Consortium Fundamentals

Jonathan Brinsden looks at the changing public service delivery landscape and considerations which charities should have in mind when entering into consortium arrangements.

Many organisations are understandably nervous about the changing public service delivery landscape. Government funding through grants and service level agreements is reducing, and the scope to access funding is often through public service contracts awarded through competitive open tenders. The new ethos is also increasingly provider agnostic, meaning it does not matter who the service provider is: the focus is on impact and outcomes.

Charities are required to react to this challenging environment and consider what they can do differently to ensure that they can continue to meet the needs of their service users.

The contracts available may be larger and more complex than many civil society organisations can realistically win and deliver, unless they join forces and collaborate to compete for those contracts together. Fellow collaborators could be other civil society organisations, public and private sector organisations - or a mixture. Charities often provide something different, valuable and appealing to the consortium table which has given rise to the practice of using charities as 'bid candy'.

In these briefings...