The project focused on organisations working within the context of the competitive commissioning environment.
The aim of the project was to encourage more collaborative ways of working.
The project has concluded with a report titled Rebalancing the relationship the final report, which can be downloaded here.
The report highlighted that charities of all types and sizes report a range of challenges, including:
- Poor service design
- Lack of funding
- Increasingly large generic contracts
- Passing on risk to providers
- Tight deadlines.
The report suggest five key questions every leader and individual should consider to improve how their organisation works with others:
- What advantages does my organisation have compared to others, and how can we level the playing field? How can we support organisations led by marginalised groups and communities?
- What are the challenges other organisations of different types and sizes face? What do other organisations do better than us? What are the challenges and values we have in common?
- How do other organisations, and people who work for them, experience working with us? How can we make them feel comfortable to have an honest conversation with us?
- Do others know we want to work in partnership and how we approach partnership working?
- How are the people we serve supported by other organisations? How can we work with other organisations to centre the people we serve and coproduce[4] services? How can we prioritise impact above organisational interest?
Local VCSE organisations, who are involved in partnership working within the sector or wish to explore these type of opportunities, may find the report of interest.