Tory chairman Francis Maude has urged the party to be "less arrogant" ahead of its annual conference.
The Conservatives' lead over Labour as they begin their party conference has fallen to 1% from 4% in mid-September, according to a Sunday Mirror/ICM poll.
He insisted that the leadership wanted to "engage" more with the public and give them more responsibility.
The poll of 1,029 people on September 28-30 put the Tories on 36%, Labour on 35% and the Liberal Democrats on 19%.
He said David Cameron's "new direction" would "show that the party is becoming more green, more local, looking at devolving power".
Earlier, a survey by YouGov for the Daily Telegraph put Labour and the Tories level on 36% - compared with a Tory lead of 7% earlier in the month.
Mr Maude's comments come as the party saw its ratings fall in a poll on the eve of its gathering in Bournemouth.
YouGov questioned 1,847 adults online between September 27 and 29.
Mr Maude also said the Conservatives had already made clear "that we are a party that prefers lower taxes".
The YouGov poll also found 54% of those questioned thought it was "hard to know what the Conservative Party stands for at the moment."
He also said the Tories would be "a party that's less arrogant about the ability of politicians to have all the answers to every problem".
The fall in the Conservatives' ratings comes as the party gathers for its annual conference in Bournemouth.
Tory chairman Francis Maude told the BBC that the public would see "a great deal of substance" from the conference.
Mr Maude told the BBC that the public would see "a great deal of substance" from the conference.
Engage
"They'll see people involved in the policy groups setting out some of the thinking, the emerging thinking, the analysis there is of the problems Britain faces today and is going to face tomorrow and the way in which we're addressing those problems," he said.
"They'll see people involved in the policy groups setting out some of the thinking, the emerging thinking, the analysis there is of the problems Britain faces today and is going to face tomorrow and the way in which we're addressing those problems," he said.
"So you're not going to end up with a manifesto at the end of it and you're going to end up a very strong sense of direction that the party is going in."
"So you're not going to end up with a manifesto at the end of it and you're going to end up with a very strong sense of the direction that the party is going in."
A survey has found voters thought it was "hard to know what the Conservative Party stands for at the moment".
Mr Maude also said the party would be "less arrogant about the ability of politicians to have all the answers" - he insisted that the leadership wanted to engage more with the public and give them more responsibility.
'No rush on tax'
He said David Cameron's "new direction" would show that the party is becoming "more green, more local, looking at devolving power".
The same poll - by YouGov for the Daily Telegraph - suggested that the party had lost a seven-point lead over Labour in less than a month.
Labour, in the wake of Tony Blair's conference speech, picked up five points to match the Tories on 36%, with Mr Cameron's party dropping two.
The chairman of the Conservative's policy review, Oliver Letwin MP, has suggested that a Tory government would not rush to cut taxes.
"Nobody... can predict what the effect of reducing a particular tax will be, how quickly, how much, the revenue will rise from the behaviour that people engage in as a result of the tax reduction.
I think Conservatives see a lot of the good that the Thatcher years did is slowly being undone Tim Montgomerie
"We have to ensure that we first get our books into order and then of course we do hope to gain supply side-effects ...i.e. people actually behaving differently and making more money and growing faster.
"I don't ever see us as putting economic stability at risk by making promises about tax cuts until we know we can prudently fulfil them."
Tim Montgomerie, former chief of staff under one of the Tories' previous leaders, Ian Duncan Smith, said tax rates remained one of the key issues Mr Cameron needed to address.
He said: "I think Conservatives see a lot of the good that the Thatcher years did is slowly being undone.
"British tax levels are now higher than Germany's. If we're going to compete as an economy we have to cut taxes.
"People are willing to give David Cameron the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but hopefully next year we will see a beginning of signs of a commitment to lower taxation."
YouGov elicited opinions of 1,847 adults across Britain online between 27 September and 29 September.
