Technology provides the means to automate processes and cut costs, but much more is needed to get real benefits. Braintree Council, helped by its IT supplier, went through a radical re-think of the way services are delivered. The result was a business model that replaced the traditional structure. This case study sketches the change process and the way technology is supporting the customer centred approach.

Work-life balance policies provide business benefits, according to The Work Foundation’s latest Managing Best Practice survey, but employers are slow to recognize them. In the public and voluntary sectors however, most organizations accept an organisational responsibility to help staff achieve a healthy work-life balance.There are pockets of resistance and almost a third of organisations in the UK still take a narrow statutory approach, limiting work life balance to obligations towards working parents. Responses from the HR professionals surveyed reveal that ‘management resistance to change’ was the number one difficulty organisations face in implementing work-life balance measures (30%).

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Unpaid volunteers working in voluntary sector organizations on community regeneration projects feel that community empowerment has a long way to go before it becomes effective. A survey by the Quest Trust carried out as part of the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit’s Community Participation Review found that most respondents believe that the rhetoric of empowerment was not matched by reality. Volunteers feel that at the strategic level ministers are failing to convince them that the government genuinely values their input. At the grass roots level, local strategic partnerships, with the responsibility of implementing neighbourhood strategies, are considered too insular.The volunteers felt that generally there are too many initiatives and each is expected to develop at the speed which suits politicians rather than that which can be delivered. Those involved in local strategic partnerships believe that they are not equal partners because local auth orities are holding on too tight to the reins of power. They also believe that too much of the regeneration budget is spent on consultants and too little heed is paid to the knowledge that exists in the community. There is also a belief that young people as well as black and ethnic minorities are still excluded.

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