A survey, earlier this year, by The Stationery Office showed that 63 per cent of public sector respondents believed that the changes needed in their internal operations in order to reach compliance with the Freedom of Information Act by January 2005 would be minimal or non-existent. A new survey commissioned by Documentum, Fujitsu Consulting, BEA, Captiva and Sun, now shows that 82 per cent believe that changes to existing processes are a barrier to compliance. The survey covered 150 organisations including central government departments and local authorities.Sharing information between agencies to achieve customer centric services also emerged as an area of concern. Only 15 per cent of the respondents have any sort of compliance in place, with most respondents aiming to be compliant by the end of this year (29 per cent) or 2004 (18 per cent).

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Bringing agencies together to deliver a seamless service to the customer has wide support, but it is only happening slowly. A report by The Society of IT Managers in Local Government for the Association of Directors of Social Services explains some of the reasons for the slow progress and holds little hope of a quick result.The research by SOCITM was designed to find out how hospitals, primary care trusts and other health services, could best share information with social, housing and education services in local government. A need was also found to link to the police and criminal justice networks. The case for information sharing is that it is essential for providing a more consistent response to needs, it gives better relationship management and supports a more effective service with faster service delivery. The priority need for unified information is for assessing the needs of the elderly who require a combined health and social care programme, and for identifying children that are risk of being abused.

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This report by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister evaluates the impact of the Best Value regime on securing continuous improvement and sets out a baseline from which progress will be assessd in the future. Whilst Best Value is a driver for change it is imposing substantial additional burdens and costs on authorities, notably through the new inspection requirements. The regime has provided an added impetus for increased corporate working and councils that are able to operate in a ‘corporate’ fashion are most likely to have used reviews as a driver for improvement.There was some evidence of tangible improvements in performance and many officers and members expected future improvements – usually involving incremental, rather than step changes. Some authorities had concluded that Best Value reviews were of less importance given the arrival of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment and officers in some authorities felt that preparations for CPA had taken up time that might otherwise have been given to Best Value reviews. The case studies highlighted resistance to the kinds of changes that the Best Value regime seeks to encourage in some councils.

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