Ethical Commissioning Support for commissioners – Working across local authority teams

This report is intended to be used as a learning resource for commissioners, and anyone working in the commissioning and procurement of social care services on embedding and influencing.

About the project

The Iriss Ethical Commissioning Programme ran a project supporting commissioners with working across local authority teams and influencing others within their authority on embedding and implementing ethical commissioning.

The focus was on supporting collaborative decision making within local authority teams and across different roles to support implementation of ethical commissioning and the development of change leaders. This in turn contributes to the overall outcome for the implementation plans as a whole – ethical commissioning is better implemented across Scotland.

Across the year, there was positive engagement and discussions with senior leaders from local authorities who were looking to implement change. Four local authorities joined the project supporting people working across teams on ethical commissioning and procurement implementation. The group provided a space for peer support, sharing of challenges and solutions, discussions about collaborative working and how to embed complex change across teams and within procurement, contracts, legal, finance and commissioning roles.
This report presents the learning from the sessions undertaken with these individuals from different roles in various local authorities.