Review and Redesign of Brokerage Model
31ten was asked to carry out a rapid review of the effectiveness of Kent County Council’s purchasing and procurement of care placements functions. The aim was to design a new operating model with a focus on developing better relationships with the market, exploring alternative options for all packages and delivering best value for the Council.
The Role
- We carried out a review of policies and procedures to examine current practices around sourcing, pricing, purchasing and market management and identify potential areas for improvement alongside understanding what was working well.
- We reviewed brokerage models in other comparable councils to identify good practice relevant to the Kent context and help inform future options.
- To help us understand how things were working on the ground, we carried out stakeholder engagement and in-depth case review sessions involving purchasing, commissioning and operational staff and identified key lessons learned from these covering current and expected placement practice.
- We also benchmarked roles and responsibilities in the placement function with other roles within Kent and comparable councils to inform the new operating model.
- Using the information gathered through the review process we carried out a gap analysis and identified opportunities to improve the effectiveness and commerciality of the function with a focus on delivering best value for Kent through the placement-making process.
Key Outcomes
We worked closely with the team in Kent to develop recommendations to strengthen the local arranging support function. We considered best practice from other approaches and models, triangulated feedback from across services, and fed in expert insight and guidance. We developed a revised model of brokerage for Kent designed to:
- Strengthen both placement-making and commissioning practices
- Empower front-line officers to make better decisions and enable better joined-up working
- Provide greater clarity on the role of the brokerage function in delivering best value for Kent
Thank you all for the work you have done on this. It has really helped move our thinking on.
Paula Parker
Assistant Director Transformation and Delivery – Kent County Council
