Speakers at a conference organized by the Institute for Public Research will today pledge cross party support for proposals to build community at the local level. They will back a new IPPR report ‘Making Sense of Community’ which sets out research findings on the relationship between public policy and the community. The report makes recommendations across the key policy areas of: planning and development, provision for young people, crime reduction and policing, design and liveability and methods of delivery. They include requiring MPs and councillors to spend time living in the areas they represent, rewarding developers who embraced the sustainability agenda and modernisation of what was the youth club movement.Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin will say that: ” We need to understand community as a natural society, spontaneously created, which can flourish only if the state provides a framework that prevents disorder and fear from inhibiting natural social activity. We need to understand crime and community as two opposing forces, one of which will overwhelm the other. If crime wins the struggle and criminals take possession of the street, the neighbourhood decays, the young are corrupted, people who can get out, people who can’t live blighted lives. We have to ensure this does not happen.”
By Annette Boaz Reproduced by permission of the Public Management and Policy Association The public sector has widely adopted an evidence based approach to the development of policy, but gathering the evidence and making use of it is proving difficult. The author explains the work going on in the field of medicine, including the systematic reviews of existing research. She outlines the lessons from this work that can be transferred to other policy areas.
Merseyside is getting a multi-million pound regeneration boost with the transfer of nearly 13,000 homes on Liverpool’s Eastern Fringe to new housing associations.The first of the three transfers taking place over the next few weeks, saw 2,833 houses in the south zone of the Eastern Fringe transferred to Lee Valley Housing Association, which will carry out a 35 million pound repair and modernisation programme during the first five years.
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The Scottish Parliament’s Local Government Committee is calling for young people to be allowed to vote in local government elections from the age of 16. It also wants the age at which people can become councillors to be reduced to 18.Its report, ‘Renewing Local Democracy’, follows an inquiry lasting nearly six months and includes a raft of recommendations aimed at modernising local government and making it more relevant to local people.
By E. Bell S. Taylor and R. Thorpe.Investors in People (IiP), the state-sponsored workplace training initiative, has been interpreted as a tool which managers can apply towards developing a learning organization. This paper seeks to evaluate the validity of this claim on the basis of a qualitative study of six case-study organizations which explore the social and micro-political aspects of IiP from the viewpoints of senior managers, personnel and line managers and employees involved with the standard.
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Plans for a new package of rewards for NHS consultants, designed to reform the way the service delivers patient care, have been announced by the Health Secretary, Alan Milburn.The proposals follow the rejection by consultants of a new contract of employment negotiated between the Government and the British Medical Association. The measures have been greeted with caution by the BMA but welcomed by the NHS Confederation which represents health service managers. In a letter to some 40,000 consultants and Specialist Registrars Mr. Milburn says the Government intends to introduce the package from April this year following a short period of discussion with representative organisations.
Local election day in May will be the biggest test so far of e-voting with more than 1.5 million people able to vote using the internet, digital television or text messaging.The government has announced that 18 local authorities have won approval for e-voting electoral pilot schemes. In almost every case the successful councils will be trying out e-voting in all their wards. That means that while the number of e-pilots is double that in last May ‘s elections, the number of people who will get the chance to use the new methods has more than trebled.
By Hamilton Beazley, Jeremiah Boenisch, David Harden”How can I keep knowledge from walking out the door when employees leave?” This pressing question is insightfully answered in this landmark book. Operational knowledge has never been more critical to organizational success. Knowledge loss from downsizing, imminent baby-boomer retirements, and high job turnover have created a knowledge continuity crisis that poses an unprecedented threat to organizational productivity. Based on extensive research, Continuity Management solves this crucial problem of knowledge loss for managers at any organizational level by describing an effective strategy for preserving knowledge continuity between employee generations. Revolutionary in its effect, but evolutionary in its practice, continuity management is fueling a new knowledge revolution.
An overall lack of management skills in Britain is acting as a brake on the effectiveness of public sector reform according to a report out today from The Work Foundation.The document, ‘Can the UK learn to manage?’ – is the Foundation’s most recent contribution to the debate on British management and productivity. A report commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry on the performance of British managers – prepared by Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School – is due to be published later this month.
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The independent think-tank, the New Local Government Network, today launches a survey designed to measure variations in public opinion across the UK on a range of issues affecting the quality of people’s lives and their views on the way services are delivered.The ‘Localism Index’ – a specially commissioned survey of 2000 adults – will be launched at NLGN’s first annual conference. Its ultimate aim is to compare national government priorities with those of the public generally on issues seen as integral to the emerging localism agenda.
