procurement and commissioningWhether you are a social enterprise or a charity, if you are in any way interested in the delivery of public services, the increasing likelihood is that you will have to look towards getting your services procured by the public sector, be that a local authority or a national governmental body. This is true across a huge range of services including the provision of supported housing for those in need, training for the unemployed, domestic collection of recyclable materials, running community transport bus routes and providing care for people with mental health problems. You may find you need to deal with a local body like a local authority or a primary care trust or a national body like the Department of Work and Pensions or the NHS.  Commissioning is the process by which government departments and local authorities secure their services. This is usually done through a legal procurement process that will require potential service providers to submit a tender. This as outlined below, is often a multi stage process. In general terms commissioning refers to the process as a whole, and it should be clear that third sector organisations can do a lot to influence this, prior to the legal procurement process commencing.
 Thanks to the generous support of the Big Lottery Fund BASIS programme and the Income Generation workstream of the Capacitybuilders funded National Support Services, ACEVO has developed a range of training programmes, publications and support offerings to help infrastructure support bodies make a difference with the groups they support and for frontline groups to win the contracts and sub-contracts they need.
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