Localism and the third sector: New relationships of public service?

Using interview and documentary empirical evidence from leaders of a local community group that took on the running of a leisure facility after its threatened closure by the local authority, this article examines the relationship between third sector and state sector, the role of volunteers, the changing role of third sector organisations and the theoretical and practical limitations of ‘localism’ in making sense of these changes. It is suggested that localism is to be understood in relation to continuing central influences over policy, that community and voluntary organisations are inextricably bound up with the public sector rather than being a discrete and independent sector in their own right, and that the extant academic literature on networks, agencies and partnerships does not adequately describe these emergent new relationships of public service.