Deliver

Use the contract or service agreement which details the service specifications and the outcomes. Use the shared principles.

Commissioner and the service provider/s use a collaborative method like a workshop or roundtable to define the partnership norms. Partners can explore meeting, communication, and reporting cycles, establish foundational knowledge, skills, and attitudes, determine how and what data will be collected, and identify areas to strengthen capability or capacity together. Partners can also look at the roles and responsibilities for advocacy, how lived experience voices will inform service improvements over time and be central to outcome reporting.

Typically, the partnership approach will:

• Ensure the service outcomes are met, and agree what data is necessary to demonstrate this in the timeframe of the contract
• Bring the voice of people with lived experience into all discussions regarding contract performance
• Maintain dialogue that is proportionate to the contract value, and meets the needs of both parties
• Promote open, transparent conversation regarding risks, challenges, and opportunities
• Include engagement across and between subsectors so that sub-system governance, interfaces with other parts of the broader system, improved data sharing and other shared practices also progress.

Delivery of person-centred services require flexibility so that services can adapt to changing needs. Commissioning for outcomes rather than outputs or metrics allows scope for a service to evolve and iterate to meet emerging needs.

Established partnership approach that allows for regular and open communication combined with the commissioning cycle itself presents opportunities to adjust or identify new service offerings that could be commissioned.

Commissioning for outcomes is about how the service is meeting the needs of the community and then demonstrating through reporting how the service is delivering the agreed outcomes for the community.

• The voices of people with lived experience are central to service improvements, identifying emerging needs and outcomes reporting.
• Partners need to determine how lived experience voices will be woven in, presented, and informing delivery, improvements, and reporting