According to the Conservative Party website the Conservative Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:

We want to see a transformation in the role of community groups, social enterprises and the voluntary sector to help build a stronger society for all of us.

A Conservative Government would create a more supportive environment for philanthropy and volunteering, reduce the bureaucracy faced by charities and voluntary groups, and enable them to earn a return on any investment they make in providing public services.

We would enhance the role played by charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises in tackling the problems facing our society, with a series of measures including:

* Reforming the Gift Aid system of tax relief on charitable donations to encourage more people to give to charity
* Ending the hi-jacking of lottery funds for Ministers’ pet projects by replacing the Big Lottery Fund with an independent Voluntary Action Lottery Fund, which would spend all its income on worthy causes
* Enabling charities and voluntary organisations to make a fair return on money they spend on providing public services, just as private businesses already do
* Creating a single, simple website to advertise Government grant schemes, helping smaller charities to win a fair share of Government funding
* Encouraging regular volunteering by giving central Government employees an annual volunteering leave entitlement
* Reforming the criminal records checks system, which is currently slow, bureaucratic and puts people off volunteering.
* Creating Social Enterprise Zones – areas where relaxed tax and benefit rules would help social entrepreneurs and the voluntary sector deal with problems such as drug abuse
* Creating a new Office of Civil Society and Civil Society Select Committee to fight for the interests of the voluntary sector in Government and Parliament

Conservative Party Voluntary Sector Policy :http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Voluntary_Sector.aspx

I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Conservative’s Voluntary Sector policies in the comments below?