Sustaining diversity through collaborative tendering
Sustaining diversity through collaborative tendering is the evaluation report of the Collaborate 1 project.
The findings of this report are thus of profound relevance to the way in which the new thinking on meeting the needs of vulnerable people plays out in practice.
It identifies actions key decision makers can take to support the continuance of a diverse range of service options for vulnerable people needing housing related support.
HACT’s Collaborate 1 project set out to test whether smaller providers could maintain a place in the Supporting People market by developing collaborative approaches to tendering.
It was funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG), and delivered in partnership with Sitra and the National Housing Federation (NHF) during 2008/9.
It resulted in a practice-based Collaborate Resource Kit published in 2009 and republished in 2010 due to its popularity.
Collaborate 1 showed that collaborative tendering can be a way for smaller organisations to survive and even thrive.
But for this to happen requires: capacity within organisations to put time into the process of collaboration, and to see it as a strategic priority; availability of suitable partners; commissioning teams adopting an “intelligent commissioning” approach and being in charge of the procurement process, with procurement teams playing a technical support role.
Only the first of these is under the control of the individual small provider.