Commissioning does not begin when a tender is published. Long before that local partners are identifying needs, shaping services and deciding what outcomes matter. For therapists and smaller providers, understanding those conversations can make it easier to see where your expertise fits. This article sets out five practical questions to help you explain your contribution, build useful relationships and prepare for the right opportunity.
Many therapists and smaller providers first think about commissioning when a tender lands in their inbox. By then, there may be only a few weeks to understand the requirement, assemble the evidence and decide whether a bid is realistic.
The more useful work often starts earlier. Commissioners are looking at local needs, speaking with partners, deciding what outcomes matter and considering how services should fit together. That does not mean a provider can influence or expect the outcome of a future procurement. It does mean you can understand the direction of travel, explain your contribution and be better prepared when an appropriate opportunity arises.
If you are wondering where to begin, these five questions can help.
1. What need is the local system trying to address?
It is easy to describe the work we do: the assessments we offer, the sessions we provide or the number of families we support. Commissioners usually need to start one step earlier. What is happening for people locally, and where is existing support falling short?
An occupational therapy service, for example, might support children who find it difficult to attend school. The commissioning question is wider than whether OT is valuable. It might be about rising absence, long waits for help, pressure on specialist services or families having to repeat their story to several teams.
Look at local strategies, needs assessments, meeting papers and service plans. Speak with families and the organisations already involved. You are looking for the particular problem your service could help solve, not a policy phrase to attach to your current offer.
2. Where does your service fit alongside existing support?
A strong service can still be difficult to commission if nobody can see where it belongs. Does it provide earlier help, fill a specialist gap, build the skills of another workforce or support a transition between services? Who would refer, who would work alongside you and what happens when your involvement ends?
This matters especially as local areas implement the Families First Partnership programme in England. The national guidance covers Family Help, multi-agency child protection and support for family networks, while allowing for local delivery decisions. For a specialist provider, the useful question is not simply, “Does this reform mention my profession?” It is, “Where could our expertise help this local pathway work better?”
That answer will vary by area. Avoid assuming that a national reform automatically creates a funded opportunity for your service. Find out how the local partnership is designing and delivering its response.
3. What difference can you demonstrate?
Activity matters, but it is only part of the picture. “We delivered 200 sessions” tells a commissioner how much happened. It does not yet explain what changed for children, families or the wider system.
You do not need a complex research study before you can have a useful conversation. Start with a small, honest set of measures that fit your work. What did people need at the start? What changed? How do you know? What did not improve, and what have you learned from that?
For a therapeutic provider, evidence might combine a clear outcome measure, feedback from families and referring professionals, and a short example showing how the support worked in practice. Be careful about claims you cannot substantiate. Credible, proportionate evidence is more useful than an impressive figure without context.
4. What would someone need to know to trust you with delivery?
Commissioners have to consider more than the quality of the intervention. They need confidence about safety, capacity, consistency, accessibility, data handling and financial sustainability.
Some requirements will depend on the service and commissioning route. You can still prepare the foundations now: a clear service description, appropriate policies and supervision, realistic pricing, a way to monitor outcomes, and an honest account of how many people you can support. If delivery depends on a partner, explain who does what and how you quality assure all delivery.
Being a smaller organisation is not automatically a disadvantage. Specialist knowledge and close relationships can be real strengths. The task is to make those strengths understandable while showing that the delivery model is workable.
5. Who needs to understand your offer before a tender appears?
This is not a call to send a generic sales email to every commissioner you can find. It is a prompt to understand the local conversation.
Which teams plan services in your area? Which organisations already support the same families? Are there appropriate market engagement events, provider forums or partnership conversations? What are they trying to learn from providers, and what could you usefully contribute?
Go into those conversations with curiosity. Share what you are seeing, listen to the pressures others face and be clear about both your capabilities and your limits. Even where there is no immediate contract, the insight can help you decide whether to develop your offer, seek a partner or focus elsewhere.
A practical place to start
Try writing three sentences:
The need: “We are seeing…”
Our place in the pathway: “We could help by…”
The difference and evidence: “We would know it is working when…”
If those sentences are difficult to complete, that is useful information. It tells you what to research or test before spending weeks on a bid.
Commissioning can feel like a closed world when the only visible moment is the published tender. Starting earlier gives you time to understand the need, build relevant relationships and decide where your service genuinely fits. It also puts you in a stronger position to recognise the right opportunity when it does arrive.
If you would like a practical introduction to how commissioning works, what commissioners look for and where smaller providers can begin, I will be covering these questions in Commissioning Made Simple on Tuesday 3 November, 12–1pm. Early-bird places are £59 until 13 October.
Fiona Corless is the founder of FL Collaborative Consulting.
Drawing on her experience in occupational therapy and senior children’s-services commissioning, she helps specialist providers understand local needs, demonstrate their value and develop practical, sustainable services.