House – Public Policy Design
Blog: Deliver the Local Authority’s Capital Porfolio
Over the past few weeks House has looked at:
• How the Local Authority must ensure its operations are outward looking and place-based
• How the Local Authority must signal its intentions to its local economic partners
• The importance of strategic land use and asset management, and a corporate strategic and investment framework that is relevant at subregional, borough and local levels.
• The importance of solid delivery capabilities – getting the strategy right is nugatory if it cannot be delivered effectively and intelligently.
The emphasis has to be on ‘common sense commissioning’ and procurement processes that are sensitive to the needs of a vibrant and mixed economy; and portfolio prioritisation and management, working with the Local Authority’s service areas to realise benefits. The key ingredient is robust and accessible management information.
Common sense commissioning
A lot has been said about ‘strategic commissioning’, and about public services converging around a ‘commissioning model’. Unfortunately, there has not been much action, with the debate reflecting the historically poorly designed markets. The focus should be on guaranteeing contestable markets, aligning commissioning to strategic priorities and a robust, transparent commissioning process. Easier said than done, yes. The magic ingredient is simply having canny commissioners who are able to spot and broker deals across service areas and, increasingly, across organisations. Procurement must be subservient to commissioning needs. And commissioning must be outcome based, otherwise there will be a race to the bottom in terms of cost. Several consultancies we know of are working for free to maintain market share. This is not good for a vibrant market place. One tactic may be to ask voluntary and community sector organisations to co-design the commissioning frameworks, especially in the wider context of the up and coming Open Services White Paper.
House argues that Local Authority should develop an in-house corporate commissioning capability. Corporate in that commissioners are afforded a global view of citizen needs, but one which looks to the services for vital business intelligence – those at the front line will know more about the needs of their service users than the corporate centre. To achieve lock in to the commissioning process, all service plans and strategies must respond to the strategic objectives of the corporate strategic framework. The corporate policy and performance function, with support from the Corporate Management Team, could lead on this.
The sequencing, re-commissioning and decommissioning of capital projects and programmes, and the responsiveness and flexibility in the system, will minimise the risk of sub-optimal returns on investment. A lot of that flexibility will come from the rationalised funding streams (preferably a single funding source), one of the core principles in the investment framework.
Engaging Local Authority service areas
The Local Authority service areas have a key role to play in the commissioning process, as outlined above.
However, if the Local Authority is to deliver large scale capital projects and programmes that are going to explicitly target economic growth, then the delivery of such work has to be co-ordinated and managed by competent delivery teams.
Can this be done in the service areas? Quite possibly. There will be, in all likelihood, pockets of solid commissioning and delivery capability across the Local Authority. If working in isolation from each other, and without a shared vision, this may result in a blinkered perspective on what is needed for the borough and neighbourhoods – particularly if the service strategies are not explicitly responding to the corporate strategic framework. The lack of a global view of commissioning and delivery objectives will result in missed opportunities to meet shared outcomes. It also means that corporate priorities are not addressed in a measurable and manageable way.
There are a number of ways of ensuring the service areas are engaged. The need is for common sense commissioning that works with the service areas, and solid delivery capability. If there is a move to centralising the commissioning and delivery capability, as we advocate, there will be significant culture change as project managers in the services will have to play a changed role in the lifecycle of the project or programme.
The final instalment in this series of blogs will pull these elements together into an integrated approach, one that can can inform a model for targeting private sector growth in the local economy.
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