Commissioning is bigger than procurement
The National Commissioning Academy is for people who have to improve outcomes across services, organisations and professional boundaries. It began as a Cabinet Office programme in 2013 and is now delivered by the Public Service Transformation Academy.
You will work with the practical realities of commissioning: public outcomes, power, evidence, markets, communities, providers, relationships, resources and uncertainty. The programme does not reduce commissioning to a cycle or a set of procurement steps.
What you will do
- Bring a live commissioning or system-change challenge from your own work.
- Learn with a deliberately mixed cohort from local government, health, central government, policing, housing, the voluntary sector and other public services.
- Test tools and ideas against the conditions in your own place or organisation.
- Take part in facilitated action learning and peer challenge.
- Develop a practical 100-day plan rather than a generic set of recommendations.
- Build relationships you can use after the programme ends.
What you should leave with
You should be better able to see how the wider system is shaping results, define outcomes more sharply, and work across boundaries. You should also make better use of insight and evidence, and intervene without pretending that any one organisation controls the whole system.
The useful output is not a certificate on its own. It is a clearer challenge, a stronger network, tested next moves and greater confidence in what you can do from where you stand.
Who joins
You do not need the word ‘commissioning’ in your job title. The academy is relevant to people responsible for strategy, transformation, service design, partnership working, resource allocation, market development, community outcomes or major change.
Applications from small groups are encouraged. Colleagues can support one another to apply the learning and make it harder for the organisation to push them back into old routines.
Applications are open
The next national cohort runs from September 2026 to February 2027. Contact us about fit, dates, group places, or the live challenge you would bring.