Sutton Council’s Developmental Assets Booklet
The London Borough of Sutton have published a booklet explaining their approach to commissioning which brings together two tools:
- Outcomes Based Accountability and
- Developmental Assets
Outcomes based accountability enables commissioners to collaborate with users of services and providers to agree not only the outcomes to be delivered against, but also what will change as a result of that intervention or service.
They are aiming to harness the flexibility of commissioning for outcomes, whilst ensuring that they are able to measure the performance and impact of every service commissioned.
Developmental Assets are listed in the booklet and are split into two sections; Individual Level Assets and Community Level Assets.
They have developed this model in conjunction with their local voluntary sector partners to be an approach to measuring the social impact of services commissioned by them (in line with the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012).
They do not expect any organisation commissioned to be able to deliver against every asset listed, but prospective providers may be asked to evidence performance against specific assets as part of the procurement process. Providers may also find that part of their contract monitoring arrangements refer to these assets and they will need to prove they are helping to build those they are commissioned to deliver against.
Equally importantly, this also enables providers to demonstrate where they have helped to build assets in Sutton which are outside of their contractual obligations – thereby demonstrating their added social value.