19 VCSE organisations within Northamptonshire met with the Procurement Team of West Northamptonshire Council at the Icon Centre in Daventry on the 14^{th of} June 2022. This event was funded by the Lottery Healthy Communities Fund.

The presentations for the event can be found here:

 

Gus De Silva (Head of Procurement for West Northamptonshire Council)  talked about the Procurement Triangle of cost versus quality versus time. He also mentioned the art of the possible through Partnerships or Coalitions, and how they would be welcomed by West Northamptonshire as a way of delivering services to local communities in the future.

Procurement and Social Values

Ashley LeDuc  (Assistant Director of Commissioning and Performance) mentioned Market Shaping and the preventative agenda – how healthcare generally needs to be repackaged and redelivered into communities and the engagement that forms part of that process.

WNC Commissioning

Martin Wilson (Sustainability Manager of West Northamptonshire Council) talked about Commissioning and Sustainability, and how West Northamptonshire is looking to provide a better future for the communities they serve.

Sustainable West Northants Social Value

VIN comments:

For those organisations that did not attend, the assumption that Commissioning does not link to the new world of the ICS would be an incorrect one. The ICS is largely about Point of Place delivery into communities via various Local Area Partnerships. Brave and intuitive Commissioning which focuses on the local is going to be an imperative within that. Commissioning will have to change to meet this new approach, and that’s why VIN believes that Commissioning Forums should be attached to each Local Area Partnership to keep the debate alive and ensure that Social Value lies at its heart. This is not the first time either that VIN has heard the call around Coalitions or Partnerships from the VCSE. We know that the ICS will deliver its services through Collaborative approaches and the idea that it will work through 70 odd single contracts is mistaken. Therefore VCSE organisations need to think about how they can come together to work at a LAP level based upon Population Health Data and the 10 ambitions enshrined In Live Your Best Life.

Martin Wilson touched on the idea that the VCSE should be thinking about its own Sustainability Pledges:  Any organisation that has can pledge here: Sustainable West Northants

If any organisation wishes to discuss their pledge, you can get advice and guidance by contacting the sustainability team – sustainable@westnorthants.gov.uk