David Cameron has been turning his thoughts this week to poverty - and also to the voluntary sector which he sees as key to reducing it.
But rolling back the state by transferring responsibility to charities and voluntary groups to attack this chronic social evil is a high-risk strategy.
Yet it is in line with the Conservative Party leader's stance on "small government, big society", which would be a feature of a Cameron administration.
This week, Cameron gave the clearest indication yet that he would retain Sure Start but, importantly, its running would involve a greater input from the voluntary sector and charities.
The question must be whether the third sector is equipped financially to pick up what Cameron believes the state cannot deliver to the standard he expects.
Another question is whether the introduction of the third sector to address society's ills would be made over a period of time or in one swift swoop.
Either way, a degree of public expenditure - which Cameron says he would cut - would surely be required to usher the sector into this brave, new world.
But when this dried up, could we depend on the finances of third sector? In the current economic slump, many charities and voluntary groups are reporting a downturn in income. There is no guarantee that this would not happen again in another dip - at a time when their services would be needed most and stretching provision.
Undoubtedly, Cameron has been working on an alternative strategy to tackle the alarming levels of poverty in one of the world's richest nations.
It is an ideal adapted from the United States - yet the model there is far from effective in alleviating poverty.
Moreover, it has echoes of the rich Victorian and Edwardian charitable philanthropists who assuaged their guilt wrought of society's inequalities by providing alms to the poor and needy.
There is also another worrying aspect of Cameron's "big society" solution: taken to its logical extent, no longer would the state be responsible for raising the living standards of its poorest citizens. A bit of a cop-out, I reckon.
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