ABSTRACT
For our purposes, it is noteworthy that ministers’ rhetoric speaks to the full range of the sector’s functions, but there is a particularly strong emphasis on the local level ‘community-building’, social capital and as part of that, the voluntary sector’s role in fostering trust. Underlining this orientation within the policymaking machinery, the new apparatus of ‘joined-up governance’ discussed in Chapter 4 (Section 4.2) has recently been geared towards the production of two reports whose commissioning and terms of reference and commissioning were
Greater weight to the service provision function/the pursuit of efficiency ‘In my view, voluntary bodies need to pull together more effectively than they often do, not to speak with one voice, but to speak more nearly with one voice on certain questions that they have often been able to do . . . partnership needs to come from within the sector as well as from outside it. There is a need for more co-operation at all levels, wherever it is appropriate and wherever different voluntary bodies gather together to pursue a common purpose’ (Dartington, Lords Hansard 96, col 330).
