160 people attended the Voluntary and Community Sector ‘Engage’ event at St Mellion to see the launch of a new ‘peninsula’ framework for the commissioning of services for children, young people and families. Diverse groups from Cornwall’s voluntary and community sector were present alongside colleagues from Torbay, Devon and Plymouth to see the document launched and to offer first impresssions of its ‘eight principles for good commissioning.’ At the final plenary session delegates responded by calling for:
- A greater consistency of commissioning processes
- Better support for small vcs groups, for example through more championing and mentoring from larger charities
- The recognition that grants still played a key role alongside tenders
- Collaborative approaches between the public and third sectors to managing risk and ‘sharing’ contract management
- Good practice champions within commissioning teams
- That ‘make or buy’ decisions (i.e. whether to stick with in-house services or to go out to tender) were made on the basis of a full cost model so that proper comparisions could be made, and that these decisions were as transparent as possible.
We were there, and it was great to talk to our colleagues from the Pre-school Learning Alliance, YMCA, YWCA, CN4C, Young People Cornwall, Bishops Forum, Carefree and many more! Here is a link to the document for you to review and comment on. peninsula_third_sector_commissioning_framework1
