From markets to missions: Where should public services meet the ‘third’ sector on this forcefield spectrum, how should they relate there, and why?

IMPACTThe article illustrates how, by defaulting to competition to handle the size and profit-motive of the private sector, guidance around public spending (on both procurement and grant) is designed expressly for managing transactional ‘market economy’ logic. The article contrasts this against logic needed for working with the ‘voluntary economy’ as a significant natural ally of the ‘public service’ economy. It highlights how the voluntary and community sector’s (VCS’s) relational leverage of voluntary resources from communities is a unique economic role played alongside governmental missions. Better differentiated understanding of all three economies, and tools for understanding who (including social enterprises) works out of which economy’s logic, will equip commissioners to make better use of existing provisions for working with the VCS. It highlights direct grant as essential for VCS ecosystem-resilience, identifying how guidance and research can equitably help such tools become business-as-usual practice under the UK government’s recent Civil Society Covenant.