Whitehall and public sector organisations are heavily involved in the latest round of Foresight, the programme for looking at the future, led by Department for Trade and Industry. The programme develops visions of the future by looking at possible needs, opportunities and threats and deciding what should be done now to make sure that the challenges can be met. 

More than 20,000 people have found jobs using the new telephone jobseekers service, Employment Service Direct. Since the launch in January 1999 it has been refined by putting callers directly in contact with employers by phone. Jobseekers calling the service on 0845 6060239 receive details of either local or nationwide jobs. The database contains 300,000 vacancies. 

Maddock S, Morgan G
The International Journal of Public Sector Management, (UK), Vol 11 No 4 98. Start page: 234.