One of the many consequences of the growing emphasis on partnership over recent years has been an increasingly high profile for the voluntary and community sectors. Associated historically with choice, flexibility and the capacity to release new resources (donations, volunteers, mutual aid and selfhelp), they have also been seen as a way of reaching more marginalised groups in society and giving them a public voice. Through extending citizen involvement in both services and policy development, a healthy voluntary and community sector offers the potential for a variety of provision, catering for a diversity of need and bringing a wider range of resources to bear on the policy process.

In recognition of this role, the 1997 Labour government introduced a ‘Compact’ (see Chapter Eight for the background to Compacts) early in its first term, establishing a framework of principles for relationships between government and the voluntary and community sectors (Home Office, 1998). At the same time, emphasis on partnership and consultation with the sector across a wide range of new policies offered new opportunities for the voluntary and community sectors.

But while many organisations welcome the prospect that this partnership will bring the resources and energies of different sectors to bear more effectively on social problems, others are concerned about the impact on the autonomy of voluntary and community organisations. A cynical view might see partnership simply as a means through which a succession of governments have sought to transfer responsibility for welfare away from the state and, moreover, in a way that allows the state to continue to exercise control over policy and practice. This chapter reviews the experience of partnership between government and voluntary and community organisations in the key policy settings of regeneration and anti-poverty policy. It then examines more recent experience and, in particular, the potential strategic role of local Compacts, one of Labour's unique policy contributions, in addressing the problematic issues raised by partnership working. In doing so, we distinguish between the voluntary sector, which includes organisations employing paid staff and which are often formally incorporated; and the community sector, usually focused on communities of place or identity, which often operates without regular funding or paid staff.