Why be part of a consortium?
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Why be part of a consortium?
- You are seeing contracts being ‘aggregated’ (combined) or awarded over larger geographical areas.
- Commissioners wish to reduce costs by holding fewer contracts, or would like to work with a better coordinated provider market.
- You have competition from private-sector providers.
- Service users can be better served by providers working more closely together.
- Smaller organisations lack the capacity to bid for contracts, and the scale required by tenders, so are excluded from bidding for contracts.
If you need more help
- NCVO runs occasional training courses which go through all the steps of achieving a contract-ready consortium.
- NCVO offers bespoke consultancy with sector experts.
Examples of voluntary sector consortia
- 3SC operates nationally and works on some large-scale national programmes, and has developed expertise in managing subcontracting chains for commissioners.
- Nova Wakefield started life as a health and wellbeing consortium, and later merged with the local infrastructure organisation to provide a single infrastructure solution for the Wakefield district.
- Sandwell Consortium provides a contract management and bidding function for its member organisations, based in the West Midlands.
Last reviewed: 19 October 2020
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