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Third Sector Market Mapping

Research Report prepared for Department of Health by IFF Research Ltd

This report contains the results of research commissioned from IFF Research Ltd by the Department of Health to examine the potential contribution that third sector organisations can make to the delivery of health and social care. The research involved surveys of third sector organisations and local authorities. The results will be used to inform implementation of the Third Sector Commissioning Taskforce’s conclusions and the application of its outputs

The research shows that:

• The sector is extremely diverse in terms of the size, scope, staffing and funding of organisations.  An estimated 35 thousand TSOs currently provide health and/or social care in England and a further 1600 plan to do so in the next three to five years.  The total funding for these services amounts to an annual £12bn. 
• There is already a high level of interaction between public sector commissioners and third sector providers.  Just over half of the organisations’ funding comes from the public sector, although the public sector’s share is higher for social care (62%) than health care (36%).  Of the £13.7bn that local authorities spent on adult social services in 2004/05, an estimated 11% was delivered by the third sector (£1.5bn).
• There are fairly low levels of tendering activity among TSOs: seventy per cent of organisations said they had not tendered for any services in the previous year.  However, when TSOs did submit tenders, they were often successful (60%).  Only 9% of organisations felt they had missed out on one or more tendering opportunities in the previous year.  And of those that felt they had missed out, only one in ten said this was because they had not been invited to tender.  Instead, the most common unprompted reasons were resource focused - lack of money, lack of staff/resources or insecure funding.
• In just less than half of the tendering exercises undertaken by Local Authorities, at least one TSO was invited to tender.  The main reason for not inviting TSOs was the perceived absence of potential providers from within the sector.
• Local authorities are positive about services provided by TSOs, with overall levels of satisfaction high (over 80%).  Local authorities felt the organisations provided good value for money, high quality and responsive services.
• The potential and scale of ambition among existing third sector providers is significant.  Half of the TSOs felt there were services that they would be better able to deliver than current providers.  The vast majority (89%) of TSOs felt they could provide more service than they currently do if the demand and funding existed, of whom 57% had an expansion of service delivery outlined in their business plan.  The most common planned level of growth was 11-20% and the most common time-frame was three to five years.  If planned growth was achieved on an even trajectory, then the total increase in third sector activity over the next year would amount to just under £1bn.  This equates to an increase of 9%. 

• Download Third Sector Market Mapping Report (PDF, 1246K)