Could we see a way to clearly link participation by residents and a vibrant third sector? The report, Commissioning and the Community Sector by The Kindle Partnership — which incorporates Action with Communities in Rural England, BASSAC, Children England, Community Matters, National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, and the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services — has been published because it says community groups are often reluctant to get involved in commissioning because they lack information about the process and the risks involved. (see more at http://www.cypnow.co.uk/bulletins/Daily-Bulletin/news/990696 )

Their guide offers much useful advice and guidance to enable public money to be accessed by community level organisations. And this made me think- this is what PB does as well. Through the many community grants processes we have seen small local organisations pick up funding that would otherwise be unavailable to them. When a community comes together to decide funding almost invariably they know who can deliver locally, and they want to back local solutions.

This relates (in my view) to a much older paper by the New Economics Foundation called “Plugging the leaks”, which identified how public spending can leak out of an area through consultancies, by purchasing outside the district, or employing the wrong delivery model. It persuasively argues that if money can be made to circulate within the local economy, rather than leak out of it, you can generate a useful multiplier effect. Every pound of public money can generate extra resources again and again and again, creating jobs and stimulating the local economy. Bottom up regeneration of this kind is much more sustainable and leaves a local legacy. (See http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/)

Yet public sector commissioning is structured in a way that makes it unobtainable where its most needed. The Social Enterprise Coalition has been especially exercised about commissioning and it’s answer is more collaboration. Its encouraging smaller organisations to build partnerships to access these big contracts. The problem is the sector is ill prepared for the sort of hurdles put in place by our public procurement rules which seem designed to favour the private sector on price over better public or social economy outcomes. Also partnership can lead to mission creep and inefficiency as new ways of working must be re-created. Charity trustees are rightly worried they are being transformed by external forces to do government’s work and losing money and autonomy in the process.

NCVO, BASSAC, the Development Trusts Association and others in the social economy will also recognise this issue. The shrinking of core grants for the community and voluntary sector has caused huge damage, with extra burdens on charities and the smaller local community enterprises. There is a well recognised funding gap opening up, with the voluntary sector effectively subsidising the public sector rather than the other way round.    Carers for example are filling a gap in local health and wellbeing funding, and by doing so save the NHS and therefore all taxpayers millions. Yet individual carers remain in extreme need.    This sort of injustice will only get worse in the coming tight fiscal years.

So how does PB connect to this gloomy picture. Well, in numerous PB events the community now targets thousands of pounds locally into filling just this gap. Community nurseries, personal support services, youth clubs, exercise groups, environmental improvement schemes all do well when the community decides.
As PB has spread the opportunity grows and grows for spending money in communities through some kind of a local decision day. For example there is Newcastle’s Carers UDecide process. Where carers are being put in charge of a significant budget to create the services they need to do their work.    And in Tower Hamlets their PB process this year included new information, bringing a new option to buy top up service investments from the third sector or from the council.

Of course if money available to community enterprises is to grow, so must the robustness behind any decision making process. But part of the answer is already out there, through a new phase of PB using commissioning tables and community contracts. Well known overseas, a budget matrix can begin to provide the rigor that commissioners need to invest in local enterprise.

And that will be good for all. Good commissioning is about connecting local knowledge with technical expertise in new forms of co-production. Procuring the right services at a small scale by tapping into resources already within the community is a sensible strategy. PB does this very well. I think it would end up saving money by more efficient and innovative local delivery. Bringing transparency over how commissioning works, and strengthening local accountability over precious taxpayers money. PB could yet again be a “win, win, win” scenario.

  http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/uploadedFiles/NCVO/What_we_do/Research/Almanac/NCVO_2009_The_State_and_the_Voluntary_Sector.pdf) 

http://www.carersuk.org/Newsandcampaigns/News/1244212361
http://community.newcastle.gov.uk/udecide/?p=27