VAC is an independent grant-aided voluntary organisation that exists to
support, develop and promote voluntary and community activity in Camden.
CONTRACT & COMMISSIONING
Supporting Camden’s
Voluntary and Community Sector
to respond to the challenges of
a commissioning culture.
Conference Report – May 2007
CONTENTS
1.
INTRODUCTION
…
…
p1
2.
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE …
…
p2
3.
COMMISSIONING - A NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE …
p5
4.
COMMISSIONING - A LOCAL PERSPECTIVE
…
p8
5.
UNDERSTANDING COMMISSIONING
…
p11
6.
MEASURING SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUE
…
p17
7.
DEVELOPING PARTNERSHIPS AND CONSORTIA …
P20
8.
CONCLUSIONS AND ACTION PLANNING
…
P25
9.
APPENDICES
…
P36
(i)
Conference Programme
(ii)
Event Evaluation Summary
(iii)
For Further Information
1. INTRODUCTION
Commissioning is becoming increasingly the way in which
statutory funders want to resource services provided by
the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS). The shift
towards commissioning has brought with it a number of
challenges for the sector, and in Camden several
innovative projects have been developed to support VCS
organisations to respond to these. These projects have
focused on three key challenges:
• How to measure the impact of the sector’s work -
in a way that really captures the added value of what
VCS organisations do, and can convince funders of the
particular benefits of funding them.
• How to develop effective partnerships and
consortia - to enable organisations to compete
within a framework that might otherwise exclude
smaller groups.
• How to influence commissioning processes and
criteria – for instance ensuring that the added value
of the VCS is built into specifications so that VCS
organisations are not disadvantaged by the process.
Early in 2007 Voluntary Action Camden (VAC) and its
partners began to discuss ways of disseminating the
learning from these local projects. These discussions
resulted in the idea of a conference to help VCS groups
explore commissioning challenges; learn more about the
wor