Ian Allsop talks to the chief executive of Futurebuilders, Richard Gutch.

For someone who started his working life as a town planner, it's perhaps no surprise that Richard Gutch's subsequent career appears seamlessly mapped out. Gutch feels that insights gained throughout different parts of that career now stand him in good stead in his current role as chief executive of Futurebuilders, the £125 million Home Office backed investment fund run by a voluntary and community sector consortium.

His time in the voluntary sector has always addressed what he still considers to be some of the most important issues it faces today. After completing a degree in art history and philosophy, he spent 15 years in town planning. In 1980, he joined the London Borough of Brent as assistant to its chief executive Michael Bichard, now chair of the Compact Working Group. One of his responsibilities was funding the voluntary sector, and looking at the local authority's relationship with the sector, what he calls "early compact stuff".

This fired his interest in the sector and he became head of information, and then assistant director. One of his responsibilities was relations with local government and the whole contracting issue, which he says was interesting. He undertook a study trip to the US and wrote a report on some of the pitfalls of the sector going down the contracting route. He describes the "contracting in and out" initiative of the time as about getting the sector to think of the potential dangers of this approach and reminding people that it was not for everyone. These arguments resonate with his view on the current public service delivery debate. He argues that public service delivery is not obligatory, and charities need to think hard about whether it is right for them.

After seven years at NCVO, he became chief executive of Arthritis Care, a role he held for nine years in the 90s. He is very pleased that he helped Arthritis Care become a user led organisation, one of the first charities to go down that route. "We moved from a board of trustees that was quite paternalistic to one that had a lot of young people with arthritis on it." Arthritis Care also pioneered the idea of self management, where people learned how to manage arthritis, from trainers who themselves had arthritis. Arthritis Care got a lot of contracts with local authorities to run courses, and he pinpoints it convincing the government to set up the expert patient's task force, whereby people with chronic conditions learned to manage them, as a big success. It�s a part of the health service in which he feels the voluntary sector can really make a difference.

He was also chair of acevo at this time, which produced a report on user involvement to promote the ideas he was involved in at Arthritis Care. He thinks the challenge of user involvement is still very much there. "We talk about the added value of involving users but the reality is not always as strong as the rhetoric." He thinks charities need to actually involve users in planning services, rather than just consulting with them.

His time as acevo chair also saw him involved in producing the first report on core costs, and work on the implications of devolution and regionalisation for voluntary groups

In 1999, he got the job as director for England at what was then the National Lottery Charities Board, subsequently the Community Fund. He had substantial experience of being an applicant as Arthritis Care had received more grants than any other organisation from the lottery, and realises there was an element of poacher turned gamekeeper.

There are two things that please him about his time at the Community Fund. Firstly he led its work on outcome funding, and secondly helped change its policy partially on core costs. "We began funding office and management costs. It's still not full cost recovery but a step in right direction."

When the merger with the New Opportunities Fund was mooted, it was fairly clear to Gutch that there was not going to be a job at the new body that was right for him. He had been involved in one of the consortia bidding to run Futurebuilders, and helped prepare its tender in Autumn 2003. His consortia won, and the idea of him being chief executive made sense as the consortia wanted to appoint someone from within who was fully aware of what Futurebuilders was about.

He has been chief executive since February, which he says seems like a long time ago, a reflection on how busy the organisation has been. The first window for applications closed at the end of October, and 644 applications are now being assessed. There has been a good spread, with 26 per cent of applications from BME organisations, 20 per cent from rural groups, and a third from small organisations with turnover of less than £100,000. Futurebuilders expects to announce its first investments in the new year.

Gutch says: "We simply did not know what the level or quality of applications would be. We were particularly keen to manage down inappropriate applications, and I think we have done that by making the criteria clear." He continues: "We had hoped to make some investments a little earlier, because we know what people want to see is some real live investments." He says it has taken a bit longer to get business plans from people than expected, and also points out that Futurebuilders is dealing with very difficult investment decisions; high risk but looking for high social return.

While conceding that Futurebuilders is great for charities involved in public service delivery, he is anxious that organisations that don't want to get involved still have their work recognised by funders. "The last thing we want to happen is for that other part of the sector to get squeezed."

To conclude, he returns to the theme of added value. "The sector needs to move beyond talking about it to demonstrating it. In the context of public service delivery it is not enough to say that we bring added value because we are a voluntary organisation. You have got to be able to define that added value, be it quality of service, involving volunteers, or the expertise a charity can bring, not just at the tender stage but in delivery.� The added value that the Futurebuilders" investments could bring are awaited keenly.