Third Sector and Public Services: Key Initiatives, Examples, and Benefits of Partnership

This article examines the role of third sector organizations in delivering public services, including key governmental initiatives, examples of third sector organizations supporting local authorities during austerity, and the benefits and limitations of working in partnership with the public sector. It evaluates the impact of government policies on the social economy, analyzes two examples of third sector organizations that played an important role in supporting local authorities during austerity, justifies the need for third sector organizations to deliver or support the delivery of public services, and reviews the main benefits and limitations of working in a partnership with the public sector.

Third Sector and Public
Services

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAINBODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Evaluate the key governmental initiatives, between 1990's to present day that have shaped the
social economy.......................................................................................................................3
Analyse two examples of third sector organisations that played an important role to the
support of local authorities during austerity...........................................................................4
Justification which consider that third sector organisations should deliver or support the
delivery of public service organisations.................................................................................4
Review the main benefits and limitations of working in a partnership with the public sector . .5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFRENCES ..................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journals ........................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Third sector has been termed as non profitable organisation which includes voluntary
groups, social enterprises. Charities and trust whose delivers social services in order to contribute
economic growth and help the needy people for their welfare. It plays most important role in
supporting various communities at local level of country (Brandsen and Johnston, 2018). Public
services includes transport, social care, health care, education, food and many more for the
benefits of people and communities. The government of UK decided to introduced austerity
policies to cut social services in order to reduce expenditure and save money for uncertainty.
This project covers the analysis of the recent historical context of third sector
involvement with the public services. Further, it highlights the role of third sector organisations
in society along with examples of third sector organisations delivering public services. At last it
defines the benefits and challenges of third sector organisation working in partnership with the
public services.
MAINBODY
Evaluate the key governmental initiatives, between 1990's to present day that have shaped the
social economy
In UK, government take many initiatives from past two decades which shaped the social
economy. In recent times social economy plays most important role to provide public services to
the people in order to meet their needs and increase economy of country. Initially the third sector
and charitable trust developed strategy for social care by contract culture. Contract culture refers
to the deal between government and private organisation in order to provide social services to
people. In this government provide funds to these organisation which worked for the welfare of
society by providing social and health care services at UK. This contract build relationship
among government and voluntary organisation in which state purchases their services on behalf
of service users and tax payers (Bridge, Murtagh and O'Neill, 2020). In this contract the
government provide their support to third sector organisation by giving grants to them along with
control on their activities and operations. Further, it divided into two section public voluntary
organisation and private voluntary organisation in which public organisation focus on generating
public contract with loss of its tax advantage. It has been seen that, twenty year ago it was

limited to only social and health care but after that it extent into various areas. Such as many
businesses and organisations are engaging in contracting as well as commissioning in new laws
related to labour or employment. The labour governments of UK take interest in enhancing and
promoting the involvement of third sector in public services by providing loan. This leads to new
investment by government in order to establish future builders (The third sector delivering public
services: an evidence review, 2010). They organised a loan finance program to enhance third
sector and social economy infrastructure so they win public contracts. It has been seen that the
third sector found various difficulties in contracting process.
Further, government administration reformulate the policies and make action plan for the
effective involvement of third sector in public services. After that they engaged large number of
commissioners with third sector in order to reduce challenges faced by them as well as trained
them to improve their capabilities to provide range of social services to public. This helped them
to increase engagement of third sector organisation for the welfare of public by funding these
organisation in appropriate manner. It also helped them to determine the kinds of organisation
which are able to provide services to users in effective manner by removing barriers (Caselli,
Giullari and Whitfield, 2019). As per the scenario, it has been seen that government decided to
introduced austerity policy in order to reduce investment in social care and increasing tax to
decline budget deficits or meet financial crises.
Analyse two examples of third sector organisations that played an important role to the support
of local authorities during austerity
After government announced the austerity policy in UK which is related to cut down the
investment in social care and other public services by increasing tax and reducing public
spending. There are many third sector organisation who works effectively to support the local
authorities in order to raise funds to provide food, education and other services to needy people.
One of the best example is Trussell Trust which works as charitable trust in UK and provide food
services to the needy people who suffered from hunger. It helps communities to meet their needs
and remove poverty during these policy (Coote and Percy, 2020). They distribute food in various
places such as churches, schools, supermarkets and businesses by provide emergency food
parcels in crisis. It is largest supplier of food which support local authorities and generate
employment. It has been seen that there is increasing in the demand of food among people due to

increase in unemployment rate in country. They works for reducing food insecurity problems in
UK which raised with austerity policy. As increase in tax leads to increase in cost of food, daily
necessary items and others which also maximise the need of food bank in future as these trust
continuously working to provide employment opportunity to people in order to reduce poverty.
The another example of third sector organisation which works for public welfare is Save
the Children. It works for over all development of children in country and save them from
various problems such as exploitation, unemployment and poverty. They provide health care
services by focusing on nutritions, food, education, diseases to improve the living standard of
children. They work to transform the children life whose suffer from various issues and health
related problems due to poverty (HELP CHILDREN GET THE FUTURE THEY DESERVE,
2021). It provide various betterment services in UK to children to enhance the condition of them
in future such as health care, better education, economic opp along with providing emergency aid
during austerity, war, natural crises as well as political conflicts. They woks with many local
authorities in order to support nurseries, orphanage, schools and other communities to reduce the
gap among children who belong to below poverty line and high income group.
Justification which consider that third sector organisations should deliver or support the delivery
of public service organisations
It has been analysed that various Third sector organisation support the delivery of public
service organisations. For example, during the time of austerity, Trussell Trust provide food
services to people which suffer from food insecurity. After that the demand of third sector
organisation is increasing every year which provides social care services to people. It helps
government in the economy development. The another example of third sector organisation is
Save the Children which provide education, food and well-being services to children for their
future development (Jones, 2019). For this they will also help government to increase
employment, literacy rate by reducing poverty. In recent times, UK faced various financial crises
due to economic and various uncertainty. Charitable organisation helps them to provide various
services to people and raise funds to meet these crisis for overall development of country. Most
of the organisation works at local, state and national level where government administrations are
unable to reach to provide public services. It helps people in various ways by listening their

problems, provide information to central level about poverty, health and another issues in order
to reduce it effectively (Mills and Meek, 2019).
It play various roles such as delivered necessary services, contribute in the economic
growth as well as improve people's well-being. They also provide various innovative solution in
order to solve crises in less time or cost. They perform their practices without motive of personal
benefits in delivering services for the betterment of society as whole. Also they understand the
needs of public in better manner as they work with for them which public organisation needs to
provide. They also help them to reach the public and know more about specific issue in wider
term which need for urgent solution such as poverty, hunger (Munday, 2019). They are also
capable to deliver effective services by various contract which public sector will find difficulties
to deliver on time. It aid their services to government to meet their social, economical and
political goals effectively which leads to increase the economy and value of country.
Review the main benefits and limitations of working in a partnership with the public sector
There are various benefits for third sector of working in a partnership with public sector
such as it helps them to reach as well as impact of various critical social services. They reached
maximum number of people and provide their services in effective manner (Seanor, 2018)
(Wildbore, 2019). It also improve the quality along with efficiency of social care services for the
benefits of communities. By this they can understand the needs of people better and save cost
and spending for economy development. The another benefits are financial management, huge
amount of funds available, support in legal terms and many more. Individuals of third sector
develop their skills related to various areas and working with commissioners which leads to
improve in their efficiency and effectiveness along with development of country. They have
clear process of working which reduce confusion and cost for complex issue.
With lots of benefits there are various limitation also of working with public sector. Such
increase in complexity in operations, control of government, reduce freedom of work and so on.
They found difficulties to cope up with the expectations and demand of government
administration related to public services (Yuan, Chen and Cao, 2021). Initially they work at
local level and for a community but after contract culture they have work for various
communities which are very challenging for third sector organisations as they have less
knowledge about various social issues. There are various other limitations such as financial
barriers, governance barriers, lack of human resource management as well as external relation or

increasing bureaucracy (Barriers to Third Sector Development, 2022). They faced lots of
problems to understand the procedure of administration and various laws related to labour, health
and many other public services. Also the demand for these organisation is also increased during
austerity in order to provide food bank services to reduce poverty.
CONCLUSION
As per above presented information, it has been concluded that the role of thirds sector in
the welfare of country is increasing in recent time. It has been analysed that they provide various
social and public services after working with government administration for the economy
development of country. There are various initiatives taken by the government to improve the
engagement of third sector organisation for the betterment communities such as in social care,
labour, employment, health care and infrastructure. Multiples example of third sector
organisation which provide support to public sector organisation during austerity. Third sector
organisation helps government administration and public firms in order to provide social services
in effective manner. There are various benefits of working with public organisation such as
increase in skills, resources, help in legal formalities and many more. Along with that, there are
various limitation also such as increase in complexity, poor human resource and financial
management, increase in bureaucracy or demand as well as so on.

REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Brandsen, T. and Johnston, K., 2018. Collaborative governance and the third sector: something
old, something new. In The Palgrave handbook of public administration and
management in Europe (pp. 311-325). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Bridge, S., Murtagh, B. and O'Neill, K., 2020. Understanding the social economy and the third
sector. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Caselli, D., Giullari, B. and Whitfield, D., 2019. A job like any other? Working in the social
sector between transformations of work and the crisis of welfare. Sociologia del lavoro.
Coote, A. and Percy, A., 2020. The case for universal basic services. John Wiley & Sons.
Jones, K., 2019. No strings attached? An exploration of employment support services offered by
third sector homelessness organisations. In Dealing with welfare conditionality (pp. 91-
118). Policy Press.
Mills, A. and Meek, R., 2019. The role of third-sector organizations in supporting resettlement
and reintegration 1. In The Routledge companion to rehabilitative work in criminal
justice (pp. 595-605). Routledge.
Munday, B., 2019. Privatisation of social services in the United Kingdom. In Comparing public
sector reform in Britain and Germany (pp. 264-283). Routledge.
Seanor, P., 2018. Of course, trust is not the whole story: narratives of dancing with a critical
friend in social enterprise–public sector collaborations. In Social Entrepreneurship.
Edward Elgar Publishing.
Wildbore, H., 2019. Human Rights in the Public Sector. The Political Quarterly. 90(3). pp.402-
407.
Yuan, Y., Chen, Y. and Cao, K., 2021. The third sector in collaborative planning: Case study of
Tongdejie community. Habitat International. 109. p.102327.
Online
The third sector delivering public services: an evidence review, 2010. [online]. Available
through: <https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/social-
policy/tsrc/working-papers/working-paper-20.pdf>
Barriers to Third Sector Development, 2022. [online]. Available through:
<https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71473-8_5#Sec3>
HELP CHILDREN GET THE FUTURE THEY DESERVE, 2021. [online]. Available through:
<https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/>

Charities and the Public Se ctor are
Stronger Together
Charities and the Public Sector are
Stronger Together