The Cabinet Office will release £10m of funding for charities and social enterprises to develop skills and infrastructure to win more capital investment and public service contracts.

The Investment and Contract Readiness Fund will be open for three years from April 2012, Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, announced today. The fund, he said, will "create a pipeline of civil society organisations ready to grasp new opportunities".

"They will break down barriers and build expertise in the sector so that it can become a mainstream option for public service delivery. And as the Big Society Bank capitalises the social investment market, finance to grow organisations will become increasingly available," he said.

Government must move further and faster

Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) welcomed the funding but said the government needed "to move further and faster on mainstreaming the concept of social value in its public services plans as a key mechanism for driving improvements in services".

"Helping the sector get contract-ready is positive, but we also need contracts which are ready for the sector," he said.

Hurd has also invited civil society organisations to take part in a new consultation to identify further changes needed to the commissioning process, but Etherington criticised the move while detailed analysis of the Modernising Commissioning Green Paper is yet to be provided.

"While it is positive that the government is engaging with the sector, it is disappointing that another listening exercise is being rolled out whilst we still await detailed analysis of the responses to the Modernising Commissioning Green Paper. Moreover, it strengthens the concern held by many NCVO members that the journey towards open public services outlined in the letter lacks either a clear destination or an estimated time of arrival," said Etherington. 

Over 400 responses to the Modernising Commissioning Green Paper were received. Hurd advised that these were used to inform the Open Public Services White Paper which was published on 11 July.