Tory frontbench to go under third sector spotlight

This Thursday (18 March), senior members of the Shadow Cabinet will present their ideas for the voluntary sector at summit of third sector leaders.

The Third Sector Conservative Summit is being hosted by ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations) in conjunction with other key charity partners.

It will take place at Millbank Tower, London all day beginning at 10am.

Shadow chancellor, George Osborne will open the summit and speak on the Conservative's vision for charities in delivering key public services.

ACEVO, which represents the heads of 2000 of the UK's leading charities, has been working closely with its membership over the past few months to make the case for the sector to play a far greater role in the delivery of public services, specifically in: health; children's services and schools and reducing unemployment and reoffending.

A number of charity leaders will present the case for a greater role for the sector in the delivery of public services in their area and outline how they can both deliver quality services and help achieve public spending savings.

These ideas will be explored in unguarded roundtable discussions between charity leaders, sector experts in the area and ten shadow ministers who are responsible for policy development in that area.

Speaking ahead of the summit Stephen Bubb, CEO of ACEVO, said: "We know the Conservatives are strongly in favour of competition and innovation and we've already seen evidence of this through policies like 'payment by results'.

"This summit will be the first real opportunity for the third sector to drill down in to the detail of their thinking and have an open debate on the role of our sector in delivering public services. We'll also get a better sense of their vision of the third sector's role in wider civil society."

The summit follows an ACEVO instigated meeting with the chancellor, Alistair Darling two weeks ago when the case for a bigger role for the third sector in key areas was made by leading sector representatives.