Peters B G
Public Administration, (UK), Vol 76 No 2
Start page: 295. No of pages: 17
Sees the pursuit of ‘horizontality’ as being the perennial quest of government to link their departments, which have become differentiated and remote from each other, to prevent policy being unco-ordinated between them. Identifies the reasons that this co-ordination is becoming more difficult and considers how this can be remedied. 

The Integrating Business and Information Systems (IBIS) initiative is to receive 30m pounds from the Capital Modernisation Fund, one of the Treasury’s change levers, to streamline the criminal justice system. The funding will support the integration of electronic links between the Crown Prosecution Service, police and the courts, as well as assisting other agencies involved in the fight against crime in the UK. 

Public private partnerships are increasingly being used as change levers to support public policy aims. An additional 30m pounds per year is to be made available to assist innovative local government PFI proposals which join up public services.
The new money will create a special pool of resources to support local authority PFI projects which promote cross-agency working. The successful bidder will have to demonstrate imaginative schemes for joined-up service delivery. 

The population of the UK is ageing and the number of people over 50 has doubled this century. Strategies for responding to this situation are being developed as part of the Better Government for Older People Programme. Ministers are now engaged in a series of events to find out concerns directly from older people. The events are arranged jointly with voluntary bodies and will continue until November. 

Publication of healthcare performance information has been overshadowed by claims of unreliable data. The Clinical and High Level Performance indicators for 1997/98, provide a baseline for measuring quality improvements in patient care. For the first time, patient death rates have been published. They show that 2,253 people per 100,000 die within 30 days of surgery following an emergency admission. There are wide variations from this figure. 

Richard Heeks (ed.)
Do you want to know how information technology will and won’t help reform the public sector? Then look no further.
This new book presents a contemporary and international review of information age reform in government and public sector organisations. Chapters identifying successful and unsuccessful management approaches are complemented by a dozen case studies from the US, UK, mainland Europe, and developing countries. 

Schools, governors, parents and the wider community are joining in partnership to raise education standards in Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Literacy Challenge is a major public - private initiative involving the Yorkshire Post; Yorkshire Television; Yorkshire Water; Business in the Community and the supermarket chain ASDA.
The Challenge is designed to dramatically change the way in which the region takes on the task of achieving the Government’s targets for 2002. 

Housing benefit and prescription fraud are being targeted as the Department for Social Security and the NHS develop their anti fraud strategies.
It is estimated that some 900 million pounds is lost through housing benefit fraud each year. One of the principal reasons for fraud is the complexity of housing benefit and there has been no move yet to simplify the system and so limit the scope for fraud. 

Beck A, Broadhurst K
Public Administration, (UK), Winter 1998 Vol 76 No 4
Start page: 779. No of pages: 14
Examines the debate over the introduction of national identity cards in the UK and assesses proposals to introduce a voluntary card scheme. Asks whether a voluntary scheme will be any different in practice to a compulsory scheme, comparing the experience of European Union countries that have introduced a compulsory scheme with those that have introduced a voluntary scheme. 

High standards of integrity are essential if public confidence in the police service is to be restored. This is the message from two reports. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary have produced ‘Police Integrity: securing and maintaining public confidence’ and a Home Office group published their findings on ‘Understanding and Preventing Police Corruption: lessons from the literature’.