This Questionnaire aims to collect baseline information, on behalf of the Department of Rural and Community Development, on public bodies commissioning social, community and personal services in Ireland, including information on the scale of commissioning, approaches to commissioning, and the impact of commissioning across public bodies and the community and voluntary sector.
We are requesting Directors or Managers of community and voluntary and local development organisations who are engaged in securing contracts to deliver services to complete the questionnaire.
This information has not been collected to date, and it will support government strategy which aims to develop a collaborative, whole-of-government approach to commissioning that prioritises social value and community need.
Social, Community and Personal Services are services that are delivered primarily by the Community and Voluntary Sector (including not-for-profit organisations, charities, and local development companies).
For the purposes of this project, commissioning is defined as a strategic planning approach to service provision, linking resource allocation with assessed need. Thus, commissioning as defined here is broader than procurement or competitive tendering, and it relates to all arrangements by which social, community, and personal services are contracted by public bodies to the community and voluntary sector. Please answer the questionnaire with this definition of commissioning in mind.
Please note that all responses to this questionnaire will be anonymised. The results will be presented in aggregate form, so they cannot be linked back to individual respondents.
Responses to the questionnaire can be saved and returned to using the save feature (via a unique log-in that can be shared with colleagues if needed).
If you have any queries in relation to this study, please contact Dr Shana Cohen at scohen@tasc.ie .