Plans have been announced for building an NHS Net which will bring the same sort of benefits to patients as information technology has brought to bank customers and airline passenger. NHS Net will be an information superhighway linking hospitals, GPs and other health care organisations. It will cost £150m.By the end of 1999 a patient’s test results could be available to a GP as soon as they are ready rather than spending a day or more in the post. Administrative procedures will be speeded up and made more efficient. This will mean that hospital appointments will be booked quicker and more easily. GPs will also be able to share information, disseminate good practice and spread new ideas.

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Veronica Lowe, Chief Executive of the Valuation Office Agency has resigned after 18 months in the post. She took over leadership of the agency in June 1996 following open competition.She is succeeded by Michael Johns, 51, who is currently acting as Director General (Operations) in the Inland Revenue. He has spent most of his career in the Inland Revenue, but with a year in the Central Policy Review Staff in the Cabinet Office in 1979/80 and a year on secondment to the Orion Royal Bank (the then merchant banking subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada) in 1985. He has worked in a variety of tax policy and management jobs. As acting Director General (Operations) he is responsible for managing the 40,000 staff in local and specialist offices responsible for the assessment and collection of tax.

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The launch of an electronic signature trial marks a breakthrough in linking customers to government. Verifying the identity of a customer giving information electronically has been a barrier to developing on line transactions, but that barrier may now be on the way down. The Government, in collaboration with EDS, Microsoft and NatWest are trialling an electronic signature.The trial is being carried out as part of the joint working by Inland Revenue, Contributions Agency and Customs and Excise. The group have created a one stop shop by devising a single electronic form for registering as self employed. Six branches of NatWest are operating the trial.

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Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, set out a ten year strategy for the health service in the NHS White Paper. The strategy is centred around structural changes and a range of measures to improve standards of care.Standards will be raised by the creation of two new national bodies and the introduction of a 24 hour advice service. The National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness, will promote high quality guidelines for treatment, based on the best evidence. The Commission for Health Improvement will raise standards of care by making sure that all parts of the NHS learn from, and are brought up to, the standards of the very best.

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Education plans published in the white paper make it clear that the strategy for raising education standards is a two pronged approach focusing on fostering excellence and strenuously deterring under performance.Local Education Authorities, heads and teachers will be encouraged to perform better. LEAs will have to devise three year educational development plans which aim to raise standards. The plans, which will be developed in discussion with schools, will set out how the LEA is to help boost school improvement and support schools in reaching performance targets. The targets will be agreed every year with the LEA and published.

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The Contributions Agency has won the 1997 Price Waterhouse award for the best Government Agency Annual Report and Accounts. The Agency came top in 9 out of 10 award categories.Terry Lord, the Contributions Agency Finance Director said: “All credit for this award goes to the staff involved in its production, particularly Central Reporting Unit who co-ordinated the information, and Graphic Design Unit for their excellent presentation. I am very grateful for the effort and hard work they have put into this.”

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The Best Value initiative, which in time will replace Compulsory Competitive Tendering, has moved a step forward with the announcement of the selected pilot projects. 35 local authorities and 2 police authorities have been chosen to run pilots out of more than 150 bids. The life of the projects is expected to be 2 – 3 years. An early bonus for the winners is exemption from CCT requirements.The projects were selected on the basis that they are likely to deliver measurable improvements in value for money across a group of services, and that the authorities have a determination and a capacity to see the bids through. In order to maximise learning from the pilots, selection was spread across rural and urban areas and different types of authorities and political control. To this was added a broad geographical spread.

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During the next six weeks councils will have the opportunity to make their case to Ministers for an increase in funding above that proposed in the local government finance settlement. In order to avoid unnecessary travelling, video conferencing facilities will be made available in Regional Government Offices to allow councils to argue their case with Ministers in London. This is the first time video conferencing has been used in this way and it will be interesting to see if those who maker a shorter journey to say Manchester of Newcastle have the same degree of success as those travel to London.Ministers are hoping that the settlement will be sufficiently attractive to avoid major confrontations. The settlement provides for total spending to rise by 3.8% and the Revenue Support Grant will be increased by 4.4%. The £835m to be spent on improving schools will be funded entirely from the centre and no demands will be made on council tax payers. Their is also a fairer system for distribution of the Revenue Support Grant which it is hope will remove the worst anomalies of the previous arrangements.

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The strategies of all the organisations implementing the Government’s social policy must be closely integrated to achieve success. Raising health standards is a key element of the policy and it follows that this can only be achieved by concerted action across a broad front. Partnership is the way forward. This was the message Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health, gave to the Healthy Plymouth conference.Mr Dobson explained how unemployment and poverty are health hazards: “Having a job is good for your health. Not having a job is bad for your health. And it’s not just marginal. A middle-aged man doubles his chances of dying in the next five years if he loses his job. If you have money you can afford to buy better food and warmer clothes for yourself and your family. You can afford to keep your house warmer”.

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Publication of the National Asset Register, the 1990s Doomsday Book, has revealed the size and variety of the wealth of the nation. A report by the National Audit Office following closely on the heels of the Register carries a cautionary message about what can go wrong with an asset sale.The National Asset Register has been compiled as an essential part of the Comprehensive Spending Review and its primary purpose is to allow departments to get the best value for money from their assets. In many cases, however, recording an asset will be the first step to its disposal. For example, there appears to be little benefit to the taxpayer from the Inland Revenue ownership of a carpark in Ipswich.

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