Darling requests more service delivery evidence

Finance | Tania Mason | 27 Jan 2010

Chancellor Alistair Darling has asked civil society leaders for evidence of the sector’s ability to deliver efficiencies for the government by providing more public services.

Last year Acevo co-ordinated a letter to the Chancellor (pictured) signed by 260 charity and social enterprise chiefs, offering to meet with ministers to outline how the sector could become central to the government’s need to cut the budget deficit by adding value to service delivery.

It gave examples of how civil society groups already deliver state services in several areas and offered to provide further ideas.

After the Chancellor failed to respond, Acevo sent a similar missive to the Conservatives, who replied immediately and offered a meeting with sector heads. Those expected to attend this meeting, to be held within the next few weeks, include Nick Hurd, shadow charities minister; Oliver Letwin, who chairs the Tories’ policy review team; shadow chancellor George Osborne, shadow cabinet secretary Francis Maude, and shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond.

Darling finally responds

This week the Chancellor also responded, requesting further examples of “added value in service delivery by the sector” and offering to “discuss this evidence with you”.

The letter also mentioned that the new Cabinet committee set up by the Prime Minster specifically to consider issues relating to the sector’s involvement in service delivery, had met for the first time last week.

This committee “provides a forum for ministers from all the large delivery departments to discuss and seek to resolve the important issues of both barriers to market entry for third sector organisations and the value and wider potential for sector delivery of public services”.

Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, described it as a “strong and positive response” and said a meeting would be arranged.

Directory: Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO)
Who's Who: Sir Stephen Bubb

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.