Cultural Commissioning Programme
Introduction
·
help the arts and cultural sector develop
skills and capacity to engage in cultural commissioning
·
enable commissioners to develop
awareness and know-how of commissioning arts and cultural organisations to deliver
public service outcomes
·
encourage relationships between
cultural providers and commissioners
·
influence policy makers and raise the
profile of this area of work
There are a series of workshops taking place across the
country. These run over a four day period. The first two days are an
introduction to cultural commissioning (which I attended) and a further two days looks to create wider
understanding of how you can create greater
understanding of how you show impact on public service outcomes. I plan to go to this next year.
The first two days took place at the new Library in
Birmingham and gave an excellent overview of this other world. The other
delegates were a mixture of arts organisation,
library services and cultural officers.
At the event we went through the commissioning cycle: key
area is that procurement is not commissioning (its part of it)
.
We also were told about The Joint Strategic Needs
Assessment. Local authorities and
local health services are required to undertake Joint Strategic Needs
Assessments of health and well-being. This work is a continuous process of
assessment designed to inform decisions made locally about what services are
commissioned. The core aim is to improve the public's health and reduce
inequalities.
We then discussed whether this would lead to more money for
the arts. The broad areas were:
·
Possibly and probably but the arts organisations
have to be ready
·
Many variations, developments and opportunities
to it
·
About relationships rather than transactions
·
About better outcomes
·
About seeing it from a commissioning perspective
·
About strategic conversations, profile and
positioning
There was then a discussion as to whether this would lead to
lesser art and the answer is no – the commissioner is looking for outcomes and
not necessarily how you get there.
We then moved to a more health focus and the main drivers of
mental health and well being, older people and places based commissioning. The
drivers are:
·
Reforms in health and social care
·
Inequality
·
Demographics and lifestyle changes
·
Less
public money
·
Transformation in public services
There was then a look at the health and social care act 2012
the outcomes are:
·
Outcome focus
·
Abolition of PCT and Strategic Health
Authorities
·
GP’s having health commissioning role through
Clinical Commissioning Groups
·
Creation of Healthwatch
·
Changes for Local Government transfer of Public
Health, Health and Well Being Boards and strategies
·
More competition between providers
Before we went to the Care Act of 2014. This looked at:
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Promoting individual well being
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Preventing need for care
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Reducing needs that already exist
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Person centred decision making
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Importance for carers
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Personalised plans
·
Using totality of local resources
We then looked at The Marmot review
There was then a chance to meet a commissioner, these were
described as:
·
Commissioners, directors and service managers,
clinical commissioning groups
·
Schools and locality based services
·
Individuals with personal budgets
·
Support functions
·
Governance functions
And these are the outcomes:
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Primary intervention
·
Secondary intervention
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Keeping people independent
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Personalisation through choice and control
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Reducing health inequalities
·
Wellbeing – social networks and capital
volunteering
·
Addressing soclal determinants of health
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Educational attainment
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Raising aspirations self esteem and confidence
·
Narrowing the gap
·
Think Family
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Improved physical and mental health
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Economic prosperity
·
Local identity and sense of pride
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Safe and resilient communities
·
Social inclusion
And in business terms
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Evidence of impact on outcomes
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Value for money
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Reduced dependency on other services
·
Safeguarding
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Innovation
·
Community engagement
In day two we had a practical example of bidding for
funding.
There was a session on full cost recovery and showing the
benefit of arts and culture.
Overall the key lessons I learnt were:
·
That commissioning comes in all shapes and sizes
·
That its all about outcomes
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That you need to develop time to make it work
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That its not a replacement for core funding
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That its not for everyone
