The HM Prison Service is joining other public sector organisations in a benchmarking system that helps them reliably check consumption of water.They are joining Watermark, a project led by The Buying Agency, which helps ‘like’ organisations set realistic targets for water use, easing consumption.
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Amid rising concerns that local government will not make its 2005 target for electronic delivery of services, a new report sets out a route map to achievement.It offers Local Direct – a single advertised telephone number – as one possible nationally joined up way in which local councils could successfully make themselves accessible to people who generally have a very poor understanding of which council is responsible for which service.
Behm A, Bennington L, Cummame JJournal of Management Development, (UK), 2000 Vol 19 No 3
Start page: 162. No of pages: 17
Looks at government policy formation in Australia and the quality of the policy advisory services that assist government ministers to reach policy decisions. Develops a new model of ‘value-creating’ policy services and discusses how this can be used to assess the quality of the policy advisory services. Describes the process used to develop the model – the interviews with policy services customers (government ministers, ex-ministers, key advisers, department secretaries and ex-secretaries), which asked about the aspects of the policy advice that they valued, and sets out what the analysis of this data revealed. Divides the analysis into two parts – the generation of ideas, and the transformation of these into policy – and analyses the value placed on them within the process. Explains how this is used to develop the value-creating model for policy services and discusses how it can be put into practice.
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Applying for planning permission is a lengthy process which creates mountains of paper. Transforming the paper based process to an electronic form is fraught with difficulty because of the need to digitize plans and drawings. The London Borough of Wandsworth has overcome the problems, introduced an on line system accessible through the Internet and brought benefits to applicants for planning permission as well as to the Council.
More than one hundred councils are to take part in 25 pathfinder projects – to develop better, more accessible local services by harnessing the benefits of new technology.The successful pathfinders will now agree with Government how they can best become centres of expertise from which all local government can learn, and the amount they will receive from the 25 million pound pot available 2001/02.
Public sector employers in Staffordshire are joining together to tackle recruitment and retention problems. The county is facing particular shortages of teachers and care workers. European Career Systems (www.jobs4publicsector.co.uk) in partnership with Staffordshire County Council is launching the PhAros initiative to take a county wide view of the jobs crisis. Ways of attracting and retaining skills in the area will be explored as will different approaches to helping jobseekers find employment in the public sector. A key aim of the initiative is to raise the profile of the public sector as a good place to work..PhAros will be launched today (Friday, March 23) with an Open Forum to given representatives from Staffordshire’s public sector employers the opportunity to debate recruitment and retention challenges and opportunities. The Forum will be opened by Stafford MP David Kidney. This will be followed by a series of Job Fairs in different locations to attract a wide range of job seeker interest from within and outside the county. The initiative will end in May.
E-Minister Patricia Hewitt has announced a 70 million pound investment in electronic technologies to keep the UK at the forefront of the high-tech revolution.Proposals include 20 million pounds for pioneering work on “intelligent products” (next-wave technologies), 30 million for transforming business practices using technology; and 20 million for a national computing grid for UK scientists.
The National Audit Office has offered an analysis of recent developments in performance measurement of Government departments.It draws on a survey of departments on how they are developing and implementing performance measures and an analysis of other performance measurement practices, used in local authorities and overseas.
Griego O V, Geroy G D, Wright P C
The Learning Organization, (UK), 2000 Vol 7 No 1
Start page: 5. No of pages: 8
Reports empirical research designed to identify the practices that predict whether an organization will achieve learning organization status. Sets out the theoretical background to this, identifying five potential independent variables – training and education, rewards and recognition, information flow, vision and strategy, and individual and team development. Surveys 48 working professionals studying for a human resource development Masters degree programme about their organizations and the extent to which they believed it could be termed a learning organization. Concludes that those who reported that they received rewards and recognition on the job and belonged to organizations that emphasized training and education were also likely to assess their organization as a learning organization. Concludes that these two variables are predictors of learning organizations.
By Daniel Stedman Jones with Ben Crowe
This report by DEMOS, warns that the UK’s current e-government initiatives are not sufficiently “joined up”. It calls for a more connected strategy that links government departments together, and transforms their relationship with citizens. Automation simply isn’t enough. The real goal for e-government is the transformation of services to meet the needs of citizens.
ISBN 1 84180 095 3. ?7.95 Available from www.demos.co.
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