After a torrid month in UK politics, prime minister Gordon Brown has hit back with three pledges: to "clean up politics", deal with the recession and "accelerate the pace" of personalisation of public services.
A third sector jaded by Telegraph-inspired headlines could be forgiven if it found its attention drifting at this point. One could so easily view Brown's focus on devolving power and budgetary control to citizens as that of a man clutching wildly for an Obama-esque 'last hundred days' agenda. But this would be to miss the much bigger story.
The truth is that the biggest reform of public services in 20 years is almost upon us and we seem hardly to have noticed.
Personal budgets and related tools that allow money and support to 'stand behind' citizens' actions and goals to improve their lives will soon become a dominant feature of the policy landscape, but we have only just begun to really think through, in hard practical terms, the implication of this move.
Whether it is Brown or David Cameron – or others yet unknown - in charge in 12 months' time it will make next to no difference to the direction or the pace of reform.
Centralism is discredited; devolution of power cannot stop at the town hall; citizens growing up in a new information age demand more; and, above all, the black hole at the heart of public finances makes this change inevitable.
Third sector organisations in three years' time will be different places, with new systems, staffing structures, pricing models and products.
The skills needed to navigate the ever-changing acronyms of public funding streams will be swapped for those required to serve a market where the citizen-consumer has suddenly become sovereign.
We are talking, in other words, about a whole system change. It is akin to the much-heralded switch from analogue to digital – except the public debate, let alone the public awareness campaign has barely begun.
System reform of this kind presents clear risks. Many different mistakes could be made. We could fail to support and empower people to make good choices.
Delivery costs could rise. Quality could suffer. Some think the juggernaut of personalisation will lose some of its wheels along the way and that reform will founder.
I believe this view is fundamentally misconceived, above all because these reforms are just too important to be allowed to fail.
It is for this reason that I am delighted to be chairing a new commission on personalisation, set up by the Association of chief executives of voluntary organisations (Acevo) and with membership including a wide range of third sector chief executive officers, senior government officials and representatives from a variety of thinktanks.
We are very clear that remarkable opportunities lie ahead for the third sector: a £30bn market with more to follow; liberation from ramshackle contracts; and freedom to focus on our core mission - on helping people to empower themselves.
The commission is independent, non-partisan and we come with hundreds of years of combined practical experience; equipped to help turn visionary ideas into a new system that does truly work for those who need help most.
Our initial report for both government and opposition will be released in November 2009.
Matthew Pike chairs the Acevo commission on personalisation
