

“offer” both to councils but also to individuals.

Think carefully about the current pressure on partnership working. More time and

a co-productive approach to design of the specification might avoid the need for

such prescription.

1 The term “social purpose organisation” refers to organisations and businesses with social and community

objectives which do not distribute profits and includes social enterprises and voluntary and community groups

South West Forum and ADASS organised a workshop for senior commissioners and procurement teams to enable an action learning exercise with senior leaders from the social purpose sector. The aim of the event was to empower commissioners to do things differently by identifying where there is the power to influence and busting some of the myths that exist. The event helped to develop a clearer understanding of the constraints and barriers to commissioning across both the public sector and social purpose sector, as well as providing an opportunity to network and share good practice and to challenge poor or restrictive practice. The workshop highlighted both challenges and opportunities around social value and personalisation and the following document aims to summarise the main points. We hope that it will be useful to both statutory sector and social purpose organisations as a basis for ongoing discussion and debate.

AN ACTION LEARNING WORKSHOP TO SUPPORT “THINK LOCAL, ACT

PERSONAL” : MAY 2012

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The following is a summary of the key themes that emerged from the workshop :

Theme 1 - How to Challenge Political Leadership?

There was general agreement on the need to help politicians understand the value of services. This could be done through highlighting evidence of the impact of policies and flagging up when people’s views are ignored and evidence is not used. Local Commissioners/Authorities are constrained by national policy and social purpose organisations need to make more use of national and regional social purpose infrastructure organisations to inform national politicians. There is a need to be clear on the difference between co-design and consultation and politicians need to be involved from the start. Suggestions included training for elected members/councillors on commissioning policies and a proposal that equality impact assessments should be done by an outside body.

What does social value mean?

There was no one definition but the

following are some of the group’s

ideas:

User-led, user-designed services

Care driven not cash driven

Building resilient communities and

individuals

Promoting reciprocity and self-help

Inclusion, belonging and communities

Enabling people to live as they want

Better use of resources to support

people

Looking at strengths as well as need

Theme 2 : How to support the social purpose sector to be more secure? We should NOT focus on making organisations secure but on making services secure; regardless of who provides them. Commissioners and politicians need to think longer term (multi-year funding) and develop frameworks to help this. The more communication there is about future commissioning intentions, the more secure providers will feel. A focus on outcomes allows for flexibility in outputs over a longer time period. Commissioners need to better understand the social purpose sector so that commissioning avoids unintended consequences. The social purpose sector needs to remember its mission and not be led by public sector agendas and contracts

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Theme 3 : How do we manage bureaucracy?

Certain elements of bureaucracy are essential and they primarily concern finance, equality and audit. Bureaucracy is not a bad thing in itself and can help to avert problems. However, bureaucracy can be a barrier. Technology has, in many cases, made things worse. There needs to be greater efforts to streamline and make processes proportionate to the value of the contract. Ideas include: standardising forms; sharing best practice within organisations e.g. between local authority departments; and using grants. Commissioners also need to take risks – informed by local networks and relationships. Providers need to be better able to challenge.

Theme 4 : How do we gain improved shared

understanding?

Networking opportunities are really important and we need to create space to share views. There also needs to be space for one to one conversations. Potential providers need to be proactive – engaging in local/community opportunities. Commissioners need to publish commissioning intentions in good time, providing consistent information in the same way/place. We need to use IT better – a Twitter account for small organisations e.g. ‘Supply Bristol’ (http://twitter.com/supply_bristol) Blogs can help share information.

Theme 5 : How do we capture/build on

innovation?

We need a different system to cultivate innovation. Effective innovation is something that achieves outcomes and greater freedom needs to be given to providers around how, including building on existing work. We need to recognise the flexibility in procurement legislation and look more creatively at co-production and shared research and development. Payment by results and social impact bonds can potentially support innovation but their structure is not sufficiently understood by either side.

“THE CURRENCY SHOULD

BE CARE AND NOT CASH” (QUOTE FROM THE DAY)

Sharing Understanding

Engaging

Challenging Innovating

Improving Services

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Quotes from the

Day

“We need to

give and take”

“Pleased that

the VCS

acknowledged

as an

excellent

provider”

What are current social value

priorities?

Individuals feel respected and made

to feel part of their community.

People need to be given information

to enable them to make choices

about their lifestyles.

There are lots of skills in the

community and these need to be

harnessed.

‘Social value’ should not just be

equated with saving money and

‘getting more for less’.

There needs to be greater

consistency around jargon and a

shared understanding of what is

meant by ‘outcomes’ and ‘measuring

social value’.

Any new processes for monitoring

and evaluation need to be

proportionate and ensure value for

money.

Theme 6 : How do we improve the co-design of services?

We need more research on whether there is a correlation between time on co-production and the impact on the service over the longer term. Co-design is positive but there are questions around how to get the right people involved and understanding the tipping point from co-design to legal process. Consultation should be on outcomes – not how to get there. Commissioning should start with the need. A co design portal (NESTA model) could improve skills on all sides. But this would need to be resourced correctly especially in terms of time. http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/public_services_lab/coproduction

Theme 7 : How do we improve focus on resource

management NOT financial management?

There are clear benefits to measuring impact in non-financial as well as financial terms and focussing on best value and not just value for money. There is a challenge in putting a financial value on social outcomes and a need for a shared understanding of the “added value” of the social purpose sector. We need a better knowledge and understanding of what provision is already being delivered. The cost of monitoring needs to be factored into the tender/cost of the service; We need to look at setting up pilots for innovation (outside the funding frameworks); setting up forums to consider results/ best practice; and establishing mechanisms to enable social purpose organisations engage with commissioners (e.g. online groups/providers sharing services and resources).

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Theme 8 : What is the effect of

measuring social value?

There needs to be an appreciation of “total value” and a move away from decisions based solely on costs. However, seeking to measure social value does bring some risks: It could deter engagement of

social purpose organisations if the process is too exacting and the definition of what to measure becomes restrictive. It will be important to keep it simple.

There are different local

definitions of social value which presents challenges.

There is a danger that social

value activity is not commissioned elsewhere and is seen as a ‘free’ good which may make it unsustainable for social purpose organisations.

Key similarities and differences between statutory and social purpose organisations

Shared concern that commissioning is a technical process and a shared frustration at systems and processes getting in the way of good commissioning

Different cultures

There is a concern about the focus on best value and efficiency

Different attitudes to risk

There is a desire for a common approach to measuring social value

Different understanding of what is meant by social value

There is a shared commitment to personalisation but shared concerns about the impact of this in practice

Different constraints around action

A shared desire to get rid of waste and duplication

Different commercial realities

A common desire to achieve the same outcomes and an underlying set of shared values

Neither sector is unified

Complicit in retaining services which are “popular”

Both parties have an interest in shaping the market

For more information about the event and a copy of the detailed group discussions please contact Deborah Fisher:

Deborah@southwestforum.org.uk

The event was supported and facilitated by Virginia McCririck: www.peoplelogical.com

South West Forum, The Innovation Centre, University of Exeter, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RN T. 01392 247901 E. admin@southwestforum.org.uk www.southwestforum.org.uk

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