The voluntary sector must avoid becoming simply "the service-delivery arm of the state" or risk losing its edge, reckons Penny Nicholls, director of children and young people at The Children's Society. She says that, faced with the twin challenges of a commissioning process that is still in development and the need to run effective businesses, the sector should not "dilute its reason for being". "The voluntary sector has a very specific way in which it is able to meet people where they are, develop relations and trust and...