Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organizations, has set out a vision of one million people in voluntary bodies delivering public services ten years on. The scenario he paints shows growth in voluntary sector activity coming from a range of sources. There will be contracts to deliver probation and social work services and transport infrastructure. Hospitals and schools will be operated as community interest companies and as not-for-profit organizations. Integration into public service delivery will be fostered by voluntary organizations having their performance measured, inspected and compared by a government-appointed regulator.Local strategic partnerships bring together councils and other parts of the public sector, business, voluntary and community sector organizations. They provide the infrastructure for greater involvement of the voluntary sector in delivering services.

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The Institute for Public Policy Research warns that Government plans for widespread development of Community Interest Companies could run into difficulties because of their complex structure. In a report ‘In the Public Interest?’ it argues that CI companies are only suitable for specific areas of the public sector.Last month the Department of Trade and Industry announced radical plans to create a new type of ‘community interest’ company, bringing together voluntary sector expertise and private sector entrepreneurialism. They will be designed to liberate the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals with public sector values and create new opportunities at local level to provide services where they are needed most. It is envisaged that the sort of people who will want to set up such a company will typically be entrepreneurs who want to do good in a form other than a charity. The concept of the CI company was outlined in the report “Private Action, Public Benefit”, published by the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit in September 2002, see www.dti.gov.uk/cics/background

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By Richard J. StillmanThe United States is commonly referred to as the last global superpower, exercising unrivalled political, economic, military and social influence. Yet, paradoxically, unlike any other nation, Americans were – and remain – radically antistatist. Until roughly the twentieth century the United States did not want, need, nor create a powerful administrative state to govern itself, let alone others abroad. This essay explores that peculiar paradox, namely how Americans govern as the last global superpower today, yet retain an inherently fierce hostility to government. The thesis that is developed argues that it is a deep-rooted reformist faith which ultimately shapes US statecraft as a unique style of reformcraft, with both benign and not-so benign consequences.

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