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No target for third sector service delivery, Miliband tells MPs

Finance | Gemma Ware | 13 Mar 2008

Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband refused to commit to a target for the level of public services the government would like the third sector to deliver, under questioning by a committee of MPs this afternoon.

Labour MP Tony Wright, chair of the Public Administration Select Committee which was gathering evidence during an inquiry into third sector commissioning, asked Miliband (pictured) whether the government would set a target on third sector public service delivery in order to shed light on the future role of the third sector.

“I think to set a top-down government target would not be the right way to go,” Miliband told the committee. He said that apart from suggesting areas where the government believed the third sector could make a specific contribution to public services, it would not prescribe a level of third sector provision because this would not be “sufficiently responsive to local circumstances”.

Miliband said he believed the amount of third sector provision of public services would increase, but that it needed to happen in an appropriate way, with third sector organisations being “ready to do that, wanting to do that, and as I say, it being appropriate to local circumstances and local needs”.

Charities minister Phil Hope told the committee that the issue centred on where the third sector could play a part in achieving “better outcomes” at a local level.

He said that the government had highlighted five areas in its third sector review where it believed the sector had a proven track record in achieving this, including correctional services, children and educational services, employment and skills, training, and health and social care.

However, Wright returned to the question at the end of the session, quizzing the ministers on plans to use the third sector to transform public services. “If it does an awful lot more, somebody has to do an awful lot less - either the state or the private sector does less,” he said. “What is the evidence base for the transforming effect of third sector delivery of public services?”

Miliband admitted that the general evidence base was “weak” and that it was by no means the case that the third sector was a better service provider in every instance. However, he said the evidence could be found within specific communities.

“I think that the public sector needs to be open to those skills and that expertise, and over time I do think we will see [third sector organisations] playing a broader role,” he said. “It’s also crucially about convincing the people on the ground that the third sector can do more.”

Miliband also said the third sector should not be automatically favoured over business when it came to the delivery of public services, but that tools such as social clauses should be used alongside value for money and efficiency tests to highlight the “wider benefits that there might be to the community” of using third sector organisations. 

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