Collaborative commissioning - insights from local work

In amidst great political and economic uncertainty, the day-to-day work of commissioning essential public services goes on.

The government signalled a shift in thinking in its 2018 Civil Society Strategy. This acknowledged that the current commissioning system tends to involve a transactional focus on volume and cost, favours large organisations and overlooks the value of small and local organisations. The aim was to promote instead a vision of 'collaborative commissioning' to put all of a community resources and local stakeholders to work in tackling its major challenges.

To help understand and stimulate discussion about what this might look like, this seminar, organised as part of TSRC’s ESRC-funded 'Change in the Making' research project, brings together the results of two recent projects – one by Locality and one by the Government Outcomes Lab - examining local innovation in commissioning public services, and sets this in a wider research context.

Provisional programme: 

2.30pm               Arrival, teas and coffees 
3.00pm               Welcome and introductory remarks 
3.10pm               ‘Powerful Communities, Strong Economies’, Ed Wallis, Locality             
3.30pm               Insights from the ‘Rallying Together’ project, Clare Fitzgerald, Franziska Rosenbach and Tanyah Hameed, Government Outcomes Lab, University of Oxford
3.50pm               Discussant, Rob Macmillan, Sheffield Hallam University
4.00pm               Open discussion and Q&A
4.55pm               Closing remarks and farewell

The event is free to attend, but registration is essential