'Reward hoodies for charity work'

The plan to encourage "hoodies" to volunteer is part of a social policy masterplan drawn up for party leader David Cameron.

It also calls for teenage pupils to be forced to devise and take part in social projects and for tax breaks to encourage the middle classes to give more to charity.

Mr Cameron said there was something "deeply wrong" with British society and that fixing it was the biggest challenge facing the country.

He tasked former party leader Iain Duncan Smith to produce the necessary policies and his social justice policy group will deliver its final report on Tuesday.

It concludes that the charity sector has a vital role to play but is being held back by Government interference and red tape and a drop in giving and volunteering.

Reforms are needed to help small charities maximise their income and have more chance to make a contribution to national anti-poverty efforts, it says.

"The war on poverty will only be won by liberating the third sector from the incessant pressure to do the Government's work in the Government's way," the report says.

"Innovative social entrepreneurs and grassroots projects need to be trusted and equipped to find new solutions to these intractable problems."

Under the proposed "V-card" system, young people would earn credits for doing voluntary work which could be exchanged for items such as concert tickets.