Commissioning of Services

Background

The commissioning of public services describes the cycle of assessing the needs of people in an area, designing and then achieving appropriate outcomes within resource limitations. Resources include finances, facilities, capacity, skills and experience.   In essence, commissioning is the process by which public services are planned, purchased and monitored.

Public services are services that are organised by the States of Jersey in order to benefit the citizens of Jersey.  Such services might be provided directly by the States of Jersey or they might be commissioned from private, other public sector or third-sector organisations.  Good commissioning provides value for money by improving the quality of services (for example accessibility, customer experiences and outcomes) and maintaining or reducing the costs involved in providing those services.   Successful commissioning means delivering the right outcomes at the right cost.

The States of Jersey rely on commissioning services from external providers where it is not practical, or not possible, to deliver specialist services within the public sector on Island.  While there are different models of commissioning, in essence, they comprise five main steps.  These are outlined in Exhibit 1:

• Understanding needs and opportunities
• Planning
• Procuring and contracting
• Monitoring and evaluating
• Revising and adapting

Source: Jersey Audit Office

Scope

This review will assess the extent to which the States of Jersey commission services from external providers that deliver outcomes for Islanders in line with policy objectives.

The review will start with an overarching consideration of the State of Jersey’s approach to commissioning, to understand:

• the drivers for and policies underpinning the decisions about what public services are to be commissioned; and
• the range of commissioning activity.

This will be followed by reviews of how specific services are, or are planned to be, commissioned, against elements of best practice.  The specific services that will be reviewed will be those commissioned by the Health and Community Services Department (HCS), the Children, Young People, Education and Skills Department (CYPES), the Justice and Home Affairs Department (JHA), the Customer and Local Services Department (CLS) and the Probation and Aftercare Service.

The objectives and/or scope of the review may be amended in the course of the review in the light of emerging findings or other matters arising.