A county Local Authority was seeking a training delivery partner to deliver a corporate wide training programme that focussed on excellent commissioning skills. At this time, it was recognised that there was some evidence of good practice and foundations for excellent commissioning practice, but this was inconsistent across the organisation. A review of how services were commissioned across Adult Services, Children services, Public Health and Communities was completed, and it was concluded that a workforce development programme across the ‘People’ commissioning services in the Council would be beneficial.
IPC became a key training delivery partner for this commissioning programme, which includes 4 phases of delivery, over 3 years:
- Phase 1 – An introduction to commissioning event which is mandatory for all officers across the people’s directorate – ensuring everyone has a shared understanding of what commissioning is, what it involves, and start to consider their individual roles within the commissioning cycle.
- Phase 2 – A newly designed commissioning course with accreditation offered by Oxford Brookes University. Set at a level 4 qualification, this course offers an overview of the principles of commissioning and is aimed at those who are new to commissioning or are not directly involved in commissioning but would benefit from understanding how they can impact good commissioning practices such as social workers or other practitioners. This certificate in the Principles of Commissioning is now available via IPC’s course webpage
- Phase 3 – the development and delivery of a series of 1 day in-depth short training courses on specific components of the commissioning cycle to strengthen competency and confidence in particular areas, known as masterclasses. This has included masterclasses focussing on equality impact assessments, outcomes-based commissioning, market shaping, intelligent decommissioning and co-production.
- Phase 4 – to support more senior commissioning officers develop their skills, confidence and leadership approach to good commissioning practice, we are also delivering our popular Certificate in the Commissioning and Purchasing in Public Care, with the option to gain a qualification at a masters level. In addition, placement and brokerage officers have been offered the opportunity to accredit their skills via our Certificate in Care Purchasing and Brokerage, with a level 5 qualification.
The impact:
- Almost 200 officers engaged with at least one phase of the training programme in Year 1
- 94% of participants who completed an accredited training programme achieved the qualification
- The training programme has been received very positively by the participants with 98% of respondents rating the sessions as either outstanding, excellent or good
- By completing a self-assessment survey before the training programme, and again following the completion of an IPC Certificate, we observed that participant’s confidence, knowledge and skills across all elements of the commissioning cycle has increased.
Key learning from participants included:
- Understanding commissioning/ the commissioning cycle better, and making time for all stage of the cycle, understanding the complexity of the process, “the importance of starting the commissioning cycle as early as possible”
- Learning from colleagues’ experiences/discussing ideas with colleagues across teams, “the opportunity to consider how commissioning is approached across different teams and to share practice”
- The importance of communication (across teams, stakeholders), “working with stakeholders is important, and communication is key”
- The importance of outcomes-based commissioning, “the steps to take within my practice to ensure effective outcomes-based commissioning.”
And participants told us the training has helped them achieve:
“As part of an existing recommissioning process, I have made use of many elements of my learning including use of the Logic Model to work back from the outcomes which we want to achieve and the importance of accurate data and analysis at the outset of the commissioning cycle”
“Following a clear project plan, applying facilitation and presentation skills, analysing data, working toward co-production and using the logic model and outcome star.”
“Staff are more connected and have better understanding when working with commissioning colleagues, staff feel they can be more involved in conversations and see how it relates to their work. Some staff it is has given them the curiosity to explore more about commissioning and consider it as a route for career progression”
“I always felt commissioning was a little woolly and unclear, but this is becoming clearer now in terms of our job role and what commissioning is. I personally think our relationships are improving with operational colleagues as well.”
“Everyone on the project has been on the training, so we’re seeing the impact, for example our conversations are reflecting on what we have been taught and heard through the training.”
