Working Links’ vision is to help more people
in more places to change their lives. Our commissioning strategy is
designed to do this through ensuring we can support each customer
individually with what they need through a streamlined, robust and
varied supply chain. As a prime provider we are effective in
understanding, designing and mobilising the funder’s requirements
into a creative and sustainable service delivery model. This
incorporates complex supply chains, working together to provide a
seamless transition in supporting customers into sustainable
outcomes.
We realise different products and services are
required to support our varying customer needs. Because of this,
the supply base has been tiered to clearly reflect the needs of our
customers across the four key groups, employers, programme
participants, funding bodies and stakeholders. We will have:
End to end partners – delivering the full
service model to our customers.
Specialist partners – key national or regional
specialists delivering targeted support interventions to
customers.
Spot purchase providers – delivering a range
of provision services to customers
We will build an efficient and effective
supply chain which ensures we have appropriate partners delivering
services across the customer journey. This will include public,
private and third sector partners and we will also develop partners
to further improve the service to customers. A significant
proportion of our delivery will be through partners to: reduce
risk, improve the service to customers, to reflect the needs of our
funders and to promote innovation and sharing of best practice.
We recognise that the that the third sector is
critical in meeting some of the specialist service needs of our
customers which often aren’t provided by either the public or
private sector. We are committed to working with our third sector
supply base to help develop their skills and capabilities to
support more and more customers to achieve the desired outcomes.
In designing our commissioning strategy we
have aimed to ensure we can achieve the following:
- Recognise and promote the unique
and diverse needs of our customer base and ensure our partner
network is capable of meeting this challenge.
- Create a flexible, dynamic and robust
supply chain which is capable of meeting the changing needs of the
labour market and the individual customer.
- Facilitates a rigorous selection process
to determine the most appropriate organisations to help us support
customers into the desired outcomes (sustainable employment,
resettlement, vocational skills and so on).
- Gain agreement from partners before we
include them in our bids.
- Ensure that the principles of the Merlin
Standard and Workings Links own Quality Standards are included to
give open and transparent processes and controls throughout the
partner lifecycle.
- Ensure that WL and the partner network
operates with a high degree of ethical integrity in both commercial
practice and their interactions with the customer and their supply
chain. Such ethical integrity covers all aspects of equality and
diversity.
- Develop a healthy supplier base that
drives towards competition and mutually beneficial commercial
arrangements, sharing best practice.
- Support the supply chain through
effective communication across the partner network, covering areas
such as risk, opportunity, customer feedback and performance
monitoring. Providing the basis for innovation and continuous
improvement.
- Create a supply chain with flexibility to
deal with risk. Effective risk management demands a culture of
openness and transparency. Where risks can be identified and
managed appropriately.
- Leverages the expertise and knowledge
across our partner network to provide collective insight to help to
inform Government policy and improve the range and depth of
services we can offer.
- Ensure that sustainable procurement
principles are embedded throughout our partner network both in the
way in which we source services for operational delivery but also
in understanding the impact that our partners are having on the
environment and their commitments to Corporate and Social
Responsibility.