The Cabinet Office has denied suggestions in a BBC story that it is “scaling back” its proposals to outsource great swathes of public services to the private sector in favour of employee-owned mutuals and social enterprises, insisting that it always intended a big role for civil society groups.

Yesterday the BBC reported excerpts from a leaked note of a recent meeting between Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and CBI director general John Cridland.  The note, drawn up by the CBI, stated that Maude had told Cridland the government’s plans for public service reform would “not be a return to the 1990s with wholesale outsourcing to the private sector”.

This would be “unpalatable” because it would risk accusations that the government was allowing excess profit-making by private firms, Maude reportedly said.

Instead, commercial firms that want to beef up their involvement in service delivery should investigate joint ventures with the government or civil society organisations, the CBI was told.

The plans are to be outlined in the Open Public Services White Paper due to be published later this month, several months later than the original schedule of January or February.

Cabinet Office: 'Nothing new'

But a Cabinet Office spokesman said the contents of the CBI note should not come as any surprise because “it’s something we’ve been saying for a long time”.

“It is wrong to suggest that we’re changing our plans to reform public services. We will be bringing forward proposals in due course which will, as we have always made clear, open up provision of public services to ‘non-state’ organisations.

“As part of building the Big Society, we want to open public services up to SMEs, employee co-operatives, voluntary sector organisations and social enterprises, who may often partner with the private sector. We believe that this will create more innovative and localised services, while also decreasing costs and increasing efficiency.”