Consumers do not believe that charities are always best placed to deliver public services, according to the National Consumer Council.

New research from the NCC has revealed that best practice in service delivery does not always reside in the voluntary sector. In fact, private providers scored the best marks in delivery of care for older people and there was little difference between the performance of the public and voluntary sectors in the provision of housing.

But the report Delivering public services: Service users’ experiences of the third sector also found that voluntary organisations outshine the private and public providers in delivering employment services; 90% of job seekers said they trusted voluntary services.

Ed Mayo, chief executive of the NCC, said: “The third sector often does well but our research scotches the notion that it will always be better. How an organisation is structured matters less to consumers than whether services work well and treat people with dignity.”