Radical plans to create a new type of ‘community interest’ company, bringing together voluntary sector expertise and private sector entrepreneurialism, have been announced by the Department of Trade and Industry.Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Patricia Hewitt said: “This is about giving power back to local communities. Community Interest Companies will help liberate the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals with public sector values and create new opportunities at local level to provide services where they are needed most. The opportunities created by CICs will be a huge boost to communities in many of the UK’s most deprived areas.”

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The next three years will see an unprecedented growth of investment in social care. The key targets are to bring another 50,000 people into the workforce, and to enable an additional 300,000 staff to gain at least NVQ Level 2 qualifications. There will be support for social care employers in developing the workforce and tackling serious problems of recruitment and retention and they will be urged to form local partnerships to make the best use of the existing and new resources for workforce development. The Department of Health wants comments from all sectors of the social services world and from the wider public on its plans.It is planned to provide funding to support employers with the development of their HR policy and practice and to tackle recruitment and retention. There will also be funds for pilot projects in partnership with the Changing Workforce programme of the NHS Modernisation Agency.

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By J C Sarros, G A Tanewski and I L Densten.This study examines the extent to which a leader’s behaviour results in work alienation in the form of powerlessness, meaninglessness and self estrangement. The study is based on the responses of personnel in a major US eastern seaboard fire department – a bureaucratic, quasi-military type organization. Results show that the leadership style of the organization has a more significant impact on feelings of work alienation than the organization’s structure and processes. The study argues that managers as well as leaders need to question bureaucratic orientations to work and manager-employee relations by rethinking their values and adapting new models that encourage individual fulfillment.

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