The cost of recruiting staff is likely to fall as innovation comes to the online job market. New approaches to recruiting will impact on traditional recruitment agencies who, together with newspaper and magazine advertisers are likely to respond with price cuts.NewJobDirect has launched a service which allows job seekers to scan vacancies on corporate websites. The recruiting organization pays an annual fee of 500 pounds and there are no placement charges. The job seeker is able to carry out a targeted search and the service is free. A high proportion of corporate websites in the public and private sectors carry job vacancies, but it is estimated that about one third receive few or no responses. Link: http://www.newjobdirect.co.uk

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The UK Civil Service continues to expand despite large-scale investment in technology. There are now 499,630 civil servants and this is an increase of 9,390 compared to six months earlier. The numbers have grown from 460,00 in 1999 a rise of 8.6%. Growth over the last year was 3.6%.Although some departments and agencies were given additional work in the last three years, there have been no areas of significant staff savings elsewhere. During this period there was burgeoning investment in technology, including call centers, back office systems and online processing, but it has made little impact on staff numbers.

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By Denis O’Connor Reproduced by permission of the Public Management and Policy Association. Defining what the public expect the police to deliver depends on whose views are being sought. Denis O’Connor, Chief Constable of Surrey Police, describes the dilemma facing police management when different people want different things. Performance indicators are not the answer. He provocatively suggests that the solution may include changing people’s perceptions.