Phil Hope was appointed Minister for the Third Sector in June 2007. Previous to this, he served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Skills, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Prescott as Deputy Prime Minister and to Nick Raynsford as Minister of State for Housing and Planning. He was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in June 2003 with responsibility for building regulations, regulatory and public sector reform, e-local government, the Fire Service College and the Local Government Pension Scheme. At the former ODPM he also supported the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire, Nick Raynsford.

Mr Hope was elected to Kettering Borough Council during the 1980s and Northamptonshire County Council between 1993 and 1997, where he chaired the Equal Opportunities Committee. He was elected Member of Parliament for Corby and East Northamptonshire in 1997.

Formerly a teacher at Kettering School for Boys, he has also been a youth policy advisor to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Head of the Young Volunteer Resources Unit at the National Youth Bureau and a management consultant to not-for-profit organisations.

Mr Hope said: "The National Public Procurement Practitioners' Day 2008 is a great chance to show the best of procurement in the public sector. My vision is for excellent public services which meet the needs of all people in local communities, and I see the partnership between the public sector and the third sector as an integral part of that vision. Procurement professionals will be vital in driving the kind of improvements in services which we all want to see, and in working towards a mixed economy of providers, where each plays to their strengths. I’m particularly pleased that at N3PD 2008 there will be an award recognising Improved Delivery Through Greater Third Sector Involvement. Our four year National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning, being delivered by the Improvement and Development Agency, will invest in the skills of those involved in commissioning from the third sector; together we can transform public service delivery”

As Deputy Director-General of the CBI, John Cridland is responsible for the management of the CBI’s policy and membership activities.He is a key spokesman for the business community, in the media and on public platforms, and has extended the CBI’s global footprint and its reputation for policy leadership. He is also a member of the National Learning and Skills Council. John studied history at Christ’s College Cambridge and joined the CBI in 1982. He has been Director of Environmental Affairs and of Human Resources Policy. He spent 10 years on the Low Pay Commission and the ACAS Council, and was also a member of the Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance. He was awarded the CBE in 2006.