Tower Hamlets Children and Families Trust
Joint Commissioning Framework
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Contents
Contents .......................................................................................................... 2
Introduction and context ................................................................................... 3
Purpose of the framework ............................................................................ 3
Definition of commissioning .......................................................................... 3
Levels of commissioning .............................................................................. 4
Vision for commissioning .............................................................................. 5
Core elements of commissioning ................................................................. 5
Principles ...................................................................................................... 6
Governance ..................................................................................................... 6
Approach ......................................................................................................... 7
The Commissioning Cycle ............................................................................ 8
Workforce development and support for this framework ................................ 13
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Introduction and context
The Children and Families’ Trust has a key responsibility for joint strategic
commissioning.
At a national level the development of an integrated approach to
commissioning for children and young people was first identified in Every
Child Matters in 2004. This states that:
“The primary purpose of a Children’s Trust is to secure integrated
commissioning leading to more integrated service delivery and better
outcomes for children and young people.”
More recently the role of the Trust has been strengthened by The
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning (ASCL) Act 2009. This makes
all partners accountable for overseeing the delivery of improved outcomes for
children and young people through the Children and Young People’s Plan and
increases its responsibility for a wider range of commissioning activity.
In 2009, a review of the governance structure of Tower Hamlets Children and
Families Trust and its role as a strategic commissioning body recommended
that there was a need to sharpen the focus of the Trust on commissioning and
better use of resources. This framework aims to meet those
recommendations, responding to the need identified by stakeholders to make
our commissioning process clearer and more transparent.
This Framework has been influenced by the Joint Planning and
Commissioning Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity
Services and is in keeping with the NHS World Class Commissioning
Framework which set out the key principles and processes for good quality
commissioning for children’s services.
This new Framework will guide all future commissioning activity across the
Children and Families Trust.
Purpose of the framework
The purpose of this Framework is to set out a shared vision and agreed
approach for commissioning for all Children and Families Trust partners. It
provides a set of agreed principles and processes to ensure that
commissioning activity for children and families is co-ordinated across Trust
partners. All joint and single agency commissioning takes place within this
framework.
Under the Trust arrangements, local agencies retain accountability for
delivery. This framework ensures that delivery is co-ordinated but does not
override individual agency accountabilities.
Definition of commissioning
Tower Hamlets Children and Families Trust has adopted the following
definition of commissioning:
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“The process of specifying, securing and monitoring services to meet people’s
needs,and securing value for money in the use of resources.”
Our approach to strategic commissioning is broader than deciding whether to
deliver services in-house, in partnership or externally. Its focus is on adopting
a whole system approach for commissioning services and improving
outcomes for local people through the alignment, development and use of all
available markets. It includes decommissioning as well as developing new
services.
This provider neutral approach will assist with securing high quality provision
from the most appropriate providers.
Levels of commissioning
Strategic Commissioning is the responsibility of the Children and Families
Trust Board, who set the strategy for improving outcomes for children, young
people and families. Strategic commissioning focuses on whole service
commissioning. The Trust Board has overall responsibility for setting our
commissioning priorities with the support of the Commissioning and Delivery
Groups and specialist commissioning groups who all form part of the Trust.
Specialist commissioning groups include, the Joint Commissioning Group for
Young People’s Substance Misuse, the Emotional Health and Well-being
Commissioning Group, the 14-19 Hub and the Maternity and Children’s
Commissioning Group.
Regional Commissioning takes place across local authority boundaries
often with one organisation taking the lead. Regional commissioning will
generally have the benefit of providing economies of scale. It can also assist
with managing the costs services. This can include the development of
shared services on a regional basis as well as collective approaches to
procurement. For example, regional commissioning has been particularly
helpful in setting a ceiling on the cost of foster placements for looked after
children through a Pan-London Agreement which is managed by the London
Borough of Harrow on behalf of participating authorities.
Individual Commissioning is where services are commissioned for an
individual child or young person. This might include individual packages of
care for children in need. These services can either be brokered by
commissioning officers or by families directly through funding such as direct
payments. Individual commissioning is supported by the Common
Assessment Framework, which is shared across partners, as well as statutory
assessment processes. Information from individual commissioning activity
informs activity that takes place at operational and strategic level.
This framework ensures that there is a consistent set of principles and
overarching processes within which all levels of commissioning can take
place.
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Vision for commissioning
Tower Hamlets vision for children and young people is set out in the Children
and Young People’s Plan (CYPP). The CYPP sets out the priorities that all
Trust partners have agreed for improving outcomes across each of the Every
Child Matters 5 outcome areas. All commissioning activity has the primary
purpose of supporting the delivery of improved outcomes as articulated in the
CYPP.
Core elements of commissioning
There are a number of core elements that support an effective commissioning
process that are in place across the Children and Families Trust. These
include:

A common set of values that respect and encompass the full diversity of
individuals' differences

An understanding of the needs and preferences of present and potential
future service users and their carers

A comprehensive mapping of existing services

A vision of how local needs may be better met by setting priorities and
outcomes through strategic planning processes

Effective systems and processes for implementing service changes
which may include service redesign, decommissioning of existing services
or the procurement of new services

A strategic framework for market management and workforce
development so that we can ensure we have a diverse and sustainable
provider base for the delivery of excellent children’s services.

Robust performance management systems to ensure services are
supporting the achievement of improved outcomes

An ongoing dialogue with service users and carers and service providers
in all sectors

An evidence-based approach which continuously evaluates services with
a view to achieving measurably better outcomes for service users and
their carers

A system that is transparent and equitable so that all partners and
providers understand how and on what basis commissioning decisions are
made.

A workforce that has the necessary competencies to commission
efficiently and effectively in line with local and national commissioning
standards.
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Principles
In order to ensure there is a consistent approach to commissioning in Tower
Hamlets Trust, partners have agreed the following principles that will underpin
this framework:

The overriding consideration when commissioning is to achieve better
outcomes for children, young people and their families, and reduce
inequalities.

The Every Child Matters framework is our adopted framework for agreeing
desired outcomes.

The Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) documents the priorities
that Trust partners have agreed, and sets the policy framework for
commissioning activity.

Safeguarding children and young people is central to our commissioning.

Services are commissioned within the framework of the Tower Hamlets
Family Wellbeing Model across the continuum of need including universal,
targeted and specialist services.

Trust partners are committed to working together and co-ordinating
commissioning activity to ensure that resources are efficiently directed to
meet need in relation to better outcomes.

Service development and procurement will be evidence based,
transparent and underpinned by robust monitoring and evaluation.

Children, young people and families will be at the heart of all
commissioning and will be involved in the planning, designing and
performance monitoring of services.

Services will be designed that promote choice and encourage greater
independence and where possible will be delivered when and where
families want them.

Services will be commissioned to meet the needs of children and young
people and families across all of our communities.

Partners will have regard to relevant national and local regulatory and
policy frameworks in their commissioning activity.
Governance
The diagram below sets out the new governance structure for Tower Hamlets
Children and Families Trust along with its roles and responsibilities.
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Local Safeguarding Children
Board
MEETS BI-MONTHLY
RESPONSIBLE FOR:
Strategic Oversight of
Safeguarding
Serious Case Reviews
Scrutinising C&FT on
Safeguarding
Annual Safeguarding Report
Children and Families Trust Board
MEETS QUARTERLY
RESPONSIBLE FOR:
Agreeing Strategic Priorities in the CYPP
Scrutinising Chief Officer Group
Ensuring delivery of LAA targets and reporting to Tower Hamlets Partnership
Children and Families Chief Officer Group (COG)
MEETS EVERY TWO MONTHS
RESPONSIBLE FOR:
Signing off Commissioning and Delivery Plans
Allocating budgets within agencies
Performance management of Commissioning and Delivery Groups (inc LAA Targets)
Risk management
Commissioning and Delivery Groups
(1 for each ECM theme and Excellent Children’s Services)
Cross Cutting Strategy Groups
(Maximum 1 for each cross cutting theme)
MEETS AT FREQUENCY AGREED BY GROUP
MEETING FREQUENCY VARIES
RESPONSIBLE FOR:
RESPONSIBLE FOR:
Writing Commissioning and Delivery Plans
Managing performance
Reporting to Exec
Writing and reviewing cross cutting strategies
Monitoring implementation plans, reporting to Chief
Officer Group
Specialist Commissioning Groups
The Children and Families Trust Board includes commissioner and provider
organisations, and is responsible for ensuring that there is a consensus
across the partnership on the priorities for children and young people’s
services.
The Chief Officer Group consists of chief officers from the core
commissioning agencies. This group is responsible for ensuring that the
priorities identified in the Children and Young People’s Plan are delivered
within available resources. To do this it ensures that robust commissioning
and delivery plans are in place, and manages performance and risk to ensure
that the plans are effectively implemented.
The commissioning and delivery groups (CDGs) are responsible for writing
and monitoring the implementation of commissioning and delivery plans, and
are accountable to the Chief Officer Group.
Specialist Commissioning Groups exist where required, to deal with
detailed discussions about commissioning and delivery that cannot be dealt
with effectively by CDGs. Their activity forms part of the the CDG’s overall
plan and is monitored by the Trust through the CDGs.
The Local Safeguarding Children Board is a statutory board which is
responsible for ensuring that there is robust oversight and scrutiny of
safeguarding children in Tower Hamlets. It is independently chaired and
includes lay members. The Board is responsible for making sure that
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services delivered by Trust Partners adequately safeguard children, and to do
this they exercise their scrutiny through performance monitoring, research, the
Child Death Overview Panel and serious case reviews.
Approach
The Commissioning Cycle
The Tower Hamlets Partnership has adopted the commissioning cycle model
set out below. This is consistent with the DCFS and DH commissioning
framework cycles for commissioning. The Children and Families Trust
operates to this cycle:
Communicate and consult throughout with users, staff stakeholder
Understand
Undertake
needs
assessment
Determine
priorities
and
budgets
Review
Do
Plan
Determine
Stimulate
commissioning
and
intentions
manage
market
s
s
Develop/
Procure
services
Performance
manage
Review
Supporting skills and systems
Policy and
visioning
Intelligence
and data
HR
Performance
management
Finance
IT
Procurement Governance
The following paragraphs set out the agreed framework within which this cycle
operates in Tower Hamlets.
Understand
Undertake needs assessment
The Children and Families Trust is committed to evidence-based planning,
using needs analysis as the foundation for this.
To inform the Children and Young People’s Plan, a full needs analysis will be
carried out as part of the planning cycle every three years, and refreshed
annually to take account of new information.
Needs analysis will take account of all available information, both quantitative
and qualitative, in order to build a comprehensive picture of need in Tower
Hamlets. This will be set against provision to identify gaps and development
priorities.
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Our needs analysis will:

Profile the existing and projected future population, including
segmentation by equality strands

Estimate the current and future needs of the population

Indicate geographical distribution of need

Identify those people who are at greatest risk of needing services

elp to identify the gap between met and unmet need
It will include the analysis of:

Demographic data

Prevalence data

Service specific data (including feedback from users)

Risk factor data

Community and service user views
Amongst the information sources that will inform our needs analysis are:

The Joint Strategic Needs analysis (JSNA)

The LSCB’s annual report on safeguarding

Reports of the Behaviour and Attendance Partnership

Performance against National Performance indicators

The views of children, young people and their parents.
The list of information sources above is not exhaustive.
Within the framework of the three year planning cycle, needs analysis is
treated as an iterative process to take account of emerging information and
policy priorities. An annual programme of work as part of the JSNA is
carried out and feeds into the annual refresh/ three year plan. The JSNA
provides an overall picture of need along with more in-depth analyses of need
for specific groups of children and young people where we require a full
service review. Other needs analysis work may be commissioned on an ad
hoc basis in response to emerging issues. The annual refresh process
ensures that there is the opportunity to take account of this information and
incorporate it into commissioning and delivery plans. As part of the writing of
the three year CYPP, a dedicated needs analysis is commissioned which
includes community consultation to inform the Trust’s priorities.
A needs analysis template is provided as part of the Trust’s commissioning
toolkit.
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Plan
Determine Priorities and Budgets
The Children and Families Trust Board is responsible for determining the
partnership’s priorities for children and young people. The Children and
Young People’s Plan documents these priorities, setting out within the Every
Child Matters outcomes framework the local priorities for children, young
people and their families. These priorities are set within the national and local
policy context, developed through the Children and Families Trust
infrastructure and agreed by the Board. It is within the framework of these
priorities that all commissioning activity takes place.
The plan is a three year plan with an annual refresh. High level priorities are
normally fixed by the Trust Board for the three year period, with annual
commissioning and delivery plans set within the framework of these priorities.
Priorities may be revised as part of the annual refresh, with approval of the
Board.
Budgets will be set by Trust partner agencies, and co-ordinated through the
Commissioning and Delivery Groups reporting into the Chief Officer Group.
Opportunities for formalising this co-ordination through pooled or aligned
budgets will be identified as part of this process and included in
Commissioning and Delivery Plans.
Determine Commissioning Priorities
The themed Commissioning and Delivery Groups, which include
representation from provider and commissioner interests, are responsible for
writing annual commissioning and delivery plans. These plans set out how
the priorities of the CYPP will be implemented through service development
and commissioning, and drive service development and procurement activity
across Trust partners. They will include an assessment of options for
delivery of services, considering service provider, procurement arrangements
and any proposals for pooled or aligned budgets. The plans are approved by
the Chief Officer Group.
A template for commissioning and delivery plans is provided as part of the
Trust’s commissioning toolkit.
The CYPP and related plans are published on the Trust’s website at
www.childrenandfamiliestrust.co.uk
The Planning cycle- timeline
The planning cycle is based on financial years running from 1 April to 31
March. The CYPP is a three year plan, implemented through annual
Commissioning and Delivery plans.
Years 1 and 2- annual commissioning and delivery planning, review and
refresh:
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Quarter 3- October to December
Quarter 4- January to March
The process of reviewing and
refreshing priorities, and setting the
next year’s Commissioning and
Delivery Plans (CDPs) takes place,
based on information about progress
at the mid year stage.
Draft CDPs will be presented by
Commissioning and Delivery Group
chairs to the Chief Officers’ Group in
its 4th quarterly meeting of the
financial year, and published by 31
March.
Although there is an assumption that
the priorities in the CYPP cover the
three year life of the Plan, there may
be circumstances where they need to
change. As part of the annual
planning, review and refresh process,
Commissioning and Delivery groups
may make proposals to change some
of the high level priorities, and
present these to the Chief Officers’
group with their draft plans. These
changes will need to be approved by
the Trust Board before publication.
Year 3- setting new priorities and publishing the three year plan
Quarter 2- June to
Quarter 3- October to
Quarter 4- January to
September
December
March
Needs analysis and
community consultation
to inform priorities.
Priorities agreed by
Children and Families
Trust Board.
Commissioning and
Delivery Groups begin
working on CDPs for the
first year of the plan.
CDPs agreed by Chief
Officers’ Group.
Plan published by 31
March.
Do
The ‘do’ phase of the commissioning cycle includes service design,
development and procurement activity which takes place within the framework
of the CYPP.
Market Management
Market management is an essential part of the commissioning process in
order to ensure we develop a sustainable and effective provider base to
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support the delivery our key priorities. The market includes all potential
providers, including in-house, private sector, voluntary and community sector
and NHS Trusts.
The Trust believes that engagement of all providers in the commissioning
process is key, not only because of the valuable intelligence they bring to
needs analysis but to ensure that discussions about the Trust’s priorities
inform their own development plans. Providers will be engaged in the
Children and Families Trust, through representation on the Board and
Commissioning and Delivery groups. However, to prevent conflicts of
interest, there are parts of the commissioning cycle that providers will need to
be excluded from, in particular any formal procurement processes where they
could have a pecuniary interest.
In order to build the capacity of the third sector to remain key players in the
local market Tower Hamlets has developed a Third Sector Strategy which
provides the framework through which Tower Hamlets Partnership aims to
create a thriving third sector in the borough. The Council also funds a
provider forum to ensure that the sector is fully engaged and informed
throughout the commissioning process.
Procurement and service development
Commissioning and delivery plans will set out how the Trust partners will work
together to co-ordinate the development and procurement of services to
implement the priorities set in the CYPP. These plans will set out the activity
which is planned throughout the year and the lead partner agency for each of
these activities.
As part of the process of agreeing these plans, an assessment of impact on
equalities will be carried out, including full equalities impact assessments
where relevant.
As individual agencies retain accountability within the Children’s Trust,
activities will take place within the lead partners’ existing processes. This will
include procurement rules and change management processes. In addition,
procurement activity will be carried out in accordance with European Union
procurement regulations. The aim of Commissioning and Delivery plans is to
ensure that there is transparency and co-ordination of this activity.
Review
Performance Management and review
The Trust has a robust performance management framework through which
we continuously monitor and review our services and the impact they have on
improving outcomes.
The CYPP contains a set of targets against performance indicators which are
designed to measure progress in improving outcomes and are aligned to the
Local Area Agreement (LAA.)
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In addition, Commissioning and Delivery Plans contain measurable
milestones in relation to activities so that progress can be tracked.
Monitoring of progress towards meeting these targets takes place as follows:

The Trust Board receives reports from the Chief Officers’ Group every 6
months, giving performance updates against CYPP targets and
highlighting risk areas and actions needed to address these. These
reports are also published on the Trust website.

The Chief Officers’ Group receives reports from Commissioning and
Delivery Groups every quarter giving performance updates against CYPP
targets and activities, highlighting risk areas and actions needed to
address these, particularly if Chief Officer intervention is required. In
addition, CDGs will by exception report serious issues in relation to
Commissioning and Delivery Plans to the Chief Officers’ Group.

Chairs of Commissioning and Delivery Groups are responsible for
ensuring that Commissioning and Delivery Plans are robustly monitored,
progress and risk areas reported to the Chief Officers’ Group and the
Trust Board.
The Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) also plays an important role
in scrutinising the performance of the Trust partners. It will produce an annual
report during the second quarter, setting out its analysis of the Trust in respect
of safeguarding, and making recommendations for improvement. The Trust
Board will consider and respond to this report, setting out the action that
partners intend to take in response. Urgent improvement priorities will be
incorporated into that year’s commissioning and delivery plans by
amendment, and the annual refresh process will take account of the LSCB’s
report for the following year’s plans.
Performance management of specific services takes place through a range of
performance management processes within individual agencies. This
includes statutory inspections, data analysis and contract monitoring. All
performance management information not only assists with measuring impact
but also feeds back into the needs analysis part of the commissioning cycle to
inform future commissioning decisions.
The information from performance management processes will be used to
inform the ongoing review of services. Their performance and effectiveness
in meeting the priority outcomes identified in the CYPP will be evaluated and
will feed into the ‘understand’ and ‘plan’ parts of the cycle to inform decisions
about service development, commissioning and decommissioning.
Workforce development and support for this
framework
A workforce with the necessary skills and competencies is vital to the effective
delivery of this framework. Our approach to workforce development
acknowledges that commissioning takes place at different levels across Trust
Partners, within the organisational frameworks of those partners.
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The Trust’s Workforce Development strategy, linked to the priorities in the
CYPP, sets out its approach to workforce development which will include
commissioning-related competencies. Partner agencies are responsible for
ensuring that their workforce is equipped with the skills needed to carry out
commissioning activity within their organisation, such as procurement and
change management.
Resources dedicated to supporting this framework
Operational commissioning, which includes commissioning management,
guidance and support is the responsibility of individual organisations that
make up the Children and Families Trust. Individuals within commissioning
teams will generally have expertise in specialist areas of commissioning and
will be responsible for ensuring all commissioning takes place within agreed
frameworks.
Tower Hamlets Council provides support for the delivery of this framework at
Trust level through its Children, Schools and Families Strategy, Partnerships
and Performance service.
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