Collaborate with other agencies

Collaborating with other agencies results in:

• integrated services, leading to improved services for clients
• reduced resourcing requirements as procurement tasks are typically shared
• reduced transaction costs and improved engagement between government and providers.

Ways to collaborate

You could work with other agencies on:

• a co-ordinated approach to the provider community, including joint or phased approaches - a joint approach might have process efficiencies but limit service quality or potential provider options if the provider community doesn't have the capacity to provide the joint requirement. A phased approach, might smooth the workload on the provider community and potentially attract better quality proposals
• designing the scope of services - eg a ‘package of care’ approach, which targets a range of a client’s needs through a coordinated engagement model
• performance measures and related monitoring and reporting - aligning measures can streamline provider reporting and enable more direct line of sight from client outcomes to population level indicators
• establishing or operating under a single or joint commissioning board that provides governance-level oversight across the services
• peer reviewing procurement documents.

Make sure that any collaboration is aligned with broader strategies, such as sector workforce development.

Finding an agency to collaborate with

If you're working with a larger supplier who has multiple contracts with government, you could talk to other contract managers and other agencies about sharing information or coordinating monitoring and reporting activities.

Agencies who are accredited by Ministry of Social Development (MSD) accreditation have adopted and are committed to reducing the duplication of accreditation activity.

Social Services Accreditation

You can also email us - we can tell you which agencies might be interested in similar services and give you advice on how to best join up with them.