Cabinet Office Third Sector

Public service delivery action plan

Partnership in public services: an action plan for third sector involvement aims to remove barriers to third sector organisations who want to become involved in delivering and designing public services. It was published alongside the Pre-Budget Report in December 2006.

The plan brings together opportunities for the third sector to play an enhanced role in public services.

The actions in the plan cut across government departments and cover four areas:

• commissioning
  improving the commissioning process for service providers and public funders
• procurement
  ensuring that contracting and procurement processes are fair and proportionate
• learning from the third sector
  supporting innovation in the sector
• accountability
  helping the sector to hold services to account

The measures outlined in the plan include a national programme to train 2,000 public sector commissioners on involving the third sector in services, and £30 million funding for community groups to take over the management or ownership of local authority buildings.

The action plan also includes:

• commitments to streamline the administration of contracts and the assurance process for organisations working with more than one government agency
• the creation of an Innovation Exchange website to connect innovators in the sector with those who can support their work
• a summary of areas of opportunity for the third sector to take on a central role in delivering services to the public
• commitments to use the reforms in the Local Government White Paper to ensure stable contracts for the sector, enabling them to better plan their resources
• a commitment to review commissioning frameworks used in different government departments and work to develop closer alignment
• work looking at consortia-building, and the implications of regional and subregional commissioning, as well as sub-contracting

Full details of all the proposals are available in the action plan report:

• Partnership in public services: an action plan for third sector involvement [PDF 1MB, 57 pages]

A leaflet, published in December 2007 (a year after public services action plan was published), set out progress against the action plan. It is available here:

• Partnership in Public Services: the public services action plan. One year on [PDF 221KB, 8 pages]

To order a hardcopy of the action plan please phone 0845 015 0010 and quote URN 06/Z4. To order a hardcopy of the leaflet please quote URN 07/Z8. Please note that stocks are limited.

Have your say archive – view comments on the public service delivery action plan.