Archives for May 2003

LEARNING – THE KEY TO LEADERSHIP

Features, PublicNet: 30 May, 2003

By Andrew Price Reproduced by permission of the Public Management and Policy Association. Despite the ever growing number of books and courses about leadership, the Cabinet Office suggests that good leadership is scarce in the public sector. The writer argues that what is needed is learning that changes thinking and challenges beliefs and practices. He calls for a learning revolution where leaders learn and learners lead.



CALL TO COUNCILS TO THINK CREATIVELY TO MEET NEED FOR NEW HOMES

Headlines, PublicNet: 30 May, 2003

New statistics show more housing developments than ever before are being built on brownfield land. Sixty four per cent of all new housing developments, including conversions, were built on brownfield land in 2002. The government had set a target of at least 60 per cent of developments being on such sites by 2008.But regeneration minister Jeff Rooker has warned that this figure is being met partly because of the record low level of house construction and he said more had be done to turn this around. He called on local councils to be more creative about the use of their powers

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IT BOOST FOR SMALL FIRMS – AND DOWN AT THE LOCAL

Headlines, PublicNet: 30 May, 2003

Country pubs in two parts of England have been given IT equipment and broadband internet access as part of a demonstration project run by the Countryside Agency, the Department for Education and Skills and Locals on Line, to help close the ‘digital divide between urban and rural areas.  The five pubs in Dorset and four in Northumberland have now become part of the network of 6,000 UK online centers around the country.Meanwhile small and medium sized firms are to benefit from Whitehall’s first portal dedicated to streaming web content. It has been set up by the Small Businesses Service to provide practical advice and best practice information.

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SCOTTISH COUNCILS ANGRY OVER NEW LEGISLATIVE PROGRAMME

Headlines, PublicNet: 29 May, 2003

The leader of Scotland’s local councils is to meet ministers on Friday after criticising what he called “the obvious wilful disregard for Local Government” in the new Legislative Programme for the Scottish Parliament.Pat Watters, the President of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, said whatever it looked like, the programme had huge implications for local government but councils were still facing threats. Calls for a realistic partnership between authorities and the Scottish Executive had gone unheeded.

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SURVEY SHOWS COUNCILS FEAR LOSS OF POWERS TO ELECTED ASSEMBLIES

Headlines, PublicNet: 29 May, 2003

Almost half of England’s local councils believe there will be regional assembly government in their areas within the next four years and they believe the assemblies will take power away from them rather than the new bodies having responsibilities devolved from central government.The Local Government Association has surveyed all England’s councils, asking their views on the regional governance agenda and focussing on their current relationships with regional bodies. The survey also looked at the strengths of the English regions and the powers and functions of the assemblies.

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CITIZEN-CONSUMERS – NEW LABOUR’S MARKET-PLACE DEMOCRACY

Abstracts, PublicNet: 29 May, 2003

By Catherine Needham.Catalyst warns that the government’s consumerist agenda for public services will erode the culture of social citizenship upon which their long-term survival depends. This pamphlet analyses the changing government-citizen relation under New Labour and concludes that across a range of government activities, from communication and consultation to public service delivery, citizenship is being “consumerised” in an intensification of a trend begun under the Conservatives. It argues that government communications are increasingly promotional, as seen in Alastair Campbell’s reforms to the Government Information Service, energies devoted to departmental “branding”, and accumulating controversies over “spin”, distortion and misrepresentation in government-provided information. It describes how government consultations now “mimic commercial market research” in their reliance on “opinion polls, feedback forms and satisfaction surveys”, and “ask respondents to report their experiences as service users” and not to consider wider community, policy or budgetary implications.

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COUNCILS ASKED FOR VIEWS ON CHANGES IN HOUSING IMPROVEMENT FUNDING SCHEME

Headlines, PublicNet: 28 May, 2003

Local councils, housing authorities and other groups with an interest in  the Public Finance Initiative are to be consulted over proposals designed to help improve council tenants’ homes. The plans have been published in a consultation paper from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. It expects the proposals to help clear the way for an increase in the number of  Housing Revenue Account Public Finance Initiative schemes to provide funding to improve council houses.It suggests replacing the current system, where the level of HRA subsidy  for PFI schemes in a year is linked to the housing authority’s interest rate. Housing authorities operating PFI schemes have been concerned that under this formula historically low interest rates have meant that long-term subsidy entitlement might not match the true costs of the scheme because charges to the authority are fixed for the period of a project and take no account of interest rate fluctuations.

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NHS IT PROGRAMME MOVES FORWARD IN KEY AREAS

Headlines, PublicNet: 28 May, 2003

The National Programme for IT in the National Health Service has announced progress on five specific key areas. They are confirmation of the formal long-list for Local Service Providers and the National Application Service Providers for the Integrated Care Record Service, publication of the Output Based Specification for the record service, finalisation of the geographic clusters for the LSP contracts, selection of the formal shortlist for the National Application Service Provider for the e-Booking service and posting of a contract notice for a National Infrastructure Service Provider.The programme has notified the successful candidates who have progressed from the pre-qualification stage of the procurement process. Twenty-two, comprising both individual companies and consortia, have been long-listed as potential LSPs and eight as potential NASPs.

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PLANNING FOR SUPPORTING PEOPLE

Features, PublicNet: 23 May, 2003

By Lynn Watson, Maryrose Tarpey, Kate Alexander and Caroline Humphreys. Supporting People, the national initiative to assist people who need help to settle into suitable housing and develop daily living skills, aims to promote more flexible and inclusive services. Local authorities and their partners in probation and health services are now putting the theory into practice. The authors look at the ways in which new ground is being broken and the unforeseen problems that are starting to appear.

E-GOVERNMENT GOES ON SHOW

Headlines, PublicNet: 23 May, 2003

Sixteen pilot partnership e-government projects have been brought together by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to promote the sharing of best practice. The exhibition, which gives councils and their partners the opportunity to demonstrate the projects, supports the aim of getting all services on line by 2005. Central government departments and the private sector are involved in the partnerships.The projects should all be completed by March 2004, so that the results will be available in good time to help councils to reach the 2005 target. They will provide the key building blocks for the development of local e-government, supporting the work being done by councils themselves.

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