It is striking that in many round table discussions, from commissioner, social provider, funder, or community, or combinations of perspectives, there is ready agreement that “partnership”, “collaboration”, “relational, rather than transactional engagements”, “place-based development”, and “social value” should be driving principles in public service commissioning.

And in many such environments it is acknowledged that public procurement, which relates to service contracts, is not the same as commissioning, which encompasses a wider range of methodologies, including subsidy, preferential investment, impact investment, community facilitation, engagement and asset-transfer and the development of integrated community partnerships.

This also all fits into the macro-economic debates about “socialising”, “refining”, “maturing”, or “replacing” the pre-dominant market competition theory of which public procurement regulation is part.

So, there are many articulations, in various stages of development, all reaching for ideas that rebalance prevailing mobilising concepts of: profit, competition and private value, with (at least) equally valid mobilising concepts of: purpose, collaboration and public value.

The mature social enterprise sector that has developed over the past 30 years, supported by the developing social finance sector and the proliferation of purpose-driven, or socially responsive community business are all features of this movement. As are the resurgence and extension of co-operative and participative principles and the complementary consolidation of the role and appreciation of the traditional charity sector within communities.

For the commissioner this means there are willing purpose-driven potential partners across all these sectors. The E3M project is dedicated to the better mutual understanding of these sectors and the greater realisation of the potential for such community partnerships.