By Jean Anastacio, Ben Gidley, Lorraine Hart, Michael Keith, Marjorie Mayo and Ute KowarzikThe report explores participants perspectives on: participation structures; capacity building; and the technical and professional support available as well as systems for monitoring and evaluating regeneration programmes. It concludes with recommendations for national and regional government, local authorities and community organizations as well as providing notes on good practice.

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Plans for continuing reforms in education announced by the Labour party include more involvement of private companies. So far contractors have been involved in 18 interventions where schools are failing. It is now proposed that companies should be invited to provide support services for any schools. It was emphasized that there are no targets for the number of contracts to be awarded nor is there a ceiling figure.Head teachers would continue to manage schools where there was private sector involvement, but companies would nominate some of the school governors. The management expertise of the company would be made available to the school and strategic direction would be influenced by the nominated governors.

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The three main parties have set out their visions for the health service and their willingness to commit resources. An analysis of spending plans by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed that the differences in tax and expenditure between the parties represent less than 1% of GDP in each direction. In neither case is this enough to immediately transform the overall quality of public provision. Looking beyond 2003/04 the Institute finds that if high spending is maintained on health and education, there will either have to be an increase in the tax take or severe restraint in other areas such as transport, policing or defence.The Liberal Democrats have outlined a vision of a radical change in attitudes towards health provision in Britain. They believe that there is a need to harness the potential of the NHS to shift the focus away from expensive and traumatic and invasive surgery towards early, cost-effective, on-the-spot detection, prevention and treatment. This will need a fundamental culture shift to put a greater emphasis on prevention and early detection so that the NHS is a health service and not an illness service.

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The worldwide marketplace for e-government information services this year is estimated by Forrester Research at 55 billion dollars with annual growth at 14 percent. Companies worldwide are gearing up to share in this market. Before the announcment by the Labour Party that it is planning greater involvement of private finance and expertise in the public sector, UK companies were already moving in to provide customer services, such as parking fine payments and as well as to offer e-procurement facilities.The US company EDS (Electronic Data Systems), which has over one third of the UK government IT outsourcing market has formed a partnership with Ezgov, a leading e-government technology specialist, that already provides services to public bodies in the US. EDS Ventures, the venture capital arm of EDS has invested 6.25 million dollars in EzGov.

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The thinking behind statements in the Labour Party’s manifesto about radical reform of public services is now becoming clearer. In its first term of office Labour embraced private-public partnerships, although they have been confined mainly to capital projects. For the future, structural change involving the private sector is on the agenda for all public services, because it is believed that extra cash alone will not deliver change. In the light of this development it becomes clear what the statement by Tony Blair that: “There will be no barriers and no dogmas” actually means. Changes on this scale would fundamentally alter the role of government from a provider of public services to a facilitator.The health service would be at the forefront of change. It has already been announced that 20 new treatment centers would be set up in partnership with the private sector. Plans have now been revealed to buy in services from the private health sector and it has been speculated that primary care groups and hospitals could be run under the Private Finance Initiative. In education, the option to contract out the management of schools, currently restricted to failing schools, could be extended to all schools. The Party’s manifesto makes it clear that despite any changes, services would continue to be free at the point of delivery.

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By Richard ParryThe Scottish Executive, building on the legacy of the Scottish Office, has sought to sustain powerful central units and resists monolithic departments serving its ministers. This has lessons for Whitehall’s attempts at joined up government. But in Scotland the political focus of the Executive has not yet matched its organizational potential.

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A knowledge portal to help public bodies respond to the challenge of change has been launched by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The timing of the launch of Excelsior www.excelsior.pwcglobal.com  coincides with criticism of the Government for failing to deliver improvements in public services and promises by all parties to bring radical change in the future. Whatever outcome the election, it is clear that designing and managing change will be the key challenge for public services.Excelsior brings together experience in change management and performance improvement in the form of case studies, a database of articles and presentations illustrating how challenges have been met. There is also information on quality standards and quality models. The knowledge resource is supplemented by an advisory service on the overall change process starting with organizational assessments through to implementing a change programme. Chat rooms will encourage the development of networks for managers facing similar challenges.

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Once again the election debate has focused on public services with politicians seeking to reveal or conceal their funding intentions, particularly in the longer term. Funding promises for public services are tempered by tax promises for the taxpayer and whilst the greatest volume of the debate is about tax, the outcome will be crucially important for the services.The Conservative Party have pledged that public spending on health and education would still go up, despite a commitment to cut expenditure by 8 billion pounds. The Labour Party asserts that they have costed these proposals and found that the total is 10 billion pounds.

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This book considers the historical development of health care from 1500 to the present day. The authors adopt a broad interdisciplinary framework to draw on the most recent research in the fields of medical and social history. The central premise of the book is that the strengths and the limitations of health care systems around the world can only be understood in the light of past practices and structures. For instance, only by reference to the historical record is it possible to understand the reasons for the dominance of acute hospital specialties, the Cinderella status of chronic care, the prejudice against alternative medicine, the difficulties experienced in regulating the medical profession, or in determining the sphere of responsibility exercised by nurses.Published by Open University Press June 2001 ISBN 0 335 20840. 17 pounds 99p. www.openup.co.uk

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The Police Service will be hoping to turn the election agenda to the law and order debate this week at the Association of Chief Police Officers’ conference in Birmingham.Delegates gather at the NEC later today (Monday) to review the criminal justice system, future prospects for police training and the use of information technology.

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