Driving co-production and accountability

New ways of working together are needed to achieve meaningful involvement, collaboration, co-production, and shared accountability across the full commissioning cycle. The quality of relationships and trust will be key determinants of successful co-production.

Improving relationships

Challenge – how we continue to improve the way we relate to each other as partners and the strength of relationship between government and the sector over 10 years.

• Relationships are at the heart of commissioning.
• Low trust between the sector and government leads to a culture of suspicion, a focus on compliance to the exclusion of collaboration, and poor continuity of knowledge.
• Competitive processes and other factors have impacted sector cohesion and collaboration.
• Without strong relationships we will not realise commissioning cycles or work together well to deliver outcomes for individuals.
• We each, government, and the sector, have a role to play in improving relationships.

Our action(s)

– to improve the mechanisms, we use to cultivate our partnerships (contracts and the relationship management processes)

– to maintain consistent forums and opportunities for two-way communication

– to monitor the evolution of the relationship and expectations between government and the sector through the annual commissioning survey.

– to share lessons learned and act on these insights

Contributes to reform outcome(s)

– Improve sector sustainability through closer partnerships and better understanding the needs of our service delivery partners.

Page updated: 28 Feb 2024