You may be joining the commissioning journey for the first time or bringing your wisdom and experience to a commissioning collaborative design activity.
You may be a public servant within government taking on the role of commissioner or be a commissioned partner delivering services, programs or projects that benefit the Canberra community.
Or perhaps you are an individual or family who has sought support, accessed services and programs, and you are sharing your experience to improve the system.
Welcome to commissioning.
Communities, service providers and governments throughout the world and across Australia have come to the same conclusion – that we need to get better at responding to community need and evolving our human services system.
Here in the ACT, we began our commissioning journey in 2021 after trialling the approach and exploring its potential for out of home care and child protection in 2015 through A Step Up for Our Kids
Across 2019 – 2021, Government and non-government organisations explored how the approach could be applied across the human services system, releasing discussion papers and working through the detail in collaborative forums.
In 2021, the ACT Government released the first Commissioning Roadmap and the ACT Approach to Commissioning which laid the preliminary foundations to apply commissioning to a range of funded services and programs across the community and health sector.
Importantly, we set the intention and commitment of the ACT Government to implement commissioning as a method to reform the human services system:
“Both directorates acknowledge that we haven’t always got things right in the past and bring to commissioning our commitment to learn and innovate as we work in new ways with our community. We recognise that we need to be in the right relationship with our sector partners and community members to work together, to design services that lead to improved outcomes for people and our community.” Strengthening Partnerships - Commissioning for Outcomes - The ACT Approach to Commissioning
Find out more, visit the timeline of the ACT’s commissioning journey
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Page updated: 28 Feb 2024
