Richard Kerley, Director, Scottish Local Authorities Management Centre, Strathclude Business School, University of Strathclyde
Managing in Local Government provides a comprehensive guide to the tasks of the local government manager. Starting with a concise introduction to recent developments and trends in public management and local government institutions and services, the core of the book focuses on the key managerial functions and relationships in a local authority context. 

Woods G, Lantsheer C, Clark R E The Learning Organization, (UK), Vol 5 No 2 98 Start page: 74 No of pages: 9
Reports research that indicates the training which has a ‘customer service’ focus produces different knowledge and organizational results from training which is job and task focused. Describes a training programme that focused on customer satisfaction, designed for the European Patent Office and assesses the success of this approach to training. 

New directions have been published which the Government says will ensure
lottery money going into education and health will back up Government policies
and strategies already underway in these areas.
Due to the success of the National Lottery, a New Opportunities Fund is being
set up to distribute a billion pounds to new projects beyond the arts, heritage
and sport, which are already regular beneficiaries. 

The Government has announced plans to get rid of one of the more wasteful
aspects of the internal market in the NHS. It is allowing the NHS to pool its
resources over insurance.
Until now each NHS Trust has made its own arrangements over insurance. A
survey carried out by the NHS Executive during January and April showed that
Trusts spend in the region of 55million pounds a year on premiums and receive
only between 10 - 11million pounds against those premiums.
Health Minister Alan Milburn. 

Paul S. Myers (Manager, Ernst & Young Centre for Business Innovation, Boston, USA)
This collection of essays examines how the management of an organization shapes the levels of knowledge transfer, innovation and learning. It draws upon 50 years of management thinking and presents issues facing knowledge-intensive organizations with examples from real management experience. 

McDougall M
The International Journal of Public Sector Management, (UK), Vol 11 No 1 98. Start page: 71 No of pages: 10
Describes the case study of a public sector organization aimed at exploring views on the implications and outcomes of devolving the responsibility for gender management to line managers. 

Local authorities have been called upon to come up with fresh thinking if they
are to qualify for funds set aside to improve rural transport.
Dr John Reid, Minister for Transport, said: “The Rural Bus Challenge is a new
competition that aims to encourage local authorities to think up innovative
schemes to improve public transport in rural areas. 

Organisations who treat employees over 50 unfairly have been warned they cannot afford to continue the practice. New figures show that in eight years time 25 per cent of the workforce will be in this category.
The Government plans to publish a non-statutory Code of Practice in the Autumn, but says it cannot tackle the problem alone. 

Edited by D E Hussey, Nottingham Business School.
The implementation of strategy remains one of the most difficult areas of management. Success depends both on the selection of the appropriate strategy and converting that strategy into action. If either of these aspects is deficient, the strategy may fail, or be less effective than it should be. 

Bennett N, Ketchen D J, Schultz E B
Human Resource Management, (USA), Spring 98 (37/1)
Start page: 3 No of pages: 14
Analyses the environmental, strategic and organizational factors that affect the likelihood that an organization will integrate its human resource function in its decision making.