Case Study: Supporting Local Authorities with Commissioning, Forecasting, and Market Shaping

Client: Department for Education Date: April 2024 – April 2025

Challenges faced by the client:

Local Authorities bear a statutory responsibility to ensure there is sufficient and suitable accommodation for looked-after children. Local authorities commission services within a market that, despite its necessity, faces significant and well-documented challenges. Recent influential reviews, such as the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and the Competition and Markets Authority study have unequivocally highlighted that the current system of commissioning is simply not achieving the desired outcomes for children.

Local authorities frequently struggle to accurately forecast their future needs, effectively engage with their markets, and procure appropriate placements as efficiently as possible. This often results in placements that are not ideal, or children being placed far from their home communities.

It’s against this challenging backdrop that the Department for Education commissioned Mutual Ventures to deliver a focused programme of national support. This programme was specifically designed to address key areas: forecasting, commissioning, and market shaping within the children’s placement market.

Our support:

The project was split into two phases. The first was evidence gathering. As part of this we did a detailed desk-based review to identify initial lines of inquiry, and then engaged 46 local authorities from across England, as well as provider organisation and trade associations such as the National Association of Fostering Providers and Care Home Association, and key stakeholder groups like the ADCS and Ofsted. This resulted in a detailed research report.

The second phase, Evidence Sharing, translated this research into a multi-strand learning and support package available to local authorities. This included a National Learning Offer comprising a public suite of learning packs, blog posts, and materials focused on forecasting, market shaping, and commissioning, supported by a series of seven national webinars run under the banner of Getting the best out of the children’s placement market.  

Additionally, three direct support packages of facilitated sessions were offered to participating local authorities, focusing on technical areas such as sufficiency analysis and forecasting, outcomes and quality frameworks, and provider relationship management. 

For more information on the learning materials produced as part of this programme please see the Mutual Ventures’ page of National Support on our website.

Outcome achieved:

Through comprehensive evidence gathering and a sustained national learning offer, the National Support successfully built a robust learning infrastructure, and increased sector-wide understanding around in complex areas such as forecasting, commissioning, and market shaping.

The practical and accessible nature of the materials ensured wider LA engagement, resulting in high satisfaction ratings for both the quality and usefulness of the support, as confirmed by a satisfaction survey of participating LAs. The National Support created lasting resources, with all materials hosted online and available to commissioning groups across the country, improving access to information about best practice from across England.

As a result of the support we have provided, we have had conversations with LAs about how they are looking at different ways of commissioning. For example, some have started to explore developing strategic partnerships with providers, exploring open-book accounting, and developing new outcomes monitoring data collection techniques.