This page is part of our decision support tool.
Welcome to the Decision Support Tool (DST) and thank you for your interest. The DST is designed for people working in the public sector who are responsible for financial relationships with third sector (often referred to as ‘voluntary and community sector’) organisations (TSOs). The DST is a web-based tool which provides practical support for real-life decisions about the design of appropriate funding models. We hope that the DST will help you to design or modify your funding programmes and will help to ensure that you both achieve your objectives and comply with the government’s principles of better TSO funding.
The DST has four stages, beginning with the policy intent (the objective you want to achieve), followed by strategic decisions about the design of the programme, tactical decisions and concluding with implementation. You can either work through the whole DST, or select the parts of it which you need. Click the link above named ‘Introduction’ to start. the complete toolkit is also available to download – Financial relationships with third sector organisations (pdf – 324KB).
Successful Commissioning
In March 2010, the NAO launched ‘Successful Commissioning’: How to secure value for money through better financial relationships with third sector organisations, designed specifically for commissioners in local authorities and primary care trusts.
