‘What is the impact of commissioning
on
Services in the voluntary and
community sector in Lancashire?’Bren Cook
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment for the
degree of
Master of Arts in Community Leadership
April 2015
Plagiarism
I understand the nature of plagiarism, and I am aware of
the University’s policy on this.
I certify that apart from the contributions of my
supervisor, the empirical work and its analysis reported
here, were conducted entirely by myself. If there are
any occasions when I have used the words of others, I
have acknowledged them by the use of quotations marks and
I have cited the source; otherwise the text of the report
is written in my own words.
Signature: ..............................................
....................................
Date: ...................................................
........................................
3
Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to my wife Lorraine, the person that I most want to sit by Semerwater with.
4
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank:
Yasmeen Ali, my dissertation supervisor, and Ridwanah
Gurjee, the MA in Community Leadership course leader for
their patience, support and coffee.
My fellow MA student colleagues for travelling along this
journey with me.
Everyone that took part in the research for being open and honest.Gavin Turnbull for sharing some work with me which helpedkick start the MA fund. Runshaw College and the Community Social Care Team, Jackie McCartney and Alistair Jewell for their support, humour and coffee.
5
Table of Contents
Plagiarism 2
Dedication 3
Acknowledgements 4
Table of contents 5
Abstract and Introduction 6
Background and context 6
Methodology 8
Findings 9
Overview 9
Chapter 1 Literature Review 12
Chapter 2 The Methodology 27
Chapter 3 The Findings 36
Chapter 4 Discussion 45
Conclusion 62
Summary 63
Evaluation 64
Future Work 65
Conclusion 66
Reference List 67
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Abstract
Commissioning and outsourcing services has becomede rigueur for local authorities as their budgetsreduce and efficiencies are sought for. Often thevoluntary sector is a vital source of organisationsthat can deliver services to communities. Thisdissertation seeks to explore the question of theimpact that commissioning has on the voluntary andcommunity sector in Lancashire, England. Evidencehas been gathered through interviews and focusgroups from the commissioners, the commissioned andservice users. A thematic analysis leads to acritical discussion about the commissioning system,democracy, accountability, complexity and thedestabilisation of the voluntary and communitysector. The dissertation makes recommendations toremedy the situation and calls for a radicalrethink of democracy at a local level and therebychanging the perception of commissioning from anoutsourcing mechanism to a dialogue betweenservices and communities that will shape how socialneeds are met.
Key words: Commissioning, democracy, voluntarysector, community, outsourcing, dialogue,complexity
Introduction
‘I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the peoplethemselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise theircontrol with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them,but to inform their discretion by education’
Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson
8
Background and Context
On Friday 21st December 2007, just after 4.30pm I placed
the final draft copy of the ‘Lancashire Children and
Young Peoples Strategic Partnership Joint Commissioning
Strategy’ on the desk of the Head of the Policy Team.
That was my deadline. The gist of the document was that
if we wanted different outcomes for children and young
people then we had to do things differently. A senior
member of the Audit Commission once told me you had to
turn the system on its head; it need less power to say
‘no’ at the top, and more power to take action at the
frontline. The strategy document opened up possibilities
for local multi-agency teams of professionals to engage
with communities through universal services with acute
emergency services ready to tackle the urgent and high
risk. Health and social care budgets were to be aligned
and eventually pooled, with in-kind resources coordinated
seamlessly. A joint strategic intelligence and
commissioning unit that handled the technical, legal and
9
ethical elements was mooted and Interagency governance
was ready to roll out across the county. All this was
done in accordance to the Every Child Matters- Change for
Children Programme (HM Government, 2004) and the
Children Act 2004 (Legislation.gov.uk, 2004). However,
the strategy was never fully implemented and I never knew
why.
This is the motivator for this research. After 15 years
since the death of Victoria Climbié I wanted to know how
had things changed in the world of commissioning and how
it is impacting on the voluntary and community sector, if
at all. My involvement with that sector has increased
since 2011 and the two interests meet together in this
research.
The question that the research is adressing itself to is:
‘What is the impact of commissioning on services in the voluntary and
community sector in Lancashire?’
Methodology
10
My objectives for this research are: 1. To discover what
progress has been made in commissioning practice 2. To
discover if the voluntary sector is more or less secure
within the current commissioning regime, and 3.To
critically examine socio-economic and political
implications of commissioning for local government
democracy in the 21st century. I took a personal stance to
approach the research in a way that complied ethically
with University standards, and also so that the research
would have as much validity as possible.
I have deliberately limited it to Lancashire for
pragmatic and practical reasons, which include
accessibility to sources of evidence, knowledge of the
organisations, and of the political context. I chose
four organisations to be represented, which was for
practical reasons and realistically being able to fit the
interviewing into the time available for this research.
The four organisations that have provided participants
for interviewing are two local authorities and two
voluntary organisations. The local authorities differ in
size, scope and function, whilst the voluntary
11
organisations are of different scales; one being a local
community based charitable incorporated organisation and
one national charity. This gave a contrast and
opportunities for different perspectives and themes to
emerge. I used the same set of questions for the
organisational to allow for a consistency and equality of
opportunity across the individuals. A focus group of
service users took part to act as a quasi control group
providing a recipients viewpoint as opposed to a
professional organisational view. Given that they are
recipients of the commissioners ‘products’ it was
important they had a voice in the research. The type of
services that the commissioning under question were not
specified as I wanted those interviewed to have maximum
scope to answer questions, however, the two voluntary and
community sector organisations were social and community
services for a wide range of people in the community.
This was important to make the research relevant to
community leadership. The methods used to generate
evidence included; interviews using consistent questions
and the findings were thematically analysed, this means
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identifying patterns or themes in the data. This approach
was chosen so as to enable multiple sources to contribute
and for the collective themes to be identified. This
description of the methodology will be dealt with in more
depth in chapter 2.
Findings
This research shows that things are far from right in
local government. Gemma Tetlow (2015) from the Institute
for Fiscal Studies when being interviewed on BBC Radio 4s
More or Less programme claims that if plans do not change
the reduction in budgets, such as local government, will
be 41% over the period between 2010 and the end of the
next parliament in 2020. It is no wonder then that
things in local government are not at their best and some
services near crisis point. However far from finding
radical new effective ways of commissioning very little
change had taken place apart from there was doing more of
the ‘wrong things righter’ (Seddon, 2008, pp.10-11). The
findings clearly show a detrimental impact on the
voluntary and community sector.
13
The findings fall into three main themes: Criticism of
the process and the experience of commissioning; the
destabilising impact on the voluntary and community
sector including service user experience; and the failure
and flaws of the commissioning and democratic system.
More detailed findings and theoretical discussion about
these categories are to be found in chapters 3 and 4.
Overview
This dissertation contains four chapters, which start
with chapter 1- a literature review that explores
writings on local government, commissioning, the
voluntary sector, global neo- liberalism and alternative
possibilities to the existing regime. Chapter 2 is a
detailed description of the methodology used in this
research, any theoretical underpinnings and a reflective
comment on the experience. Chapter 3 unpacks the findings
and the evidence generated by the research. This chapter
is a distillation of the interviews and the focus group.
It describes the evidence as refined by thematic
analysis. Finally chapter 4 discusses the implications of
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the findings for the future of the voluntary and
community sector as well as for democracy itself.
The paper will be pulled together in a conclusion that
will gather together the strands of the project to make
recommendations for future research and practice.
In this dissertation I want to show the complex task of
society trying to organise itself in ways that are
meaningful and successful, to deal with its functions. I
would argue it has never been an easy thing to do and has
always been a contested space. However, postmodern
society is feeling more complex and harder to navigate.
Tofler (1971) predicted this phenomenon over forty years
ago and it seems we may be suffering from ‘future shock’
as we search for a solution to social problems. One piece
of learning stands out for me from this dissertation is
the interconnectedness of all things. As I talk about
Lancashire commissioning it is not difficult to connect
it to globalised neo liberalism, or free marketeers. When
I talk about local voluntary organisations a line can be
easily be traced to a nationwide democratic deficit. Yet
15
there feels like a disconnection or fragmentation between
those that make decisions, and those that have to live
with their consequences. Instead I want people to explore
better ways of experiencing community or services that
have democracy, people, and congruency with the public
good at their heart.
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Chapter 1
The Literature Review
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939 The Second Coming
No worthwhile consideration of the written word regarding
commissioning can begin in such a narrow way as to exclude
the fundamental relationships between the citizen and the
state. Therefore this exploration of literature will start
with a broad brush by briefly examining the nature of the
governed and the governing, thereby contextualising the
relationship as framed by history, before turning its gaze
upon how local government has shifted the methods of how some
of it’s functions are provided or secured since the
Thatcherite settlement of the 1980. Contemporary practice and
ideology will be examined and key writing on current
17
approaches to commissioning will be subjected to an exegesis
that is intended to inform the research findings and
discussion of the question ‘What is the impact of commissioning on
services in the voluntary and community sector in Lancashire?’ The value of
this starting point is to show how the relationship between
the governed and the governors is a space that cannot be
assumed to be constant or without dispassionate self-
interest.
The geographical scope of this research will eventually be
limited to the boundaries of Lancashire as it became after
the 1997 local government re-organisation. This is to bind
the whole discussion within a manageable space (HM
Government, 1996). However the writings on the relationship
between the citizen and the state will, at first, be
necessarily broad in both time and space, before examining
the political and economic backdrop to the emergence of
contracting and commissioning.
This review of literature will begin by pegging the start of
modern governance to the influence of Jeremy Bentham and how
an element of his thinking touched on defining the powers of
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government and the citizen. Brunon-Ernst (2012 chp 1) puts
forward the notion that Bentham suggests that to guard
against despotism there needs to be groups acting as checks
and balances against each other. Whilst the judiciary, the
executive and the legislator are all bounded within one
entity they hold and manage the scrutiny of each other with
the electorate, theoretically at least, able to hold all of
them to account. Interestingly this mutual observance has
echos in the Panotican concept that Jeremy and Samuel Bentham
used to design prisons in which everyone, guards included,
felt they were being observed though it’s origin comes from
the overseeing of Russian building workers. This panoptoscism
served to manage behaviour through the perception of constant
vigilance. As Bentham was a major influence on the emerging
system of modern governance there is no surprise in detecting
the thread of utilitarianism thoughout the project.
It is worth acknowledging that this is only the beginning of
representative democracy (for some) and the the Local
Government Act 1894 saw the crystalising of a system which
still has many of the same components today. Whilst other
legislation has come and gone, according to Redlitch and
19
Hurst (1970 pg103-105), the essential elements remain. They
carry on to say that despite almost two century of
development that has taken place within and to local
government, the essential ingredients, and to some extent,
executive functions and roles would be recognisable to
someone from over 150 years ago. Abel and Sementelli (2007)
suggest that an absence of a public philosophy leaves public
administrators with moral challenges. This tends to lead to
reluctance to articulate morals and values that underpin
policy development allowing for a degree of an unspoken
hegemony that maintains the status quo, including the
relationship of tax payer to tax-collector and the tensioned
balance between the burden and the benefit.
It is this relationship that is to be explored next through
an examination of texts that tend to postulate a view that
may be described as either post modern or post- postmodern.
Darrow Sphecter (2010) explores the Weberian and Marxist idea
that the players within the public sphere rather than
divesting themselves of power that would bring about a
participative democracy, instead, weave around themselves a
20
bureaucracy that embeds authority within a set of
professional or political elitist clubs. An erosion of
genuine political accountability neatly creates a space that
disenfranchises the masses and alienates them from
governance. Sphecter further describes how Kant takes an
ideological stance that infuses the public sphere with a
moral imperitative that is eroded as power-seeking self
interest overides principle, a dynamic to be exacerbated by
captialism. Kant required both rationality and a freedom to
exercise reason for a successful public sphere, attributes
that he did not see in women, children or the salaried
masses. Instead a professional, ethical impartiality was
needed to mediate within the public sphere of a modern era.
Habermas, according to Sphecter, argues, using his own view
on a Marxist perspective, that there is a danger that a
liberal democracy can be undermined by capitalism and a
growing gap between the governed and the governors through
lack of a discursive space.
After the Second World War how both economists and government
perceived public service was significantly different to how
they have been seen since the mid 1970’s. Taking the ideas of
21
the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) governments
both sides of the Atlantic took to managing the economy by
investing in major projects that facilitated job creation and
hence people’s ability to engage within an economy. Despite
an age of austerity Government invested in Public Services
and national infrastructure (Seddon, 2008).
The Atlee based consensus that began with the Labour
Government in 1945 and lasted until the mid-1970’s were
hallmarked by Keynesian economics and the public ownership of
such utilities as coal, gas, railways, airlines, electricity
and the Bank of England. Public services were created such as
the National Health Service and the Welfare state.
Beveridge’s council houses provided council housing in an
emerging ‘land fit for heroes’. This new economics provided
jobs and jobs, in turn, fueled the economy and enabled a
golden age of public service development (Morgan, 1988). This
sense of a progressive society was about to change with
consequences for the post war Atlee consensus. To draw in
this broad exploration of the development of local government
it is safe to say whilst the history of municipality has its
roots in the utilitarian influenced early part of the
22
nineteenth century, that the relationship between the
emerging liberal capitalism and the enfranchisement of the
masses remain at odds with each other. There is no finer
period of history to illustrate this tension than the
Thatcherite settlement of the nineteen eighties and nineties.
Fleeing from Nazi Allied Austria, Friedrich August Hayek
settled in Britain. Hayek working for the London School of
Economics (LSE) and latterly transferring to Peterhouse
College in Cambridge set about sowing the seeds for a
resurgence of a new liberal economics that would eventually
influence key economic thinkers and politicians including
Milton Friedman, and Margaret Thatcher in writings such as
‘The Road to Serfdom’, and ‘The Constitution of Liberty’. A
member of the Mont Pélerin Society, Hayek was the ‘midwife’
to the emerging monetarist, free market, small states and
neo-liberal hegemony that would begin to dominate capitalism
towards the end of the 20th century (Tebble, 2010).
Chomsky (2003) observed that as the world economy slowed and
the mid-seventies came along the economic shift from Keynes
to Friedman took place. In his book ‘Free to Choose’
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Friedman, also a member of the Pélerin Society with Hayek put
forward his thesis that big Government was bad and a free,
unfettered, market was good. Intervention by Government along
the lines of fixed interest rates were swept away for free
trade and monetarism. For some this represented a freedom
from from the tyranny of Keynes and for others it opened the
door for smaller government and a redistribution of control
and wealth into private and corporate hands (Eamonn, 2011).
Supported by an unpopular President in the shape of Ronald
Reagon, Friedmans ideas saw the dismantling of workers rights
and labour laws at home, and a foreign policy that created
enough devils around the world to fuel the USA’s, almost
Orwellian, impirical ambitions and raise the status of Reagan
to an American saviour. The American neo-liberal hegemony had
come of age.
In 1979 Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of a
Conservative Government that lasted 18 years. What followed
during her period of office, and into the Major Government,
Stoker (1996 pg 1-21) describes what happened to local
government as a brutal showing of political power. Funding
systems were centralised to control spending, the private
24
sector was invited in to work in partnership taking over some
of the key functions that had remained the same for over a
century. Structures changed or removed and by 1997 there were
80 fewer local authorities. New managerialism abounded, how
services were provided and by whom changed, as well as
delivery, culture and accountablity. The Conservative
Government was a reforming government and brought in
centralised changes with little consultation, depending upon
‘experts’ to roll out value for money and accountability for
almost all aspects of government expenditure. Stoker claims
that both the Thatcher and Major years saw a hyperactivity of
initiatives. Only New Zealand matched the UK for this frenzy
of change. This fervour isn’t a coincidence or a random
poltical whim as it was driven by the ‘New Right’
philososophy of the free market, neo liberal economics of
Friedman, Reagan and Thatcher. In a subsequent chapter of
the same book Stanyer(1996 pg. 237-247) argues that the
impact on the disinvestment in local government, the
insistence of central government that the private sector is
involved in either infrastructure or elements of services led
25
to fragmentation, deformation of policies, deformation
through recruitment and through subsidiarity.
Wilson(1993) continues this theme by writing about how the
free market further encroached on public sector finance in
the 1990’s. The public sector has always procured items and
some elements of services from the private sector however it
was the Thatcher government that politicised the process
through the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering
(CCT). The Local Government Act 1992 opened up compulsory
‘contracting out’ or at least traditional serivices competing
directly with the private sector to deliver services. The
free market had arrived for some sectors. They describe the
objectives of this exercise as; the private sector being
involved in public sector delivery would drive up quality and
value for money; In house services would begin to consider
cost and quality ; public sector staff’s undertakings would
be transferred to any new organisation thereby making the
public sector appear smaller which was a new right
ideological motivator; the pay and conditions of staff could
be eroded, and theoretically, the exercise would save money.
A further objective would be the professionalising of the
26
voluntary, community and faith sectors who would have to act
more like businesses if they wished to be considered for
serious contracts. Wilson concludes that despite some 33% of
expenditure being contracted out there was little evidence of
improvements in either efficiency, effectiveness or economy
for those services that were now outside the aegis of local
government and any real quality control. In addition
additional regulation and accountability structures would be
needed to ensure the quality, all of which added to the real
cost of the Thatcherite CCT project. The whole exercise was,
at best a patchwork affair and usage of competition varied
highly depending on the political hue of the local authority.
This first fragmentation of provision in a free market was,
as Seddon (2008) suggest, the first incursion into a whole
world of complexity starting with the notion of choice.
Choice became a political slogan in the late 1980’s and rolls
on into the post 2008 banking crisis age of austerity and
embedded itself in a UK political hegemony starting life as
cold war ‘game theory’. Game theory, developed at the US RAND
Corporation, and rests upon the notion that people will act
only in their own self-interest. This is the assumption
27
underpinning the whole quasi-internal market developed by
Thatcherism and subsequent policy was designed along these
lines. Seddon describes how the Major Government continued
with the Thatcherite programme of reforming public services
not only bringing about internal provider changes but also by
managing the expectation of the public.
The Citizen’s Charter, before being replaced by New Labour’s
outcomes frameworks and myriad of targets, set the tone for
the citizen to become a consumer of services and an object of
the managerialism of postmodernism. The emerging contract
culture was extended to take in the citizenship making the
relationship with the state one of ‘customer-ship’ (Drewry,
2005).
Seddon (2008) returns to the theme public sector reform by
describing how New Labour Government targets created entirely
new cultures, new sources of waste, result and accounting
failures, driving down of costs, reduction in staff morale
and worsening services. He argues that the flaw of this
approach lies in the underlying assumptions of the Game
Theorists and the overriding pessimism of the disciples of
28
Milton Friedman. The flaw lies in the problem of having to
control the costs of human failure and imperfection. Until
this hegemony is countered them the neo-liberal consensus
will remain.
It is now worth shifting focus and looking at writings
relating to players outside of local authority sector but
with a stake in the public service space, namely the
voluntary and community sector.
This sector is described in a report on an inquiry into the
‘Future of Voluntary
Services’ by the National Coalition for Independent Action
(2015) as a way of expressing activity created by citizens
that sits in a liminal space outside of the state that is
motivated by compassion, care and a wish to improve the world
around them. The argument continues that this group of
entities should not be a replacement for public services but
in addition to them. These organisations do not have to
exist. Their very value is in the ungoverned nature of the
liminal space in which they do exist and any attempt to move
29
them into other public or private sector scapes fundamentally
alters their nature, purpose and activity.
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (2014)
[NCVO] states that there are some 161,266 Voluntary
Organisations in the UK as of 2012. The collective income is
around £39.2 billion of which (for larger organisations) 39%
comes from commissioned or contracted work. This figure isn’t
true for all organisations as it ranges from 17% for small to
medium organisations to around 4% for micro-organisations.
The mix of income seems to vary widely depending on the
nature of the organisation, its supporters and its purposes.
Expenditure in this sector in 2012 was in the region of £38
billion with governance costing £1 billion; the cost of
raising the funds was at £4.3 billion; grant making cost £5
billion and the charitable activity outgoing was at £32.7
billion. However the sector is a complex one which is
reflected in the NCVO’s attempt at describing the range of
organisations from charities, voluntary organisations, non-
profit sector, to community groups and organisations. These
figures represent a significant attraction for ‘marketeers’
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and are therefore, of interest to the subject of
commissioning.
Billis and Harris (cited in Rochester, 2014:2) describes a
major shift in the very nature of the voluntary and community
sector from an independent, pluralistic, creative, flexible
sector to a more prescriptive service dominated sector that
takes on projects and a more formal way of operating. This
change affected culture, staffing, training, and the very
raison d’être of the voluntary organisation world.
Yet this ripe market is still emerging in Lancashire with the
Chair of the Third Sector Lancashire M. Wedgeworth (2014)
declaring, in an end of year report, that whilst strategy is
emerging there remains a practice gap, uncertainty and new
provider networks emerging on the horizon. It is interesting
to note that the sector is involved in developing a
procurement strategy yet no mention is made of the emerging
new models of commissioning, nor any critique of the age of
austerity with the voluntary and community sector having to
transform into quasi businesses. National charities have been
accused of scooping up the contracts left behind after
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privately owned companies have won the lucrative outsourcings
meant to save the tax payer money. Seemingly there are moves
back to insourcing formerly outsourced services because the
dream of a leaner and fitter private sector is just that, a
dream. Yet the solutions seem to remain in doing more of the
same over and over again without much learning or change
(Ryan, 2014).
Hailing commissioning, and moreover, joint commissioning
between the monolithic NHS and Local Government as a way of
generating efficient and effective action creating services
that were seamless in their delivery the Department of Health
(1995) published a practical guide for project leaders in the
ways of joint commissioning. This document laid out the key
themes that were to underpin government initiatives such as
Every Child Matters, which will be discussed shortly. Joint
working, population needs assessment, and the commissioning
cycle were described with a note of reforming optimism.
(Department of Health, 1995)
32
It is worth examining literature that frames the question
about commissioning in Lancashire within the context of Every
Child Matters, as joint commissioning was a key plank in
children’s trusts arrangements. This government initiative
has been chosen as it provides a rich vein of material
pertinent to the question and the findings. The death of
Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl tortured and beaten
by her great-aunt and her boyfriend Carl Manning, led Lord
Laming (2003) to establish a public inquiry into the
responsibility’s and causes of this tragedy. Lord Laming
identified in his report that there was significant and
catastrophic flaws in the whole children’s services system
that meant that Victoria’s last year of life and the horrors
it contained went by undetected until it was far too late.
Lord Laming condemned the failure of the system to act
identifying the way the contemporary service as being
fractured, with little or no lateral communication across
departments, disempowered staff, poor practice, and woefully
inadequate leadership and management.
From this tragedy came ‘Every Child Matters (2003) which
called for, amongst things, a wholesale reform of the way
33
that services for all children were delivered. Laming had
identified a need for systemic reform. The resulting Children
Act 2004 placed on the statute books several changes to the
system, however the major innovation that is pertinent to
this research, and indeed was the inspiration for it, is the
legislative requirement to establish children’s trust
arrangements. A key element of the function of a children’s
trust was integrated strategy that involved pooling budgets
between, the health economy, social care and education. When
referring to this function the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (DCSF) states in the statutory guidance
that: ‘Strategic planning and commissioning arrangements are central to the
cultural change that is required across all services.’ (Department for
Children, Schools and Families, 2008. Pg. 16)
The Lancashire Children and Young People’s Strategic
Partnership (2006) published a consultation document that
points towards a radical vision for commissioning. It
describes a creative use of resources including evaluating
and, if necessary, de-commissioning services to meet the
needs of communities. It meant exploring new models of
34
practice, service configurations and approaches. The document
alludes to the culture change described in the statutory
guidance. The research project will examine these elements in
particular in the findings.
Whilst much work was done to introduce a radical agenda
through ‘Every Child Matters’ it is worth examining a good
practice guide from Lancashires policy unit covering most
aspects of the County Council’s work and aimed at reshaping
the relationship between the Council and the voluntary,
community and faith sector [VCFS]. ‘Getting it right
together’ pulls back from the visionary statements of
‘Thinking, planning and acting together’ and describes a more
traditionally contracting and procurement approach that pulls
back from grant making to a procurement focus. This document
points to a more traditional contract, tendering and
procuring aspiration at odds with different aspirations from
other parts of the organisation. The research project will
examine this tension in some detail and explore if the
evidence points to any resolution of this imbalance
(Lancashire County Council Policy Unit, 2007).
35
Having touched on a recent history of policy within
Lancashire it is appropriate to examine literature offering a
glimpse into the latest approaches and even possible future
developments. Moving to explore contemporary thinking behind
the Coalition Government of 2010-15’s notion of commissioning
it is valuable to look at the ‘Commissioning Academy’
established by the Cabinet Office through the Department for
Communities and Local Government (DCLG). This body was
established with the aim of transforming local government,
‘To deliver the next phase of efficiencies, executives will need to lead diverse teams
to design service delivery, to influence external parties and shape and manage
markets. They need practical skill and judgment, access to the latest thinking and
confidence and courage to deliver radical changes’ (Department for
Communities and Local Government, 2013 pg.02) and, according
to the National Coalition for Independent Action (NCIA), to
reveal: ‘ The nature and scale of the Coalition Government’s political project –
ideologically driven - to degrade rights, entitlements and social protections, and to
privatise public services that cannot be abolished is now laid bare.’ (Ryan,
2014).
Yet within the text of the Commissioning Academy Framework
Document by the Cabinet Office (2013) there is a declaration
36
that future commissioning must include co-design, co-
production, systems thinking and to make sure that the
process is not simply about procurement and about driving
costs down. This research will give some insights into how
far, in Lancashire this ambition is being fulfilled and what
affect is being felt by the voluntary sector.
To illustrate an alternative attitude to experiencing local
government; ‘The Cooperative Councils Innovation Network’
(CCIN) (2014) in their ‘Contribution to Labour Party
Innovation Taskforce Final Report’ outline five principles
that could underpin a new approach to local government. They
are: power sharing and decision making with communities; a
focus on social outcomes and strengths rather than deficits;
relationships are crucial in developing social capital; democratic
accountability; and a new way of thinking about welfare by
concentrating on social equity. The report goes on to explore
these principles in detail and describes the implications of
this stance. The quality of this thinking is only matched by
its credibility born of the work being produced by a network
of councils around the country. The relevance to this
37
particular study is that it demonstrates what is possible
given the political will and imagination.
No literature review into commissioning would be complete
without touching on participatory budgeting (PB),
commissionings' very close and highly democratic cousin with
its potential to break away from the enlightenment models of
local governance. Wampler (2007) describes the benefits of PB
as creating a transparent space that would both improve local
government performance and improve local democracy. PB shifts
the focus of decision making from within the council chamber
to the community space. It acts as a people’s university
leaving a legacy that is transformative. Wampler describes
the process of enabling citizens to make informed choices
with probity and openness giving an analysis of PB’s
efficacy.
Within 100 days of the new Parliament in 2015 Government
Ministers are expected to implement the spirit of Blond and
Morris’s (2014) report ‘ Devo Max- Devo Manc: Place Based
Public Services’. Essentially giving Greater Manchester
devolved powers and budgets to transform its city region
38
along the more radical end of the local government spectrum.
They talk of a systemic change with co-location, an end to
siloed services, and genuine localism. This is to be achieved
through the devolution of the entire local government budget
combined with the equivalent health budget. It represents an
interesting departure from doing things the same old way and
expecting different results. There are lessons in this
approach that will be relevant to this research project and
its conclusions.
Returning to Seddon (2008) for some final words about the
current zeitgeist of the regime and machinery of the public
sector. His solution would be to get rid of the whole
bureaucracy and system all together. He views it as a madness
to keep the arrangements as they are now. Far from being
ordered he is arguing that the system is already anarchic and
out of control. It would be better to scrap it than fix it.
The prizes he offers for this solution are the total
elimination of the waste that is inherent in the system by:
saving time and money by stopping the writing of
specifications and detailed contracts; removing the high cost
39
associated with inspecting (and getting ready for it) by
abandoning it; reducing the very high costs of getting
specifications wrong and, finally, reduce the waste of time,
energy and effort through demoralisation of staff. Seddon is
arguing for nothing less than the transformation of
institutions, as did Paulo Freire when he wrote:
‘The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginal's,” are not people
living “outside” society. They have always been “inside”- inside the structure, which
made them “beings for others”. The solution is not to “integrate” them into the
structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become
“beings” for themselves.” (Freire, 1993 pg.55)
Chapter 2
The Methodology
‘Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.’
Zora Neale Hurston
This research is looking at a relatively new system that
is; local authorities, particularly in Lancashire, acting
as commissioners rather than providers. It seemed
40
sensible to engage with the research in an open
exploratory way that required a degree of pragmatism as
described by Creswell (2007, pp.19-27); that is utilising
a range of ways of collecting information and data with a
degree of flexibility to respond to new data. This
approach led the research to address the problem, namely
what impact is commissioning having on community facing
services? Creswell develops this theme describing the
intended approach of this research as a constructivist
form of grounded theory, which takes complex, and multi
layered realities and allows the researcher to discover
the key learning behind the findings. This is also true
of an interpretive paradigm, which underpins this
research. Essentially a strand of existential-
hermeneutic-phenomenology, the interpretive paradigm fits
the type of dialogical or discursive research and
thematic approach used in this research (Morgan, 2011.
p.1).
This has implications for the role of the researcher. The
design of the methods have been chosen to maintain a
level of objectivity, though it has to be acknowledged
41
that ultimately this is an interpretative piece of
research and the researchers values may play in a part in
the determining the findings despite efforts not to.
This research does not claim to take a positivist or a
post-positivist scientific view nor an
advocacy/participatory paradigm as these positions are
rejected as neither world view meets the flexible nature
of this inquiry nor needs to involve participants in the
analysis of the findings. The thematic data analysis was
completed after all the evidence had been collected. In
the same way a participatory community approach, as
described by Creswell is not broad enough to take in
where the question of commissioning could go, therefore
this too is rejected.
The practical process of the inquiry was carried out in
early 2015. It took the form of interviews with senior
personnel from the organisations mentioned earlier. The
participants were approached because they are in
positions of knowledge and influence and known to me.
The questions remained the same for the commissioned and
42
the commissioners and they were framed in as neutral a
way as possible. This provided an element of consistency
though supplementary questions varied as replies needed
clarification or further discussion. This approach
provided equality in the interviews that generated
evidence that was comparable and contrastable and
contrastable in the analysis. The value of this is that
it lends a loose objectivity to the process contributing
to the overall validity. There is, however, an issue
regarding organisational confidentiality, in that there
is only one upper tier authority in Lancashire namely
Lancashire County Council. Any reference to this level of
government will inevitably disclose this organisation.
Individual confidential views were protected and
criticism was generalised. By way of a solution the
organisational staff are referred to as ‘the
commissioners’ and ‘the commissioned’ and collectively as
‘the interviewee’s’. This will hopefully put the emphasis
on the ideas and not the individuals in question. This
issue has been flagged up in the Research Ethics
Application Form.
43
The service user group will be dealt with in a slightly
more discursive manner and the questions will be tailored
to the groups understanding. The questions were focused
on receiving or accessing services and their qualitative
experience. This approach has been chosen to illustrate
that service user experience may or may not be effected
by the method chosen to secure the service. It is
anticipated that the group will not focus on the
technical nuances in commissioning but their own
experience of receiving a service. The group was made up
of self-selecting volunteers from a HE course at Runshaw
College. The self-selecting nature of the group meant
that their answers tended to be open and honest with no
self-interest other than wanting to contribute to the
research.
The people involved in the study will all be in a
position to discuss the subject from their lived
experience. (Aked & Steed, 2009). This research was
designed to discover if there is any waste in the system
and point to other ways of securing and delivering
services to the public. It was anticipated that there
44
would be discussions about bureaucracy, organisational
interest or inertia, the challenges of measuring
outcomes, payment by results, cash flow, contracts and
power play. It was anticipated that there would be
unexpected results adding new and fresh knowledge in an
unpredictable fashion thereby enhancing knowledge and
informing the research.
An analysis of the research was carried out, in the first
instance, using a thematic approach before further
analysis or an interpretation of the findings was
discussed. This approach was chosen to determine the
common or contradictory themes that come out of the
research consistent to the overall paradigms underpinning
the work (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
The Research Design and the Process
The research project design was governed by several
practical parameters including time, practicability and
access to interviewees. More importantly, however, the
validity, the quality of data and objectivity all played
a role in the shaping of the project.
45
It was decided to use lightly structured interviews with
open questions and three focused questions using a scale
(see appendix 1). This process allowed for free answers
with the follow up, more focused scale questions that
would corroborate their conversational responses (Knight,
2002, pp.52-53). All participants signed a consent form
and the interviews were conducted according to the UCLan
ethical research regulations. It was explained to the
interviewees about the level of confidentiality and their
right to withdraw from the process. The criterion used to
choose the right interviewees was devised to get a
representative sample of the types of organisations that
are involved in commissioning in Lancashire. The research
needed a small/medium voluntary/community sector
organisation; a large/national voluntary/community sector
organisation; a district council and the county council
to cover the range and types of organisations involved.
In addition it was relevant to have a focus group of
service users to act as a quasi-control group to compare
their experience and perception with that of the
46
organisations. It was anticipated that this might show up
any difference between perceived practice and reality.
The design of the interview process began with the
question 'What is the impact of commissioning on services in the
voluntary and community sector in Lancashire?’ Sudman and Bradburn
(1982, pp. 1) suggest that stating that a questions
meaning can be altered by the exact wording is obvious
though the effort put into scrutinising them is sometimes
ignored. Therefore the wording of the research question
went through several iterations in its development. It
was important that the question was open in its scope but
also bounded in focus. ‘How does commissioning impact on
organisations?' was rejected as being too broad and all
encompassing. ‘What’ allows a respondent to be
descriptive which then enables either an acceptance of
the answer or an opportunity to probe further. The phrase
‘impact of commissioning’ doesn’t allow for a neutral
position to be taken and encourages the proposition that
something is happening because of commissioning…that
there is an ‘impact’. The research needs to be relevant
to the subject of community leadership therefore how
47
commissioning is impacting up the ‘voluntary and
community’ sector anchors the question in a field of
knowledge before bounding it within the geographical area
of Lancashire. Each word in the question was chosen to
fulfill a particular function that enabled the
interviewees an opportunity to contribute to the research
finding.
It was decided early on that the main question would be
broken down into 5 sub questions (see appendix 1) that
broke down the main question into areas of interest to
the overall research. One question about ‘experience of
commissioning’ allowed commissioners, as well as the
commissioned, to answer reflexively. Juxtaposing this
question was one about ‘how would you improve
commissioning’. This is a forward facing question
enabling the interviewee to evaluate where they are now
and where they saw commissioning in the future. It allows
them to speculate and be critical. The three questions in
the middle about ‘ideal commissioning’; ‘values
underpinning commissioning’; and ‘describing successful
commissioning’ were designed to enable a theoretical
48
discussion about organisations, their congruence and
success criteria all of which would reveal insights about
commissioning and its impact through the analysis of
findings.
A separate set of six questions was created for the focus
group of service users. The questions were: What services
or organisations have you used over the last 5 years? In
that time have you noticed any changes in those services
or organisations? If so what? Would you like to have your
say in those services? If so how? How effective were
the services in meeting your needs or requirements?
The questions were refined and used in a focus group
session in February 2015. The four participants were
volunteers from a college in Lancashire and had all been
recipients of local services in the last five years. The
session was video recorded and a transcription made from
the session.
The organisation interviews took place in January 2015
and each one was audio recorded. Each interview was given
49
a code number and made anonymous. Each recording was
transcribed.
The transcriptions of the interviewee’s were thematically
analysed. This means breaking down the interviewee’s
answers into their key elements and relevant patterns
identified and codified (Dey, 1993, p.31). These elements
were entered into a spreadsheet that allowed for the
comparing and contrasting which in turn identified the
key themes and commonalities. It also highlighted areas
of difference. The scale-able questions were collated and
subject to the same thematic approach as described above.
The process of the analysis was a reductive one; the
initial data set, in the form of interviews, contained
around two and a half hours of conversation, which then
was reduced through transcribing, and the key themes
extracted. This was further refined into the findings
chapter. This reduction is an essential part of telling
the story behind the research question (Richards, 2015,
p.66)
50
The same process was used with the service users
comments; however there was a high level of consensus in
the group and this is highlighted in chapter 3.
Comment
Maintaining an open mind and approaching the research
results with a degree of objectivity was important so as
not to project any preconceived perspectives on the
outcomes. However one of the refreshing surprises that
the research methods showed up was the amount of critical
discourse that it enabled. The emphasis on
confidentiality was helpful and the questions helped the
participants to explore the subject for themselves, as
well as for the piece of research.
In terms of community leadership this model of research
can, and is, used in a community engagement context. A
recent project in Cambridgeshire on behalf of
Cambridgeshire Count Council, Tobacco Free Futures and
Our Life used community members to interview other
members of the public. The public health service wanted
to explore the reasons behind the high smoking figures in
51
Fenland. Our life used a ‘community explorers’ model of
inquiry. Questions were devised, interviews took place
and a thematic analysis was done. The resulting report
makes recommendations for action and gives valuable
insights into how the council could move forward in
tackling the issue. The main difference between the
explorer model and this research is the participatory
element in the Our Life inquiry throughout and especially
during the thematic analysis. The reporting is less
critical and theoretical, however, there are similarities
in the two models and therefore this research method has
relevance and resonance to field based practice (Our
Life, 2015).
The value of engaging community members in creating their
own research projects is a discovery coming from this
project and the Our Life experience. It seems
unreasonable that research methodologies should belong to
the academic world of science, education and industry.
For communities to be able to take the tools of critical
thinking and make sense of the world for themselves is an
act of liberation. Such activity would, as Freire (1993,
52
pp. 112), help people to live in the fullness of praxis
that would enable them to understand the causes of their
own reality. An ability to discover a path to the deeper
knowledge of reality around you, with others, helps
communities to become ‘beings for themselves’ and begins to
change the institutions around them that keep them as
‘beings for others’.
A phrase, originally attributed to Francis Bacon (1597),
was used by Thomas Jefferson (1817) to illustrate what is
at stake for communities when he said ‘...knowledge is power,
knowledge is safety and knowledge is happiness’ (Monticello and the
University of Virginia, n.d.).
53
Chapter 3
The Findings
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is todiscover them.”
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
It remains a surprise to discover that a group of people
can, through conversation, weave a tapestry of thought
with similar but distinct threads. These threads build
into a pattern made up of colours and themes that when
looked at from discrete distances draw a picture that
tells a story and captures a truth. The findings within
this research seem to have some of these properties in
that a divergent group of people from different places
and organisations, with differing roles, non-the-less
present some common themes that will inform a discussion.
This chapter will lay out the thematic analysis of the
research findings. It seems reasonable that the findings
are described in terms of the common themes, as well as
any areas of opposition. Any discussion will be limited
54
to clarifying context and meaning so that a picture will
be built up for exploration in a subsequent chapter.
A place to start would be the views of people that have
in the past received a service and their reflective
experience within a focus group. The four people that
volunteered to be interviewed were all women living
within the greater Lancashire boundary all had received a
service within the last 3 years ranging from health
visitors to housing and mental health services. When
asked about identifying any changes to the services all
but one were critical about the services describing a
lack of consistency, relevance and dialogue. The type of
response that they seemed to get from the services was,
in their view, conditional upon the severity or urgency
of the reason why they needed the service. One of the
group felt that the service she received was heavily
influenced by a national profile safeguarding case that
meant that she received more attention than she felt
necessary or warranted because of managerial over
sensitivity. She rated this service as low in her view of
55
effectiveness. Others in the group described a mismatch
between their expectations of the service and the
responses they received. This is illustrated by the
experience of one of the women needed re-housing that was
met with a universal ‘look at the website’, from advice
centre's and the housing department. She described a
mismatch between her urgency and ‘the system’ that
generated other problems. Another of the group spoke
about being offered medication as an automatic first
response for her mental health issues. However, two
mental health crisis interventions were described as
appropriate and helpful. They rated highly on the service
users view of effectiveness. It is worth noting the
difference between routine and crisis responses for a
later discussion. All the group members mentioned not
being treated holistically as a whole human being in the
round and being met with standardised responses. When
asked ‘Do you feel you can influence the services?’ there
was a consensus that without significant campaigning
little could be changed or influenced. They had a
56
definite sense of not being consistently or
systematically listened to.
The interviews with the members of organisations pick up
and develop some of these themes providing clues as to
the reasons behind service users varied experience. The
four organisational members touched on similar themes
that will be explored next by starting with looking at
the evidence around the values that underpin
commissioning from their organisational viewpoints.
The group of four was split evenly in terms of
commissioners and the commissioned with the two
commissioners differing in their view of the values
underlying commissioning. Trust that built good
relationships around resources was important to one
commissioner, whilst the other stated that the values
they saw were “not good” being target driven for a
political end that change as elections come around. This
approach was described as incongruous given that
organisational behaviour did not match the espoused
values. The officers from the commissioned organisations
57
offered a different response with both saying that saving
money and short termism is the real value to local
authorities with the subsequent effects of squeezing and
destabilising employment, providing moral challenges, and
upholding a free market ideology that inevitably
compromises standards. It is worth noting that, whilst
values have come up in other responses there was no
expressed consensus about a set of values that could be
readily identified as belonging to the commissioning
process, other than the two commissioned organisations
both said that it was all about saving money.
The discussion on values led into the views of the
commissioners on how ideal commissioning would take shape
through taking a line on the resourcing of services. Both
Commissioners take a radical view in that one wants to
look at a ‘total resource’ approach that meant putting
the whole resources available to a locality on the table
for consideration, whilst the other wanted a locality ‘
reboot’ and to wipe the board clear, starting over to
deal with intractable problems that have been around in
58
some localities for a long time. For the commissioned
organisations their responses came from the opposite end
of the spectrum in wanting to be part of the design of
locality services and contribute to a total resource
discussion, stating that unless the third sectors
creative and flexible delivery mechanisms aren’t part of
the process then opportunities are missed and wasted. All
four participants talked about co-production, co-design
and community engagement as a way into having a dialogue
that produced activity that what was needed and delivered
in appropriate ways within communities. Yet all of the
participants said that there was little community
engagement; with three of them saying that the level of
co-production and co-design is non- existent or low. One
of the interviewees didn’t know the level of such
activity.
All four interviewee’s raised the issue of outcomes and
outputs in at least two distinct ways. Firstly the
‘commissioned’ group felt that the current pieces of
commissioned work they have are inappropriately measured.
59
They describe confusion between outputs and outcomes plus
an incongruity between the rhetoric of outcomes and the
reality. One of the ‘commissioned’ group felt that the
whole process of measuring they type of work his
organisation was commissioned far was unrealistic, and
led to the (resisted) temptation to hyperbolise the
required evidence for success. For the commissioners
group the challenge was an equal level of ambiguity but
from the point of view of having to set the required
outcomes. Both commissioners put the 2010-2015 ‘Age of
Austerity’ as part of the reducing budgetary context that
is adding pressure on local authorities (Cameron, 2009).
One of the commissioners spoke of £172 million budget
reductions and the other one spoke of increasing need and
rising service thresholds.
A complex element emerged as a theme from the
interviewee’s discussion, social need and its analysis.
Most of the commissioning models research so far start
with some form of needs analysis therefore it is no
surprise that the participants in this research raised
60
the issue. One of the commissioners argued that the
current welfare policy as implemented by the Coalition
Government of 2010-2015 was the cause of additional
poverty and inequity. This in turn generates social need,
economic need and health needs. This is alongside local
authority budget cuts, scaling down of the voluntary
community sector and a system in want of a major
overhaul. There are already discussions taking place
about levels of need and affordability, which prompted
the other commissioner to talk about strategic needs
assessment in terms of unifying systems to avoid
duplication and to provide a coherent source of
information with which to make judgments. Also there was
the suggestion of the development of a commissioning
function would take on joint needs analysis, finance and
procurement. There was a concern that the right needs are
being met as opposed to any just any needs or worse,
wants. For the commissioned participants the issue was
linked to involvement in the design of services. From one
perspective they wanted to be part of the debate about
needs and what to do about them, whilst the other
61
interviewee suggested that determining local need and
working on a local scale is complex enough. Both
interviewees wanted to work in a solution focused way.
All interviewees spoke about time and timescales. One of
the commissioners wanted the time to do the commissioning
cycle well and time to do a thorough needs analysis; to
engage with the population and elected members to help
with understanding; and to take a long-term view about
the budgets and resources. This latter point is more than
reflected in what each of the other interviewee’s spoke
of. Short term funding was described as problematically
wasteful and destabilising. When a large or small
voluntary organisation gets a contract for two years
essentially one of those years is not run at optimum
level. Setting up a programme will take around 6 months
and it will need 6 months to tail off at the end as staff
seek other employment or get ready for another project.
This leaves twelve months actual work. Both interviewees
from the voluntary sector suggested funding should be for
a minimum of five years. From a commissioners view point
62
short term funding is equally as wasteful due to the
funding rarely lasting long enough for any systemic
change or programme bending. More than one of the
interviewee’s alluded to the notion that needs, issues or
problems affecting human beings fit into commissioners
timescales. One of the organisations that commissions all
kinds of activity is moving to a lifespan model where
services are being reconfigured to take a longer,
integrated look at resourcing, reducing funding silo’s
and barriers.
The next theme follows on from short term funding and it
deals with a new industry, that of procurement. All the
interviewee’s knew the difference between commissioning
and a small part of that process namely, procurement. Two
of the group, one from each side of the commissioning
fence, were very clear that the act of contracting a
service comes at the end of the commissioning cycle
process that includes needs analysis, design and then
procurement. Their analysis was that in the bureaucracy
of local government this element of the process was
63
understood the best and is now disproportionally
important. The commissioner recognised that a culture
change was needed to de-emphasise procurement. They
acknowledged the challenge this poses, however there were
political and financial pressures not to be so wasteful
that may encourage the change. The interviewee from the
commissioned organisation spoke about some of the
contracts that are being used and was critical about
‘payment by results’ stating that they were simply
‘wrong’. They cause cash flow problems for smaller
organisations and force others to go for ‘low hanging
fruit’ or easier client groups, leaving the difficult and
chronic need untouched. They pointed out some ethical and
moral challenges caused by this method of contracting.
Commissioning can be expensive for both parties; however,
the ‘commissioned’ group was the most vocal on the theme
of organisational capacity. One interviewee, from a small
to medium organisation, found that the complexity of
tendering, the restrictions placed upon applying and the
amount of background papers required made some tenders
64
unreachable. The cost ratio for applying makes some bids
not viable. The organisation has been part of a
consortium that has bid for work, however this has been a
variable success. The un-met costs associated with
administering and monitoring the bid has meant that,
pound for pound, the voluntary organisation has been
subsidising the statutory sector. The view was expressed
that commissioning is getting in the way of ‘normal
operating’ and the organisation has taken the policy
decision to seek 80% of its income from grants and
donations and not from commissioned work. Both voluntary
sector interviewees agreed that this overly bureaucratic
approach destabilises the sector by introducing unfair
competition as larger organisations have the capacity to
apply for tenders the smaller ones cannot even in
consortia bids. One of the interviewee’s expressed a
concern that the sector is in danger of losing its
dynamism, new ideas and innovation by becoming an
extension of local government.
65
Finally the commissioners, the professionals that
currently specify and procure were put under the critical
gaze of the commissioned. Both interviews from the
voluntary sector expressed dissatisfaction with the
current state of commissioners. Their criticism included
the notion that the current commissioners do not have
sufficient experience of service delivery or of
professional practice and tend to use theoretical or ‘off
the shelf’ service specifications. Also the emergence of
the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s) is exacerbating
the problem with GP’s leading social commissioning. The
interviewees expressed a concern with another phenomena
of the era of budget reduction. They noticed that
commissioners are being moved around departments and
creating something that they called ‘commissioner churn’.
What the interviewees wanted was a ‘partnership not
dictatorship’ with face-to-face meetings as part of the
routine so that they could build up a relationship that
can help with communication and improving the
commissioned work in real-time not via email. One of the
commissioner interviewees identified some of these issues
66
within their own organisation and they are working on a
specific commissioning function that manages the whole
process and will keep a reign upon the procurement.
All those interviewed realised that things were far from
perfect and on both sides of the commissioning divide
there is an acknowledgement that things cannot remain the
same, however the evidence from these interviews points
towards a radical shake up of form, function, culture and
resourcing, without which they may not be able to meet
the expectations and needs of the population in the near
future.
67
Chapter 4
Discussion
‘Society is dependent upon a criticism of its own tradition’
Jurgen Habermas [1929-]
This chapter will weave the intention, the implementation
and the findings of the research into a discussion that
will critically examine the complexity hidden in the
question ‘What is the impact of commissioning on services in the
voluntary and community sector in Lancashire?’ The chapter will
inevitably explore the extent to which the research
answers this question, however, it will also follow some
of the questions raised in the findings toward some
conclusions. A simple answer to the main question, after
reading the findings, is ‘Yes…there are several impacts
and implications’ but the value of this discussion will
lie in looking closely at what those are and what, if
any, are the solutions to issues that have been raised.
On the surface the issues raised by this question could
have practical or logistical answers; however the
68
findings may be masking a deeper set of challenges facing
local authorities, voluntary organisations and
communities. It will explore the idea that on one level
commissioning is a technical system fashionable within
local government, however, the findings hint at
commissioning being a manifestation of crisis of
democracy. This discussion will lead from an exploration
of system thinking to a non-linear world where nineteenth
or twentieth century approaches to commissioning
services, or even democratic governance, will demand
radical alternatives. This chapter will also evaluate the
research methodology through the findings connectivity to
other research and theoretical discourse.
From a service users point of view the findings of this
research tend to show that whilst they may have received
services the tone of the conversation was one of
dissatisfaction for even the best of the experiences.
Each member of the focus group felt ‘done to’ to some degree
though some success was described. The most unanimous
reply was ‘no’ to the question ‘do you feel you could
69
influence the service you received’. The interviewee’s
reinforce this theme as they all noted that there is
little co-design, co-production and engagement in their
experiences of commissioning in Lancashire. The
commissioners, whilst wanting trust to be the bedrock of
their work the commissioned felt that the value base was
about saving money through contract based procurement.
All of the interviews expressed a degree of frustration
with how things are at present even calling for a ‘reboot’
of the whole system. Measurement of outcome and
performance was an issue for all the interviewee’s in
that the experience described by the commissioned group
was one of a bureaucratic burden, the commissioners a
wasteful overhead and for both, an over emphasis on
monitoring the wrong things, which in turn made the
services do the wrong things (Plenert, 2011 p. 216).
The structure and timescales of contracts was of
importance to the interviewees as short term funding
tended to destabilise the quality of the work, the
workforce and ultimately, the voluntary sector
organisations themselves. Payment by results was
70
criticised as a method of coersive performance management
as well as acting as a mechanism of discrimination
against smaller organisations that could not afford the
upfront investment or the risk involved. Other themes
included the hidden costs for ‘commissioned’
organisations, the culturally embedded mistaking of
technical procurement for commissioning, the missing of
opportunity through the absence of co-production and co-
design and the lack of a dialogical relationship between
the commissioned and the commissioners.
From the findings the overall impression that remains is
one of a system that is fragmented, legalistic, overly
bureacratic, technical, non-democratic, exclusive and
wasteful. However, the findings also suggest that whilst
comissioning is a tool or process it can also be
described as a symptom of a deeper problem.
The landscape of the public sector in Lancashire is as
contoured as the hills of the county. It is a three tier
landscape with a parish and town councils layer, a
borough, district or city tier with the County Council
71
sitting across the post 1998 governmental topography like
the outer layer of a russian doll encapusalting all the
others (HM Government, no date, p. 166). Lancashire’s
1,468,850 people rely on, in varying degree’s, the
services of the councils whilst the councils rely upon
the taxpayers of this community for the funding of their
business (Lancashire County Council, 2015). This
symbiotic relationship, it can be argued, is at the very
heart of any discussion about commissioning representing
what Habermas (in Outhwaite, 2009, pg 64) describes as a
‘processed and repressed system crisis’ that has economic dynamics
being inaccurately projected onto political, cultural
and social systems.
The economic imperative in this instance is the
introduction of the free market into the democratic
structures of the state. The research findings touch on
the bureacratisation of the provision of state activity
and the technical elitism of the procurement experts.
Keen and Scase (1998, pg 7-20) describe this introduction
of neo-managerialism into local government as an attempt
72
to liberate hiercharically bound public servants with the
mantra of choice ringing in the background. As an
antithetical move against the traditional public service
of centralised control, direct management of service
delivery and budgets, jobs for life, quasi-monopolies and
consistent practice, neo-managerialism developed it’s own
rhetoric of being enablers, competitive, customer
focused, contractual and flexible employers. The ‘In
Search of Excellence’ generation had arrived using
private sector techniques in a public service context
( (Peters & Waterman Jnr, 1982). Keen and Scase develop
this idea by describing how much of this neo-
managerialism succeeded in ‘arms lengthing’ public
service functions before putting into place a complex
knot of mechanisms that retained control at the centre
whilst compliance was devolved. What remains is the worst
of both worlds; a fragmented bureaucracy that has to
justify itself in a contract culture disconnected from
the communities it seeks to affect. The research findings
echo this when one of the interviewee’s said “Authentic
73
professional work is being undermined by bureaucrats; commissioning is
getting in the way of normal operating”.
It is arguable that the dogma of the free market has
become a global hegemony with the principles of the
market being accepted with an evangelical enthusiasm.
Like a tide it began to reach into all the rock pools of
the public sector beach. A crucial part of this dogma is
the consumerisation of the public and the fragmentation
of community by the chilling use of the word
‘privatisation’. Not only is the word used to decides
where tax payers money is spent, for instance, to fund
the private sector but it is used to define the
individualisation of society. Despite the dogma of choice
the corporate system is now bowing down to the faith in
the one free market and ‘corporate absolutism’ (Curtis,
2012 p. 1-19). Hertz (2001, p. 1-16) goes one step
further and declares the death of democracy as stateless
corporations move across the globe colonising utilities,
services, employment, information, social structures and
culture. She describes a shift of power away from states
74
to corporations, without the social or moral
responsibility traditionally held by governments towards
their people. Living in this phase of history it is
therefore not surprising that the commissioners
interviewed wanted a radically different approach or in
one case ‘to scrap it all and start again’.
The purchaser/provider divide is a game that requires two
sides and no discussion about commissioning would be
complete without an examination of the voluntary sector
as providers and fellow actors in the two handed play.
The evidence provided in the findings seem to describe
organisations that are deeply dissatisfied by the current
state of affairs, they describe a loss of influence and
identity. The commissioned interviewees hint at having to
skew their operations and find their ethics under
pressure from distant pipers who’s tune they have to
dance to.
It wasn’t always thus and in the Lancashire County
Councils (1998) ‘Compact on relations between Lancashire
County Council and the voluntary, community and faith
75
sectors in Lancashire’ Hazel Harding, the then Leader of
the Council, clearly talks of a partnership, with
autonomy and mutuality as key characteristics. Funding in
this document is in the form of grants even if they were
shaped around the County Councils agenda’s. The document
is devoid of the contractualised, business approach of
todays procurement regime using only Service level
Agreements to act as ‘light touch’ monitoring. ‘Grant
makers are more flexible and know the nature of the work’ was a
statement made from an interviewee who’s organisation
remained committed to a funding split of 80% grants and
donation to 20% commissions or contracts. This is a
deliberate strategy to have a funding mix that will
maximise flexibility and leave some control in the hands
of the organisation ‘on the ground’. However, the
national picture looks different in that since 2004/05
the amount of government contracted work that the sector
has undertaken has doubled from £6.4 billion to £13.7
billion in 2011/12 (the amount peaked at £15 bilion in
2010/11) whilst grant funding has reduced across the
sector from 2004 to 2011 by 50% (£4.9 billion to £2.6
76
billion) (National Council for Voluntary Organisations,
2015). These statistics demonstrate a reduced access to
or a condensing of grants which will make the playing of
the pipers tune even louder than before.
A report from the Voluntary Sector raises a significant
concern about the significant erosion of the independence
of the sector. It reports an increasing loss of voice, of
a unique identity, of engagement or consultation, of
supportive funding or procurement, of political
independence and of an ability for sector organisations
to govern themselves. The report highlights the way that
Government is discouraging the sector to campaign or have
a view that goes contrary to government policy further
emphasising the grievances of the sector. (Independence
Panel 2015, p. 6-8).
At the same time the sector has seen the emergence of
social and sustainable capital funds. These funds are
secured or unsecured loans from banks and other financial
institutions including the Big Lottery that the Third
Sector can access. They do provide some grants, and will
provide funding for consultancy as well as straight
77
forward loans. On the surface this is access to money for
good purposes, however, the financial products sit
outside any democratic structures in the private realm.
This is the world of social enterprise, and third sector
businesses (The Social Investment Business, n.d.).
It is hard not to hear the anithesis of the ‘Big Society’
as ‘Small Government’ when Huckfield (2014, pg 4-6)
writing for an Inquiry into the future of voluntary
services argues that this transformation of the voluntary
sector parallels the ‘smaller state’ ideology of the
last 25 years that accompanies the global neo-liberal
agenda as wealth is transferred from the public realm
into the private sector.
The Centre for Social Justice (2013, pg16-18) [CSJ] argue
that despite the rhetoric from the 2010-2015 Coalition
Government about the role of the voluntary, charitable,
social enterprise, mutual sector taking up the delivery
of public services the reality was a long way from that.
The CSJ notes that only 2% of outsourced government
spending goes on the voluntary sector and that some local
78
authorites are commissioning fewer voluntary sector
organisations than they used to.
Their comments on commissioning resemble the sentiments
found in the interviews for this research. By changing
voluntary sector organisations into pseudo-local
authority bodies, the current commissioning and
procurement regime invalidated the very reason why anyone
would want to involve voluntary and community
organisations in the first place, namely their
creativity, flexibility and grass rootedness.
The research findings seem broadly consistent with the
national picture and the impact of commissioning in
Lancashire is having simliar effects on the
organsisations that sit astride both sides of the fence.
Trapped in a need to have an income to stay doing the
work that is the purpose of the voluntary sector
organisations and at the same time trying to rationalise
dancing to others potentially dischordent tunes is a
challenge.
It seems that the work begun by the Thatcherite
government of the 1980’s has followed a steady trajectory
79
through to the present by privatising services,
destabilising funding, culturally colonising sector
organisations, and introducing short termism and
uncertainty into the pipers increasingly chaotic dance.
Mitchell Feigenbaum was a little know scientist in the
1970’s, considered by many of his colleagues at Los
Alamos as odd. He didn’t work on his own research instead
he acted more like a consultant on other peoples. He
looked at clouds a lot. He lost his flying priviliges
because of overuse of the company plane. He studied how
liquids and gases swished around interacting and creating
turbulance. To his collegues he wasn’t working on
anything significant despite his obvious intelligence but
to Feigenbaum he was working on the deep problem of
‘chaos’.
For anyone that has been on this planet for any length of
time it becomes blindingly obvious that whilst some
things are ordered and in a steady state whilst other
things are random and have no pattern to them. This is
the science of chaos theory. Many scientists like
80
Feignenbaum have pionered work in this field showcasing
such ideas as the butterfly effect- creating huge events from
changing a small variable, period doubling - caluculations
that can predict the onset of the unpredictable behaviour
in complex systems and the Lorenz attractor – the underlying,
apparently random, limiting structure of system behaviour
(Gleick, 2008 pg 1-80). Chaos theory demonstrates that if
you increase variables, and keep increasing them there
will inevitably be turbulence or unpredicatable
ramdomness. If there is any doubt about the relevance of
the science of complexity it is worth noting that Benoit
Mandelbrot, the discoverer of fractal geometry, a branch
of chaos theory , predicted the 2008 banking collapse in
1999. His warnings went unheeded by Wall Street
(Mandelbrot, 2008).
This new science is moving away at speed from the
clockwork model of the linear universe as described in
Isaac Newtons mathematical philosphy. The 17th and 18th
century phenomena the Age of Enlightenment saw the era of
reason dawn along with it’s luminaries including David
Hume (1711-1776), John Locke (1632-1704) , Bishop George
81
Berkley (1685-1753) and Isaac Newton (1642-1727). The age
began to replace the dogma’s of religion with rationalism
lighting the way to scientific advancement and material
prosperity through the lense of rationale logic and
mechanistic causality. Enlightenment models of the
universe, education, economics and science radically
changed the human view of the world from a European
perspective, creating the philosophical conditions for
the modern age of industrialism and capitalism to
burgeon. An important philosoper at this time was Adam
Smith (1723-1790) who embarked on examining greed, self
interest and the common good in his long essay ‘The
Wealth of Nation’ . This forebear of Friedman and Hayek,
Smith dug the economic foundations for the future of
capitalism which remained reasonably unmodified for
around 200 years. This period of enlightenment left a
legacy of an ordered world, with predicatability, and
order as it’s zeitgeist’s ambition. The cultural legacy
of this time seeped into institutions including
government creating the machinery of state spreading
82
civilisation, and the rule of Law and Order eventually
all over the world (Davies, 1997, pg 596-611).
Yet it is the breaking down of enlightenment thinking and
the onset of social and cultural turbulence that comes
through in the conversations with all the interviewees.
They find themselves in between worlds, coping with
accelerating change and sensing the dissonance about the
system around them. Tofler (1971, pg 9-26) predicted in
the 1970’s that a new society was emerging marked by
transcience, change and overchoice. He argues that
developments in technology, resource acquisition and
commodification have contributed to a break with the
past. However, in response to the ever increasing pace of
change, social fragmentation, danger of elitism and a
myriad of tribal goals, decision makers reach for the
tools of the past which are no longer viable.
Tofler argues that a complex and multi tribal society
will require two key things; more democracy and long term
goals. He calls this anticipatory democracy.
From the findings of this research it is clear that there
is a system that is, if not already broken, creaking very
83
loudly. Therefore the question of solutions raise
themselves. The calls from the findings to look at system
reform require a discursive response. The commissioned
are dissatified with the job they are asked to do by way
of meeting service users real needs, the commissioners
are dissatified that the system of procurement has taken
over the whole of the commissoning cycle, money and
resource are getting scarcer and the service user sits
outside the ‘rich mans castle’ rarely able to influence
or shape the specialist help they need. Yet it is vital
to understand that, in the research findings, both
commssioners and the commissioned express that they want
to establish a relationship that engenders trust.
Seddon (2008) raises the ideas that ‘the system’ is what
has become important and not ‘what works’. Arguing for
pragmatism with a morality biased towards the system
users and not ideology or tradition are themes that would
find sympathy with the interviewees involved in this
research. There is a case for rejecting the idea of
‘choice’ and replacing it with high quality services that
meet need. Instead of targetitis there is a need for a
84
consensus of measures that will make things better over
time. Instead of inappropriate competition the engine for
change could be collaboration. A profound change in the
view of human nature from a negative to a positive one
would act well upon the system.
Choice has become a watchword for politicans becoming
ideologically fashionable from the Thatcher Government on
(Seddon, 2008, pg 8-10). However, when choice becomes
overchoice or choice for its own sake it becomes counter
productive and wasteful. For example, a supermarket found
in most towns will carry around 30,000 items. Each year
20,000 new products appear and yet research shows that
customers buy what they usually buy and ignore 75% of the
other merchandise. This phenomena is present in other
markets yet the idea of an infinity of options is an
almost unchallengeable truth (Schwartz, 2009, pg 8-23).
Seddon (2008, pg 9-26) poses the question ‘what is more
important; to choose which hospital you go to or have the
best cure?’. Some of the choices put forward by
government are very limited and this makes the rhetoric
sound hollow. Choice of methodology is often the focus
85
but the outcome is rarely part of the equation. An
analogy would be to say that the operation was a great
success but the patient died. The interviewees point out
that the type of contract, it’s measurement and
paperwork, far outweigh the service users experience and
outcome in terms of importance. Any success is almost
incidental.
Bringing morals back into the markets and opening up a
discussion about free markets and the public good is part
of a solution. It is the very language of free markets
that implies customers and consumers and there is a
commercial relationship between the market stall and the
passing trade. This contractual relationship replaces
norms such as service, collaboration, partnership and
altruism with specification, competition,
commisioner/provider demarcation and profit. This
corrupting dynamic shifts ‘free market economics into a
free market society’ when public services become public
commodities and sold to the lowest bidder (Sandel, 2009).
Despite the well worn phrase ‘you don’t fatten pigs by weighing
them’ being around education debates for years the
86
sentiment behind this agricultural aphorism still remains
stubbornly lodged in the mindset of public services
(Ezekiel, 2012). The whole issue of measurement of
targets has been mentioned before and is well rehearsed
in this discussion. What is intruiging is how and why is
the world of time and motion Fordism so hard to root out
of a modern public service? Traditionally public service
organisations have operated on a successful command and
control model within a reasonably steady state. It is a
powerful paradigm that remains in the public sector
pyschy. As job security, budget reductions and constant
change have reached the sector this paradigm is being
called into question. Despite the deception that ‘ this
is how it is and it’s always been like this’ the reality
is that work is seperated from decision making leaving
public servants as cogs of a vast machine with limited
movement. The paradigm within public service
organisations needs a radical shift. This could be
achieved by acting in a new way on the end to end system
of public services. This would mean the view would be
from the outside in, the system would be designed to cope
87
with incohate demand, flow through the system and value
for the front end user. Decisions woud be made at the
‘coal face’ where the work is. Measurements would be
purposeful and monitoring capability. Valuing the public
and their needs would be a paramount value, whilst
partners would be seen as collaborators. Managers would
ensure the system worked for the ‘front end’ and not the
other way round. This would mean that the attitude to
change would be one of adaption, adjusting and creative.
This perspective is the antithesis of traditional public
sector thinking and operating (Seddon, 2005, pg. 8-15).
Lewin (1993, pg .11) suggests that in nonlinear systems
like the one suggested here a small change in the initial
conditions can make large changes elsewhere. This
‘butterfly effect’ may be the catalyst needed for the
changes needed in our public sector. So called because a
butterfly may flap its wings in Lancashire and set off
chain of events culminating in a storm in Japan,
therefore altering the executive and operational side of
the authority will inevitably affect the whole .
Therefore commissioning may be a key to change.
88
Returning to Toflers ‘anticipatory democracy’ it would
seem that the current system of government, and
especially local government democracy are part of the of
the problem that this research set out to discover. Given
that the research is based in Lancashire then any
discussion about repairs to local democracy will be set
in the context of Lancashire as, it could be argued, that
if it can work in this varied three tier environment then
it may provide a blueprint for other places. though the
depths of tradition and institutional conservatism may
prove too immovable .
There are several alternatives to the top down,
representative partisan democracy that is presently
bestriding county hall and town hall corridors.
Brand (2014, pg 337-339 ) apart from advocating for
people not to vote at all, suggests that participatory
democracy like the participatory budgeting process in
Brazil is a serious alternative. In Porto Alegre in
Brazil forming a direct democracy Participatory Budgeting
[PB] incudes populations in discussions directly and not
89
through any representation. PB tackles the inconvenience
of large populations and takes it’s time. PB discusses
the entirety of a budget and every policy area of the
local government. Administrators carry out the wishes of
the people, and the people decide what those wishes are.
Constitutionally sound PB enables genuine accountabilty
within a self regulating system. The people ensure that
their own money is spent wisely (deSouza, 2004, p. 57-
62).
Laclau and Mouffe (in Curato, 2010, pg 24) suggest
another model and argue for ‘radical democracy’ that
embraces conflict to transform it into consensus and
reconciliation. Instead of a perpetual state of thesis
versus antithesis where each ‘side’ is seen as something
to be defeated and removed; they suggest a participatory
dialogue that enables genuine dissent and debate but
always seeking consensus as the highest outcome. Not to
take this path creates non-democratic forms of political
expression such as terrorism, revolution, extremism or in
some cases the overthrowing of goverments.
90
‘Cooperative Collegial Democracy’ is proposed by Ezeani
(2012, pg 142-150) emerging out of post colonial Africa
showing the following characteristics: it is party-less
and its representatives are chosen from villages as the
smallest constituent part. Once again the focus is not on
who is to hold power but the debate and the outcome.
The future may belong to the Chaordic Age which is the
name given by Hock (1999, p.261-265) to structures in the
future that reject the huge command and control
hierarchies for networked, colloborative, flexible
adhocracies that inhabit chaos and order. Meanwhile
Brafman and Beckstrom (2006, pg.172-174) suggest, like
Hock, that time of the ‘starfish’ organisation is here,
characterised by form following function and being ‘open
source’ driven. Open source as being an almost pure form
of democracy enabling people to contribute to create a
greater whole through the use of the global
communications facilitated by the internet.
Without doubt there are alternatives to current model of
democracy operating in the United Kingdom. Whether Blond
and Morrins (2014) vision of a placed based devolved
91
financial democracy, albeit with an elected mayor,
becomes the norm, or a Lancashire with smaller unitary
authorities in its borders or a unitary Lancashire County
it is time to abandon the ‘God Complex’ and embrace a
spirit of trial and error. 12 minutes and 27 seconds into
a talk about the ‘God Complex’ Tim Harford (2011) said ‘I
will admit that, yes, it's obvious that trial and error is a good thing. When a
politician stands up campaigning for elected office and says, "I want to fix our
health system. I want to fix our education system. I have no idea how to do
it. I have half a dozen ideas. We're going to test them out. They'll probably all
fail. Then we'll test some other ideas out. We'll find some that work. We'll build
on those. We'll get rid of the ones that don't." -- when a politician campaigns
on that platform, and more importantly, when voters like you and me are
willing to vote for that kind of politician, then I will admit that it is obvious
that trial and error works, and that until then, until then I'm going to keep
banging on about trial and error and why we should abandon the God
complex.’
It would be somewhat disapointing if the answer the
seemingly straightforward question of this research ‘What
is the impact of commissioning on services in the voluntary and community
92
sector in Lancashire?’ were to be equally straightforward. It is
a question that has fractal qualities in that you can
look at it from a variety of scales and there’s a lot to
see. The findings of the research show that service users
are noting an alienation from services; the commissioned
are alienated from the commissioners; and the
commissioners, in turn, seemed alienated from the source
of democracy, namely the people and the communities of
Lancashire. This discussion could have focused on this
scale and looked at better models of commissioning but
the real impact on the voluntary and community sector is
more than inefficient contracting. It is being in a
period of time that is staring at the edge of
unpredictability, coping with a myriad of variable need
and resourcing, facing a crisis in democracy locally and
globally. To repeat an idea, commissioning is a symptom
of a much wider malaise in local democracy that needs
addressing.
93
Conclusion
In fact, let us not mince words the management is terrible. We’ve had astring of embezzlers, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string ofcatastrophic decisions. This is plain fact. But who elected them? It was you!You who appointed these people! You who gave them the power to make yourdecisions for you! While I’ll admit anyone can make a mistake once, to go onmaking the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothingshort of deliberate. You have encouraged these malicious incompetents, whohave made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without questiontheir senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace withdangerous and unproven machines. You could have stopped them
‘V’ - Alan Moore 1990
This research was designed to discover ‘What is the impact of
commissioning on services in the voluntary and community sector in
Lancashire?’ The research successfully shows that
undoubtedly there are several impacts and most of them
negative. It had been hoped at the outset to discover
significant changes from the time when commissioning
began to be a tool used in the in the mid-2000’s in
Lancashire. However, there seems to have been little
change apart from there had been a significant reduction
in grant making from councils, reductions in local
government funding and an increase in ‘procurement’ of
services. The research shows a demoralised voluntary
95
sector trying to continue as best they can, in a shifting
and insecure funding regime. The findings also show that
there has been no co-production and co-design with the
sector let alone communities. The amount of community
engagement at any depth was non-existent. Even though
service users express some satisfaction and some
dissatisfaction about services they have received they
expressed a feeling of powerlessness to influence or
change services.
Summary
These are complex problems that lead to even more complex
answers
This research reveals a layered response to what action
needs to change this situation. On an immediate level
layer Seddons (2008, pp.196) talks about changing who has
the control and enabling frontline staff to have the
freedom to make operational decisions without ‘going back
up the line’. This is where real commissioning takes
place. Services could design what works best in their
incohate context where unpredicatbility is rife and
96
opportunity to prevent greater need is abundant. This is
the scale at which demand and in particular failure
demand can be to managed. Communities need commissioned
innovation and Harfords (2011) ‘trial and error’
approach, as the evidence in the findings shows that the
‘God Complex’ isn’t working. One idea would be to pay
frontline staff more than managers. This may encourage
choardic organisations that moves away from the tyranny
of rigid hierarchy ( (Hock, 1999). Seddon also tackles
the issue of accountability and he argues that there
should be only one question asked of managers in public
services and that is ‘what are you doing to make things
better and to improve your service?’ This would put the
commissioning cycle into a dynamic dialogue rather that a
contract. This research calls for an immediate
discussion about taking seriously co-design and co-
production of services with providers and service users
alike. The commissioned interviewees were very clear
about wanting to be more involved from the outset.
To summarise commissioning as a function of local
government is at best flawed and at worst destabilising
97
the voluntary and community sector in Lanacashire.
Commisioners should be using the whole commissioning
cycle including, co-design, co-production, long term
investment to create flexible, learning and collaborative
community facing services.
The ‘outside in’ public service would need change to the
next layer of response. This research calls for a
radically different way of doing local government and
local government services. The research argues for more
democracy not less, which will, in turn lead towards a
profound economic, social and cultural change. This is
what is hoped for with such devolution of health and
social care money for Greater Manchester (Blond & Morrin,
2014). The research shows that the system of local
government is a system that is increasingly not fit for
purpose. In short the current local government
constitution and operation is increasingly not able to
cope with the complexities of post-modern society without
some considerable reengineering of its purpose, function
and democracy.
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Evaluation
The relative consensus between the interviewees justified
this research topic. There is clear evidence that the
current state of commissioning in Lancashire leaves
something to be desired. It is having a negative impact
on the voluntary and community sector in the county. The
literature review and desktop research shows that
Lancashire is not alone. The coalition government (2010-
1015) established a commissioning academy whose
aspirations far outstrip the reality (Department for
Communities and Local Government, 2013).
The interviewees and focus group proved to be valid and
insightful methods with which to gain the evidence needed
to come to the conclusions previously discussed.
The thematic analysis was a systematic tool that refined
the overall evidence, distilling it into the essential
themes that the interviewees brought to the table.
The overall tone of the research activity was one of
genuine inquiry seeking to actively hear what the
99
participants had to say and to treat their evidence with
respect.
The evidence, the analysis, the literature review when
combined has achieved what was intended. The challenge
now remains as to what can be done with the findings and
the conclusions that the research points to.
Future Work
In terms of research there is a need for a wider
exploration of the subject. In the course of this work it
became clear that outside Lancashire there were emergent
commissioning practice that would be relevant to examine
further. Again there are examples of practice and
democracy outside of the UK that would be valuable to
examine.
Within Lancashire there is scope for looking at place
based budgeting and examining further the idea of ‘life
course’ services as described by one of the
commissioners.
100
There will be an opportunity within the emerging
devolution agenda to consider how co-production and co-
design can help with the process and to make comparisons
with authorities that have less delegated flexibility.
It may be helpful to others considering this issue if all
or parts of this work could be published and a larger
discussion had with a bigger audience.
This research, whilst valid, could have benefited with
involving service users in a broader way and it would
have benefitted, as with most things in life, with more
time spent on a deeper inquiry. If this research was to
be developed or repeated some form of visioning work and
world café approach would have yielded some interesting
alternative models for the solution to the issues that
have been raised.
Conclusion
The relationship between the taxpayer and the tax spender
is as old as the Magna Carta. This research shows that if
101
this relationship was a marriage it would be in need of
help as it has become one sided and, on the whole, they
aren’t speaking. On the one hand the relationship has
been solemnised and legitimised through the years, but on
the other, pastorally the relationship is verging on the
abusive. The tax spender has become distant of late and
has started paying other people for doing what they
should be doing. What is needed is mediation,
communication, agreement and action so that these two
sides of the democratic marriage can open a dialogue and
rekindle the mutual benefits they have for each other.
Failure to do so will result in a very messy divorce.
102
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Appendix 1 –Interview and focus groupquestions
Interview Questions - Organisations
1. What is your experience of commissioning?
2. How would you describe ideal commissioning?
3. What are the values underpinning commissioning?
4. How do you describe successful commissioning?
5. What would you do to improve commissioning?
6. What are the levels of co-design? 1 being none, 5 being high
1 2 3 4 5
7. What are the levels of co-production? 1 being none, 5 being high
1 2 3 4 5
8. What are the levels of community engagement? 1 beingnone, 5 being high
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1 2 3 4 5
Focus Group Questions
What services or organisations have you used over the last 5 years?
In that time have you noticed any changes in those services or organisations?
If so what?
Would you like to have your say in those services?
If so how?
Without giving any details of your circumstances, how effective were the services in meeting your needs or requirements
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