I have, in the past, worked for government - both local and national; as has my wife - (also in the "third sector"). Our collective experience suggests that the public sector is filled more with cynicism than aspiration - the rot that corrodes all long-lived deep hierarchies having long corroded any goodness; any hope; any generosity away. The third sector is a little better; but is so frequently counterproductive; feeding nothing but networks of dependency that one easily despairs of being able to do good in a straightforward way. The world seems designed to frustrate our ambitions and thwart our plans -- we must instead approach doing good sideways; social enterprise being the current great hope.