The public sector is obsessed with jargon, and one particular term which is over-used and abused is ‘commissioning’. I have rarely encountered any two organisations which share a common definition, but most commonly, and incorrectly, it is used interchangeably as a term for procurement – perhaps with a softer hue, politically more acceptable or simply more sophisticated-sounding.
For those few who care about such niceties, strategic commissioning is about much, much more than buying services or goods – which is procurement, and thus merely one of many possible means of implementing a commissioning decision.
Commissioning should consist of several activities: understanding the needs, choices, expectations and aspirations of a community (geographic or interest based) and/or service users; determining what outcomes will be required to address these; identifying the options for securing outcomes; matching the available resources when deciding what outcomes to pursue; and consequently deciding what to do and how to do it.
It is only in the above context where ‘procurement’ makes its entrance as being one (but just one) of many potential actions. Others may include: public sector ‘in-house’ provision; some form of co-production and/or co-payment with service users and/communities; grant aid; partnerships with other public sector organisations; or seeking to change public and service user behaviour. This list is not exhaustive but I hope it illustrates why procurement is only one of the options that might be appropriate. Of course when it is the selected option, there are then further options as to whom to procure from – the public, business, social, voluntary and community, co-operative sectors or some hybrid combination of these.
‘Commissioning’ must involve the public – not just service users, as well as staff and their trade unions, public sector partners and potential suppliers. Commissioning is (or should be) about an integrated, systemic whole and not an isolated, bureaucratic, top-down decision-making process.
Strategic commissioning is political and key to good strategic management
Of course, the question arises – is this strategic commissioning, which a few of us have heralded for many years, really anything more than good strategic management and politics? Truthfully, probably not.
Strategic commissioning is clearly a political activity given that it is about making informed choices – of what to do and what not to do; how public services will relate to the public; how to allocate public money; and what to charge the public for public services. It also requires some technical expertise to undertake the analysis and other elements of the overall process. However, ultimately many decisions will be based on political preferences.
Some contend that strategic commissioning also involves market management and development. Clearly, if there is to be choice of supplier and competition in public service supply (particularly where there is either little or no choice currently), then there will need to be some such market management and development – at least in the early days. Commissioners and procurers have to understand the potential suppliers and what they can offer – and indeed on what terms. They may wish to encourage new suppliers. They may believe that competition will drive price down and quality up. They may see it as a stimulant for innovation.
Commissioning councils?
Some local authorities have been announcing their intention to become ‘commissioning councils’. Often the precise meaning of this term is unclear although it normally appears to signal a desire to divest much (though usually not quite all) of existing direct service provision. However, given the definition of commissioning that I have used above, what such councils really mean is that they wish to become procuring rather than delivering councils. Now obviously, this phrase does not sound nearly as attractive as ‘commissioning councils’ – but it is a more accurate and perhaps a more honest description!
Of course, if challenged, every local authority, health commissioning (there’s that word again) group, government department and indeed public body will claim that they wish to act and will act strategically in the manner that I described earlier in this piece as ‘strategic commissioning’. But do they? Indeed – can they? Do they have the right mindset and the necessary strategic capacity? Are they able to commission strategically and / or to procure strategically? The risk is that many may be more concerned with buying cheaply than they are with securing long-term objectives. They are at best tactical but only sometimes strategic. And if they are to seek to overcome this, the last thing that is required is a pile of yet more manuals and sets of guidance.
Commissioning is about mindset and behaviours
Commissioning should be not portrayed as some mystical activity only to be undertaken by cadres of specialist technicians any more than it should be confused with procurement.
Commissioning is not procurement – and procurement is not commissioning. Organisations, politicians and senior managers should stop lying, and deluding both themselves and us (the public). If you are going to ‘procure’ using top-down, bureaucratic diktat where price and process is everything and nothing else really counts – then be honest and say so, but stop calling yourselves ‘commissioners’.
If you want to be ‘commissioners’ and ‘commissioning councils’ and you really want to ‘transform’ service delivery and to meet the aspirations of local people – then it’s really all about mindset and behaviours, and it’s time to act.
Surely what matters is that those responsible for the stewardship of public money and for public services should deliver what the people need and desire, and can afford.
Whether we call this commissioning or something else does not matter, but if we are to be paralysed by process and constrained by over-engineered commissioning we should find another word – and very different behaviours.