A policy forum is warning that billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being spent on British science will be wasted unless there is serious reform of the way the money is managed.In a report produced by the Centre for Policy Studies, Stuart Lyons says the UK has been at the forefront of world scientific research, but is now lagging behind and Britain’s celebrated scientists are being betrayed by deep-rooted mismanagement. The document, ‘Harnessing Our Genius’ says the Department of Trade and Industry’s Science Budget has risen from 1.6 billion pounds in 1997 to 2 billion this year, making it the DTI’s largest operational budget. It is set to rise still further to almost 3 billion pounds in 2005-06.

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A local government think tank is calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deliver a Budget for Local Democracy when he makes his statement this week. The Local Government Information Unit has set out a number of measurers which it feels can lay the foundations for a renewal of local democracy in Britain.It wants to see a review of the current classification of all local authority borrowing as ‘public borrowing’, with a view to making it easier for councils to raise capital for such projects  as social housing regeneration. It is also calling  for Treasury support for changes in the balance between central and local funding of councils.

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By John Wanna and Patrick WellerAustralia’s traditions of governance tend to be pragmatic and to blend different ideologies. Its traditions are less dependent on political party ideologies, and more on competing conceptions of the significant problems and the way that they should be addressed. In this article we identify five principal traditions, namely: settler-state developmentalism; civilizing capitalism; the development of a social-liberal constitutional tradition; traditions of federalism; and the exclusiveness/ inclusiveness of the state and society. These traditions have been robust and have developed over time. We show how political actors operating from within this plurality of traditions have understood the public sector and how their understandings have led to changes in the way the public sector is structured.

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