At the end of 2007, Manchester Food Futures allocated £40,000 from their programme budget to commission collaborative working within the community and voluntary sector around the following themes: cooking and nutrition education; sustainable infrastructure for allotments; improving food for homeless people; and enriching food for older people.

The following article is a brief summary of the project.

Plus you can Dowload a copy of the full Food Futures Commissioning Programme Evaluation report here (935KB PDF file)

Myself and colleagues Fraser How and Adele Myers, working under the banner of Creative Local Solutions, were invited to facilitate the experimental Commissioning Programme process. 

I have been volunteering for the Health Inequalities Pool (now the Health and Wellbeing Network) for about three and a half years, as a representative on the Food Future’s board. For those of you that don’t know, FF’s is Manchester’s strategic response to a wide range of local and global issues, which are effecting people’s health and wellbeing, access to affordable and healthy food, the economy, and environment. You can find out more about FF on their web site at www.foodfutures.info.

The Commissioning Programme was based upon a similar experimental project delivered in 2006, where five organisations were brought together and challenged to develop a collaborative project, with £5,000 FF funding. The participating groups were facilitated through a process called the Lottery Outcomes approach, which enabled them to identify common issues within the communities that they work with, and develop strategic action plans for dealing with these issues.

Although it is challenging for groups to collaborate in this way, outside of their usual work patterns, we believed that the extra effort was worth it, because of the tangible, and less-tangible benefits that are created through the process. 

As a result of the added value created during the project in 2006, and following consultation during 2007, we (the Health and Well-being Network) recommended to FF, that they scale up the operation, and repeat the collaborative working challenge. FF agreed, and allocated £20,000 programme budget (NRF funding) to the project, and the FF Commissioning Programme was thus born. Following consultation with, and by the Pool, it was also agreed that the £20,000 would be split into the following four £5,000 pots, with which community and voluntary sector organisations would be invited to develop collaborative projects:

- Increasing cooking and nutritional knowledge and skills within local communities
- Developing sustainable infrastructure and facilities for allotments
- Improving food for homeless people
- Enriching food for older people

To our surprise, FF received a financial ‘uplift’, and decided to invest an extra £20,000 into the project, resulting in the four £5,000 pots becoming £10,000 pots! Our first task was to publish a ‘Commissioning Programme’ which was circulated around the community and voluntary sector, inviting groups to a launch event, and to participate in the four £10,000 collaborative programmes.

Our approach in facilitating the Commissioning Programme was to try to ensure that participants gained value, at every stage throughout the process. Representatives from some 50 organisations attended the launch event, during which Mike Wild (MACC) gave a talk about the shift in focus towards commissioning and partnership working within the voluntary and community sector, and the significance therefore, of the FF programme. Christine Raiswell also gave a presentation about the FF Strategy. Following this participants split into four workshops, in order to explore and map the issues (or needs) that exist within their communities, in relation to the four areas of collaboration outlined above. Although following the event, not all the participating organisations chose to stay involved in the collaborative process, the launch was an informative event, and a good networking opportunity for all involved.

Following the launch, the next stage in the process was to work with participating groups in each of the four areas of activity, to use the Lottery Outcomes approach, and build upon the needs assessments that were conducted during the launch event, and develop action plans for the four £10,000 projects. The advantage of using the Outcomes approach were threefold:

• firstly it keeps participating organisation focussed on the changes that they want to make in the world, rather than on their day to day activities;
• secondly it provides a tried and tested framework for developing collaborate plans, with built in monitoring and evaluation systems; and
• thirdly, it was good practise for organisations that may be considering applying to the BIG Lottery for funding (this was especially relevant with the upcoming £50M Local Food Fund, which was launched in March this year).

(You can download a manual, “Explaining the Difference Your Project Makes” about the Lottery Outcomes approach here.)       

By the end of March the four collaborative working groups (involving 22 organisations) had completed their action plans, which were agreed and signed off by Food Futures. Each of the collaborative working groups appointed a lead partner organisation, through which Food Futures channelled the funds. 

The four collaborative projects are scheduled to last from 6 – 12 months, and are therefore in the process of implementation. Obviously it is impossible to provide a complete evaluation, until the collaborative groups have delivered their action plans, however Creative Local Solutions have provided an evaluation of our part in facilitating the development of the collaborative action plans, which is available here.

In summary, although we recognise that the Commissioning Programme has been challenging for all those involved, we believe it has also been rewarding, and that participants have received a range of additional benefits.

The ‘fried egg chart’ was developed in 2006 following the initial experimental collaborative project. The yolk represents the cost of the project (i.e. £40,000 plus the cost of facilitating the process), whilst the egg white, and plate represent the range of additional benefits (or value gained) from lots of organisations coming together and working in collaboration with each other, and the Food Futures Strategy.

A more comprehensive breakdown of the costs and benefits of this project is provided in the evaluation report mentioned above.