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This government has made no secret of its desire to involve the voluntary and private sectors more centrally in the delivery of public services. According to one estimate, voluntary and private bodies could be delivering £60bn-worth of public services by 2006-7, representing 80 per cent growth in three years. It is characteristic of New Labour that change would hardly proceed more quickly if the Conservatives came to power in two weeks time.

Private companies have often been eager to snap up the services offered to them by the government, with mixed results for their shareholders and for consumers. But the voluntary sector is different. It is not just a question of whether charities are likely to be more efficient or more innovative than the public sector. There is also the question of whether the government's view of the voluntary sector is the same as the voluntary sector's own, whether the services the voluntary sector are asked to provide are in keeping with the values and principles that underpin it strategically and operationally. The answer, at least some of the time, is plainly no.


These concerns are thrown into stark relief by the Labour manifesto's commitment to giving the voluntary sector, in partnership with the private sector, more opportunities to run offender services, including young offender institutions. In one respect, this is a sensible proposal: it could result in more emphasis on rehabilitation in YOIs and would make it easier to provide continuous support to the offender in custody and afterwards in the community. But in every other respect it is bad policy, despite the endorsement it has received from the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. First, there is inevitable suspicion that the government wants to buy the voluntary sector on the cheap to help it achieve the Treasury's target of £21.5bn in efficiency savings by 2008. And second, how can voluntary organisations be accountable to their own trustees while at the same time having to answer to the Home Office for a raft of prison service performance indicators? Could charities produce the profound cultural change required in YOIs or would they succumb to the existing culture instead as many in the sector fear?

The voluntary sector is much more than merely a means to the government's end of delivering more effective public services. Until this is acknowledged, Labour's strategists are missing the point.