By Daniel R. Ilgen and Elaine D. PulakosRadical changes in the workplace continue to impact the way we measure and manage employee performance, making the human resource professional’s job more complex than ever. In The Changing Nature of Performance, a stellar group of contributors offers concrete suggestions on how the HR practitioner can cope. They examine seven major change factors that continue to influence individual performance–from the shift to team-based work to the interweaving of jobs with technology. They show readers how to develop effective HR policies and practices accordingly.

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Planning authorities in Wales have been told that an Audit Commission report into the conduct of Montgomeryshire Council in relation to two planning applications contains important lessons for them all. Carwyn Jones, Minister for Environment, Planning and Countryside in the Welsh Assembly has urged all councils to study the findings.The report highlighted a number of issues which the minister says should interest planners throughout Wales, including the need for clear meeting records and for elected members to receive planning training. It also points to the need for decisions to be based on planning policy grounds and for clear reasons to be given where this does not happen.

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The introduction of e-Government may not bring real savings for the UK for another decade according to a new report from the public sector IT analyst, Kable. It has warned too that savings from new systems may never overtake the costs.The report, “e-Government Cost Savings”, estimates that by the financial year of 2005 to 2006, e-government will be generating savings for local and central government of 289 million pounds a year, but spending on e-government will be costing more than a billion pounds in that year alone.  Karen Swinden, head of forecasting at Kable says that plotting investment in e-service provision against the likely rise in savings on an annual basis over the next few years shows that, savings may match costs only by 2012.

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