Acevo has launched a new commission on the role that civil society should play in future public service delivery, and warned of a “care deficit” in public services.

The 'Remaking the State' commission is co-chaired by Rob Owen, chief executive of the offender rehabilitation charity St Giles Trust, and Will Hutton, chair of the Big Innovation Centre and a columnist for The Observer. It will focus on “systemic failures in public services that led to crises such as that at Winterbourne View care home, where adults with learning disabilities suffered a serious lack of care and attention”.

The commission will look at how the voluntary sector can “make a difference in the provision of a wide range of public services across the country”.

Co-chair Will Hutton said: “The next few years are going to prove a crucial period for both the delivery of public services and the involvement of many more charitable and third sector providers in their delivery.

“Success will mean that we develop an ecosystem of partners that can provide services that are genuinely responsive to citizens’ preferences. This commission will hope to crack that conundrum wide open.”

The commission is co-sponsored by Social Investment Business, and will offer practical tools to help charities and social enterprises work better in future partnerships with the public sector. It aims to outline a direction of travel for the sector for the next ten years, which Sir Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo and chair of Social Investment Business, described as “beyond choice and competition”.

Acevo has said that the news of the commission emerges in the wake of last week’s report that no charities were chosen as prime providers in the transforming rehabilitation programme.

The Remaking the State commission follows Acevo’s 2003 report Replacing the State, which encouraged subsequent governments to work with charities to deliver public services.

Bubb (pictured) said: “For the last ten years, Acevo has led the way on getting charities and social enterprises to the top of the public services agenda. Replacing the State helped define the third sector’s relationship with politics and the state during the New Labour era; Remaking the State will set the weather for the next ten years.”

The Remaking the State commissioners are:

• Dan Corry – Chief executive, New Philanthropy Capital
• Jonathan Davies – Chief executive, Wikimedia Foundation
• Lord Glasman – Labour peer
• Will Hutton – Principal of Hertford College Oxford, Observer columnist and chair of the Big Innovation Centre
• Steve James – Chief executive, Avenues Group
• Michael O’Toole – Chief executive, Mentor
• Rob Owen, Chief executive, St Giles Trust
• Ben Rick – Co-founder and managing partner, Social and Sustainable Capital
• Baroness Stedman-Scott – Conservative peer and chief executive, Tomorrow’s People
• Fiona Weir – Chief executive, Gingerbread
• Chris Wright – Chief executive, Catch 22