By Jan Stevenson and Linda SpencerThe guide has been produced following the three-year King’s Fund Rehabilitation Programme. It shows that intermediate care requires a transformation in the whole system of services provided to older people in a locality. Intermediate care should fit as an integral part of a wide range of health, social care and housing services, and not simply be seen as more beds in a hospital or a care home. 

The government is to streamline some of its programmes designed to lift people out of poverty in an effort to cut red tape and remove barriers to community funding.A series of recommendations have been put forward with the aim of helping local projects to deliver services more effectively to some of the country’s most deprived areas. They have been drawn up after a year-long review of area based initiatives by the Regional Co-Ordination Unit. 

Local authority social services departments are facing an increasingly tough environment in which to deliver their services but they have to ensure they find ways to sort out how to help potential customers quickly. Those are the findings of a report by the Audit Commission and the Social Services Inspectorate which have jointly reviewed 30 councils in the last year. 

By John Healey MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Reproduced by permission of eGov Monitor Weekly.The view of e-Government from the center highlights the major challenges facing public services. The author highlights the priorities which include putting the citizen at the center of services, providing online transaction facilities, encouraging take-up and ensuring that there is easy access for all.

This paper from the Audit Commission looks at how lessons from partnership working can be used to tackle some of the problems facing local strategic partnerships working on neighbourhood renewal. 

The Government has begun consultations on ways to tackle problems linked to alcohol abuse as an important step in the production of a national strategy on reducing the harm caused by excessive drinking.The National Health Service Plan pledges the Department of Health will implement a National Alcohol Strategy by 2004 and, launching the consultation, junior Health Minister Hazel Blears, said it was on target to achieve this. 

Local authorities are helping to get more people to register to vote and to turn out at elections, according to research carried out for the Electoral Commission.The Commission is calling on councils to build on the work they have already done since the 2001 General Election saw voter turn out drop to an historic low of 59.4 per cent. 

The public service union, UNISON, is urging employers to look at what it calls the “real issues” which lead to stress at work. The union has criticised measures like stress management courses which it says are quick fix solutions that do not work.The call coincides with the publication by the union of a new guide designed to tackle stress in the workplace. 

An extra £70 million is to be put into services which help and support adopted children. 

Report of study conducted by IDeA and Socitm and sponsored by software company SAPThe report examines municipalities in fourteen countries around the world engaged in the development of e-governance. It offers case studies and identifies best practices on customer service, internal efficiency, and citizen engagement.