The Office of the Third Sector is to coordinate a powerful new Cabinet sub-committee charged with removing barriers that might prevent third sector organisations winning central government contracts.

Ministers have been invited to join from eight Whitehall departments, including the Treasury, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Work and Pensions, and Communities and Local Government. The sub-committee will be supported by an advisory group of third sector representatives and officials from across government, which will meet once a week.

Cabinet committees and sub-committees are smaller groups of ministers that take decisions in the name of the full Cabinet. There are currently about 40 such bodies.

The committee on third sector commissioning will be a 'misc' committee - a sub-committee established for a particular task. It will scrutinise the procurement procedures of different government departments and take action on any identified barriers to sector involvement in public service delivery.

Peter Kyle, deputy chief executive of chief executives body Acevo, described the establishment of the committee as a triumph for the OTS. He said that when he was a special adviser at the Cabinet Office, before he joined Acevo, he saw how effective Cabinet committees could be.