The new drugs strategy announced by Ann Taylor, MP, Leader of the House of Commons, focuses on education and prevention. It also signals a shift of resources away from enforcement and towards preventing drug mis-use in the first place.The ten year strategy, set out in the White Paper “Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain” was drawn up following extensive research by Keith Hellawell, UK Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator and his deputy, Mike Trace. 

The Department for Education and Employment is taking a corporate approach to the development and presentation of strategy by creating a Strategy and Communications Directorate. By bringing the two areas together, the Department will ensure that policy development and presentation across the Department is coherent, consistent and effective, and that its partners, customers and the public have the best possible access to information about its work. 

Benchmarking is to be adopted throughout the public sector to improve services and motivate staff. Trials in more than 100 public bodies over the last 18 months have shown that benefits come from comparing performance with other organisation, including those in the private sector. 

A private intranet for government offices throughout the UK has been launched by Public Service Minister Dr David Clark. Although only a limited number of people currently have access, it is expected that all major departments will be connected by the end of the year. 

Ted Gaebler, the co-author of Reinventinting Government is staging a masterclass in London on 18 and 19 June 1998. The class is based on the theme Transforming Governments Through Entrepreneurial Thinking and World Class Performance.Through his many contacts with public sector organisations throughout the world he seeks to banish bureaucracy and develop empowering, flexible and catalytic government. 

The taxpayers’ watchdog of local government and the health service, the Audit Commission, is being subjected to review. The Commission appoints auditors to audit the accounts of councils and health service bodies and carries out studies to assess the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of services.The review team will be led by Paul McQuail, a retired senior civil servant in the former Department of the Environment. 

The Office of Public Service has achieved Investor in People status which is the national standard for effective investment in the training and development of people in order to achieve organisational goals. The Government is committed to a target that by the year 2000 all civil servants will be employed in organisations recognised as Investors in People. 

The Department for Education and Employment is taking over responsibility for day care of children under eight from the Department of Health. The new remit for the DfEE includes regulation of nurseries and childminders.The move is aimed at removing the division and inconsistencies which resulted from previous arrangements and fostering growth and development of services needed by young children and their families. 

Continuous improvement is a key element of the Best Value initiative launched last year. To achieve this councils will have to set up a rolling programme to review services which last year cost each household in the UK some £1800. Council performance has been tracked for the past four years by the Audit Commission in the annual publication of Performance Indicators. 

Concern about the potentially devastating effect of the Millennium Bug is growing as the Year 2000 gets closer. More evidence is emerging that the scale of the problem is much greater that earlier estimates showed. The fear is that many computers and chips embedded in a whole range of devices, such as traffic lights, will fail because they will be unable to recognise the date when the last two digits are 00.