NCVO launched its election manifesto at its annual conference yesterday, and it contains a great many sensible reforms that would benefit civil society.

One demand stands out as being particularly ambitious, the call for all workers to be given five days paid time off in order to volunteer.

While it’s a nice idea and would go a long way to creating the ‘good society’ that Stuart Etherington envisages, it does strike me as rather radical.

While the accompanying request for an extra day bank holiday for volunteering is a reasonable request, it is hard to see any government being willing to fight the business lobby for a further five days of their employees’ time.

Plus, like it or not, to take five days out of every employee's time would affect national productivity significantly, risking any recovery and in the longer term affecting the UK's economic strength relative to other countries.

Do charity manifestos necessarily have to be realistic? Perhaps not. Maybe NCVO is right to aim high in order to encourage the government to ultimately meet in the middle.

But you would think they need to be realistic to retain credibility. Wouldn't it be best to focus on just an extra day’s paid volunteering, rather than risk spooking the regrettably all-powerful private sector and getting nowhere as a result?