Archives for October 10th, 2001

CLASSROOM ASSISTANCE – WHY TEACHERS MUST TRANSFORM TEACHING

Book News, PublicNet: 10 October, 2001

Matthew HorneTeaching has become an unsustainable profession. Matthew Horne’s in-depth research into teacher attitudes suggests the current crisis in recruitment and retention is long-term, not cyclical. The most influential factors, alongside pay, in recruiting teachers and encouraging them to stay in the profession are the working conditions in schools, and the opportunities for professional creativity and autonomy. Schools need to become more appealing places to work, and teachers themselves must be able to drive the necessary changes: this is the “progressive transformation”, which the author argues is the only way to solve the problems the school education system faces.

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JOINING UP TO PROVIDE E-GOVERNMENT

Headlines, PublicNet: 10 October, 2001

Five councils spanning four counties in the East Midlands have joined up to form the Welland Partnership to bring e-government to 350,000 people. The Partnership has chosen Software AG, Europe’s largest systems software company, to develop the Welland Portal, an innovative, multi-agency project that will give easy access to the information and services available from public, private, voluntary and community sectors across the 11 market towns in the Welland area.The portal is an integration project which represents an organisational and cultural challenge as well as a technical one. Traditionally councils maintain a strict independence and although they carry out the same functions, processes are tailored to their own particular circumstances. Even where the offices of two councils are in the same street this independence is maintained. Attempts to encourage a more collaborative approach with shared facilities have been largely unsuccessful. This project breaks new ground by seeking to change the culture.

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COUNCILS GET CASH TO REDUCE HOSPITAL BED BLOCKING

Headlines, PublicNet: 10 October, 2001

About a thousand hospital beds occupied by elderly patients who don’t need medical care will be freed up by new funding announced by Health Secretary Alan Millburn. 300 million pounds will be available over two years to allow councils to provide alternative facilities in the local community so that more patients can be admitted to hospital and pressure on waiting lists reduced. The money comes with strings and only those local authorities working closely with the private sector will be funded.The scale of bed blocking has been increasing steadily. Inflation and a rise in the minimum wage have resulted in care home owners increasing their costs. There is now a significant gap between the costs of care and the price that local authorities pay. Owners say that the fees they have received from social services departments are simply not high enough to make ends meet and this has led to the closure of nursing and residential homes across the country.

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