Equality Direct will be launched shortly to give employers of all sizes information about equality issues. It will offer practical advice on areas such as disability, race and sex equality. There will be advice on how better to balance work and home life, and how to tackle disability discrimination. The service will be particularly helpful for small businesses by helping employers assess their equality needs in a single call. It will also offer easy access to the wider system of specialist advice on equality matters, as well as providing examples of good practice to follow.The service will be delivered by phone and the Internet. The website will contain a toolkit that will give businesses simple and clear advice on how to maximise the potential of their workforce.
More than 45% of the Invest to Save Budget for 2000/01 has gone to local councils. Over 50 funding awards were made out of more than 200 submissions from councils. When the budget was launched last year only central departments and their agencies were eligible to apply for funding, but the scope has been widened to include councils, the health service, police and fire authorities and non-departmental public bodies.Successful council led projects include an information and advice service for 14-25 year olds under development by Worcester County Council and a multi-agency approach to tackling anti-social behaviour being piloted by the London Borough of Southwark. Health service led projects include the use of video conferencing and diagnostic equipment by Greenwich NHS Trust and Belmarsh Prison to improve prison healthcare.
Critcher C, Gladstone BPublic Administration, (UK), Vol 76 No 3
Start page: 431. No of pages: 19
Explains how the Delphi technique is used for planning and forecasting. Describes how the technique was used in the UK privatized electricity supply industry to assess how companies should respond to customers who fail to pay their bills. Sets out the background to the problem of ‘self-disconnection’ for the electricity supply industry, describing how the Delphi technique was used and setting out the results. Assesses the value of the Delphi technique for social policy formulation, listing its advantages.
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The head of the newly created Office for Government Commerce has been named as Peter Gershon, currently Chief Operating Officer in BAE SYSTEM. He has signed a three year contract at an annual salary of 180,000 pounds. Brian Rigby, currently Director of Procurement at HM Treasury, will be the Deputy Chief Executive.The Office for Government Commerce goes live on 1 April 2000. It will oversee the purchasing activity of some 200 Government departments and agencies employing about 5000 staff on procurement tasks and spending some ?13 billion of taxpayers’ money every year. The new Office will take on the staff of Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), Property Advisers to the Civil Estate (PACE), The Buying Agency (TBA) together with some procurement staff from HM Treasury, Cabinet Office and Department of Health.
The 2000/01 market research budgets for central departments boosted to support evidence based policy development are set to increase substantially the following year. The drive to move public service culture to focus on the customer will create a demand for further market research funding.The information required for the customer focus approach is similar, and in some cases identical, to that needed for evidence based policy making. Both must have data about the needs and views of customers and potential customers. User satisfaction and service expectation findings will provide a critical input. Currently many public service organisation know little or nothing about who their customers are, but in future they will have to devise user profiles to make sense of the data they are collecting.
Local government in Britain is undergoing fundamental transformation. This book explores the impact of these changes on the attitudes, behaviour and job satisfaction of the managers most affected by them. On the basis of a detailed review of recent research findings and theoretical debates, it outlines the major changes affecting local government organizations and the duties and responsibilities of those working within them. This provides the context for a detailed empirical case study which explores the extent to which a rhetoric of ‘new managerialism’ is supported by a reality of change.Published by Open University Press. 208 pp. ISBN 0 335 19893 7. Paperback 18 pounds 99p. Hardback ISBN 0 335 19894 5. 55 pounds.
Police authorities, working in partnership with other public bodies, have made commitments to targets as part of their crime reduction strategies. When the five-years strategies were first published last year, one third had no specific outcome targets for burglary and/or vehicle crime. It was clear that in some cases partnerships engaged in abstract policy making rather than seeking to make a real difference to the quality of life.In response to this failure, Home Secretary Jack Straw, his Ministers, HM Inspectors and senior Home Office officials toured the country last autumn and met the people who are delivering local crime fighting partnerships. Their aim was to make sure that everyone makes a contribution to national crime reduction targets. See Publicnet 2 September 1999. The success of marshalling the Home Office resources in this way can be seen in the newly published five- year individual targets to cut overall car crime and burglary which range from between 10% to 64%. The national targets are to cut vehicle crime by 30%, and domestic burglary by 26%.
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‘Customer champions’ are to be given the job of looking after the interests of customers and acting as their advocates in internal debates. The challenge for the champions is to change public service culture to a customer focus as part of the drive for responsive Government services.The customer focus campaign will embrace all public services. As well as central government agencies such as the Benefits Agency and Employment Service it will cover the health service, including hospitals and GPs, the emergency services – fire, police and ambulance, the courts and local council services including schools.
The Department of Social Security has announced a series of rewards and punishments for local authorities, whose job it is to weed out benefit fraud.Legislation will be changed to introduce financial rewards for authorities who successfully prosecute fraudsters and those which institute new measures to stop fraud occurring in the first place.
As much of the change happening in local government starts to mirror practice in America, the IDeA has brought over three key change practitioners to share experience.The Improvement and Development Agency, which is charged with modernising English councils, sees the three US practitioners as having valuable information to share on leading change and improvement.
