As partnerships increasingly take on board a joint commissioning role, it is important that the voluntary sector is not excluded from partnerships' ‘top table' and relegated from "partner" to "stakeholder". There may be conflicts of interest when taking decisions, but these do not necessarily apply solely to the voluntary sector as commissioning organisations are often also providers themselves. There are ways to identify and manage conflicts of interest including withdrawal from specific decisions, but to exclude the voluntary sector wholesale is not the only solution nor a particularly fair one. If the statutory sector does want us to be partners and not just suppliers, then we need to be treated as such.