Guidance on Partnership Approaches

The Draft Service Specification (1.3.1) states: “We are willing to consider proposals from single organisations or from providers wishing to enter consortia for the delivery of the service. In each case the contract will be held by a single lead agency with other partners having the status of sub-contractors.”

Within this framework, potential providers will need to consider:

• their preferred strategic approach to collaboration;
• the potential for variations within the partnership structures specified by the purchasers.

Key sources of guidance on strategy and structure are:

• Working in a consortium (Office of the Third Sector, 2008). See Appendix D in particular.
• Collaborate Resource Kit (Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust - HACT).
• Twelve Golden Rules for Tendering as Consortium (Tendering for Care)

Although the Collaborate Resource Kit is intended for a different commissioning context, it is widely applicable, especially:

• Collaborate Worksheet 2: Large/small partnerships and Collaborate Worksheet 3: Consortia (strategy issues);
• Collaborate Worksheet 6: Legal Issues (structures).

Worksheet 2, for example, considers key issues like exclusive versus non-exclusive relationships between partners.

NCVO offers brief guidance on Due Diligence supplemented by a more detailed publication for sale: Due Diligence Demystified.

The Charity Commission has a number of key documents which can be accessed from its Collaborative working and mergers resources page, including Collaborative Working and Mergers (CC34) and various checklists.