Age discrimination is affecting health and social care services for older people. This is the main conclusion from research by the King’s Fund’s. The report ‘Auditing Age Discrimination’ reveals that tackling age discrimination is too low on the agenda for many health and social care organisations and that staff and managers struggle to recognise ageist practices. The result is that the UK’s growing population ofolder people are not getting access to services on the basis of clinical need and on equal terms with younger people.The report acknowledges that some changes will require significant resources, but claims that many could be achieved more simply by treating older people with dignity and directly involving them on scrutiny groups. Older people and the health and social care staff that look after them have a great deal to say about access to services and the quality of those services.

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Failure by Customs and Excise to manage relations with businesses paying VAT on line has alienated companies across the UK. In August 2002 the department switched suppliers for the digital certificate which authenticates the on line VAT transactions. Customer liaison was carried out by the outgoing supplier, ViaCode, a subsidiary of Royal Mail. Businesses were told about the switch by e-mail, but given no advice about what to they should do. ViaCode withdrew its digital certificate in November 2002 and the Royal Bank of Scotland became the digital certificate provider.Companies that did not take any action found that when they submitted their VAT return they could not gain access to the system. The error messages gave no indication that access was being denied because of an out of date certificate. Those who went on line to submit their return after November 2002 found also that they had missed the deadline for switching to the new supplier.

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By Peter KrassThis book brings together the essays and speeches of more than 50 legends, past and present. Never before have the writings of such a large and diverse group of legendary leaders been collected between the covers of a book. From leading change to dealing with adversity, creating vision to inspiring employees, the writings contained in this book span the whole range of essential leadership issues. For instance, you’ll hear from Harold Geneen on the difference between leading and commanding, Daniel Guggenheim and William Cooper Procter on the advantages of a democratic workplace, Katherine Graham on the importance of credibility, Jack Welch and Ross Perot on leading in adversity, Ray Kroc on self-appraisal, and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield on value-based leadership.

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