19 November 2004
The inspection regime for councils and primary care trusts needs to start addressing how well they work with the voluntary sector, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Paul Boateng said this week.
The minister had harsh words for statutory bodies, saying too many failed to promote better working relationships with their voluntary sector counterparts.
'On local strategic partnerships, voluntary sector partners are often not given the respect they deserve,' he said.
'We need to make sure that in inspection and evaluation, [voluntary sector co-operation] is picked up. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is aware of the challenges.'
'Speaking at a National Council for Voluntary Organisations conference on public service delivery, Boateng praised the so-called Compact, an agreement between government and the voluntary sector to work together for mutual benefit.
'The greatest challenge is how we extend that Compact in a meaningful way to local government,' he said.
Consumer Council chief executive Ed Mayo told the November 15 conference that there was no 'magic bullet' for getting the two sectors to work together. He added that better use could be made of intermediary organisations such as the Futurebuilders consortium.
Futurebuilders, which is charged with distributing a £125m government fund to help charities provide public services, recently closed its first application window and is due to make its first investment announcements early next year.
A breakdown of applications released by the consortium on November 17 showed that the largest proportion of the 644 applications had come from the health and social care field. But applications from voluntary groups working in crime and community cohesion fell short of expectations, and the consortium acknowledged more needed to be done to address this.
Futurebuilders chair Peter Wheeler said: 'Much of our attention in the coming months will be focused on the public sector purchasers of services from our applicant organisations and the need to ensure sound commercial arrangements between the government and the voluntary and community sector.'
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