{"id":6,"date":"2017-06-23T12:14:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T11:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/tobylowe\/?p=6"},"modified":"2017-06-23T12:14:32","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T11:14:32","slug":"a-whole-new-world-what-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/tobylowe\/2017\/06\/23\/a-whole-new-world-what-next\/","title":{"rendered":"A Whole New World \u2013 what next?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a month since we launched \u2018A Whole New World: Funding and Commissioning in Complexity\u2019<\/a> and the response has been incredible. Over 120 people came to the two launch events, and more than 1000 people read the report online in the first week. We\u2019ve also started to have some excellent conversations about how to take this work forward.<\/p>\n

In this post I want to briefly outline the key ideas, and talk about what we might do next.<\/p>\n

\u2018New Public Management\u2019 is dying \u2013 about time too<\/h2>\n

New Public Management (NPM) has been the dominant paradigm for public services for the last 40-odd years. \u00a0Its worldview is based on the idea that public servants cannot be trusted to organise and run public services, and so must be extrinsically motivated to perform well \u2013 by means of competitive markets and performance targets. \u00a0It seems that an increasing number of people recognise that this way of funding and commissioning public services, and other social interventions, is no longer helpful.<\/p>\n

Now, we can begin to see what an alternative could look like, and a number of Local Authorities, other public bodies, and charitable funders have responded with interest.<\/p>\n

A new paradigm: Complexity-friendly funding and commissioning<\/h2>\n

Complexity-friendly funding and commissioning offers a new way to think about and do public services, and other social interventions. It is based on three core ideas:<\/p>\n

Motivation<\/h3>\n

Working in this way assumes that those doing the work of social interventions are intrinsically motivated to do a good job. They do not require \u2018incentivising\u2019 to do the right thing. Instead, they need help and support to continuously improve their judgement and practice.<\/p>\n

Learning and adaptation<\/h3>\n

Working in this way assumes that learning is the mechanism to achieve excellent performance and continuous improvement. Learning comes from many sources \u2013 from measurement and analysis, and also from reflection on the sense-making and judgements we make every day in situations of uncertainty. This new paradigm views learning as a feedback loop which drives adaptation and improvement in a system.<\/p>\n

System health: quality of relationships<\/h3>\n

Outcomes are created by people\u2019s interaction with whole systems, not by particular interventions or organisations. Funders and commissioners working in this way take some responsibility for the health of the system as a whole, because healthy systems produce better outcomes. They take a system coordination role. They invest in network infrastructure which enables actors in the system to communicate effectively; they invest in building positive, trusting relationships and developing the skills of people who work in the system.<\/p>\n

All this is underpinned by a realistic and unflinching acceptance of the complex messiness of the world as it is, and rejects the idea of oversimplifying problems to make management of social interventions easier.<\/p>\n

Case studies: making complexity-friendly funding and commissioning real<\/h2>\n

Through these case studies, we can begin to see how funders and commissioners are putting this into practice.<\/p>\n

Plymouth Council \u2013 Commissioning in Complexity for adults with complex needs:<\/h3>\n

https:\/\/campus.recap.ncl.ac.uk\/Panopto\/Pages\/Viewer.aspx?id=df91ebad-4f28-4a8b-a24a-84b4137f90d3<\/a><\/p>\n

The Whitman Institute \u2013 Providing complexity-friendly charitable funding<\/h3>\n

https:\/\/campus.recap.ncl.ac.uk\/Panopto\/Pages\/Viewer.aspx?id=1a658315-8dbf-4447-837b-6bf86f23be28<\/a><\/p>\n

What next: taking this movement forward<\/h2>\n

The report was only able to outline the new complexity-friendly way of funding and commissioning in the broadest brush strokes. At the launch events we hosted discussions which enabled a wide range of people to identify the work that is required to make this paradigm useful and practical for them. From these discussions, we have been able to identify three broad areas of potential work to be done:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Expanding knowledge – what do we need to know in order to make the paradigm work in practice?<\/h3>\n

Drawing from our conversations with a wide set of stakeholders at the events and subsequently, we have identified there is work to be done in the following areas:<\/p>\n