Commissioning myopia

When you mention commissioners do you think of the long lost empire or people who open doors in a posh building? You should be thinking of neither, says Doug Forbes

With over £110bn of services commissioned by all parts of government, maybe its time to take a wider view of the importance of this function.

Where else would you have so much being done without a set of professional standards and education to ensure success? Commissioners are therefore voting with their feet and have set up the Institute of Commissioning Professionals as a not for profit company limited by guarantee to establish standards and develop qualifications.

The scope of this new organisation is extremely wide, from broadcasting and the media, to social care and schools, health to further education, offender management and charities, legal aid to benefits, universities to engineering, environment and housing and children’s to adult services.

Commissioning has been around for some time in specialist areas. For instance, the BBC has been using commissioning for years to deliver world class programming. So the challenge of wider application is how to use these principles to deliver what people really need in a range of other areas.

The consultation documents are clear. You want quality results and are willing to pay. How do you get them? By using commissioning properly and engaging with charities and the voluntary sector , improved professionalism will result. It is important to recognise that currently delivery is not homogeneous and part of the process will be for the weaker organisations to learn from the stronger ones. By playing their part , commissioners on the ground will be able to foster improvement. This may involve taking some tough local decisions in order to improve quality.

So why don’t existing professional bodies just add a commissioning module and brand their members commissioners? It is a fundamental element of the IoCP’s training that members will understand the practice areas being commissioned. Understanding encourages partnership working and an ability to build upon success. Unlike procurement officers, who tend to focus upon procurement efficiency, commissioners will act strategically and focus upon effectiveness. They will still have to understand market planning, procurement, accounting, quantitative techniques, market development, economics, soft skills and social marketing. This was reinforced by Care Services minister Ivan Lewis a t the national commissioning conference in Birmingham in July when he said: "Councils will need to adopt a much more strategic approach than they have previously. They will need to gather improved intelligence about purchasing decisions that individuals choose to make to inform their role in commissioning strategically and work closely with providers, including those in the Third Sector, to shape and develop the market so that it can better deliver people's needs as well as their choices and aspirations". 

So commissioners will need to be able to accurately predict the amount and type of service that people will want in the future. They will need to use this intelligence to help providers plan their service developments, to encourage providers to take risks and be innovative and to encourage more providers into the market especially those from the voluntary, community and faith sectors.

So where do we find the new model commissioners? Where are the experts who know what individuals want, the service constraints, understand the finance, market making, social marketing and procurement, empathise with users, monitor and evaluate the results and set up the new services in order to deliver outcomes?

With rumours of staff being leisure assistants one day and commissioners the next, maybe there is a need for improved professionalism.

At senior levels , the market is finding some difficulty in finding qualified staff. There are instances of PCTs paying over £80 ,000 a year for a director. This certainly provides an incentive , but how are they qualified? How many organisations would pay that for someone who has no specific qualifications? On the other hand , there is evidence that some commissioners are being downgraded under equalities and single status reviews due to a lack of formal qualifications.

Our view is clear. Commissioning in the past has gone beneath the radar. Formerly , there has been a rather short sighted view and an emphasis on procurement efficiency. Now commissioning is clearly on the radar , the IoCP is determined to take action and to start to improve matters by encouraging leading commissioning professionals to join.

Doug Forbes is director of the Institute of Commissioning Professionals.

T: 020 8886 2462

E: info@iocp.co.uk

doug.forbes@commissioning.org.uk

“Unlike procurement officers, who tend to focus upon procurement efficiency, commissioners will act strategically and focus upon effectiveness”