I fell into commissioning in 2008 in a role in south London, two years before austerity hit. On my first day I was handed a spreadsheet which detailed all the tasks I would need to do and when. It was a long list. I wasn’t given any training, but my colleagues were skilled at their work and I learnt mainly from them. We had time, we had enough money and I believed I was doing a good job. I was working in youth and play, but not once was I encouraged to talk to a young person.

Then in 2010 austerity measures came into force and meant that our Youth and Play budget was decimated. At the same time I was given the life changing opportunity to work with Lucie Stephens (now an Ideas Alliance director too) who was at that time, based at the New Economics Foundation. Together we tested out a new way of commissioning which embedded co-production throughout the process and focused on what people wanted to achieve rather than the activity delivered on the ground. At last, I had come to realise, I needed to talk to and collaborate with young people.

Fifteen years on and we see the commissioning landscape continuing to slowly shift to this approach. More and more commissioners are seeking new ways to do things as ever tightening budgets and increased demand is causing a perfect storm, and it is no longer good value for money or people to drive a commercially focused commissioning approach. However, commissioning remains one of the greatest levers in the health and social care sector to influence change. 

Lucie and I still use the foundations of the work we developed together all those years ago, when supporting commissioners now. Our main focus is to help them to align the purpose of the services they procure, with the purpose of the people through collaborative commissioning. The outcomes that services work to, belong to the people they support and without those people in the room helping to design and deliver the support offer alongside, services will continue to misalign and only reach people who are easy to reach. 

We help people think beyond services as the solution. Opening up the landscape to consider all the good stuff that is going on already – community, private business, networks and neighbourhoods – building on what is working and what should be grown, rather than only focusing on needs and issues and plugging the gaps.

We are teaching commissioners to move away from competitive tendering, tightly defined specifications and performance frameworks that focus on bean counting. And as one of our directors is the pioneering Linda Hutchinson who introduced alliance contracting to the health and social care sector, we now have a proven approach to bringing collaboration across a system between commissioners, providers and people with lived experience endorsed by a legal relational agreement. 

We have had the enormous privilege to work alongside some of the great progressive commissioners in the country: eople who have often struggled to be heard, let alone allowed to change things. Fundamentally we help those lone wolves be brave, showing them the practical steps to making things happen and giving them the confidence to know it can work, when faced with a barrage of risk aversity and reluctance. We are seeing the commissioning landscape shift slowly as more people take up the co-production and collaborative commissioning banner. Looking into 2024, we are so excited about the future and what can be achieved. We will share the weight of the banner with you as we help to drive the movement to change.