Councils need an extra 17 million pounds if they are to meet their current emergency planning workload. A survey by the Local Government Association, which looked at work in district councils, shows that they spend just under 4 million pounds on emergency planning each year in spite of the fact they do not receive any Civil Defence grant from central government.The study follows an earlier LGA survey of top tier authorities in England and Wales. That revealed that those councils were spending more than 32 million pounds on emergency planning which is 13 million more than the grant they receive. Taking district council spending into account, it means local government spends a total of 36 million pounds on emergency planning each year – 17 million more than authorities get in grants for the work.

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Government targets for regional policy are too weak to reverse the North-South divide and need to be redefined, according to a report today which says the policies should aim to reverse regional disparities not just to reduce the rate at which the South is getting richer and the North is getting poorer.The report, from the Institute for Public Policy Research, also calls for Government Departments to be moved to harder pressed areas. It recommends that employment issues be given equal weight to productivity and says the Government’s focus on skills shortages and welfare-to-work programmes will not be enough to tackle high worklessness in poorer regions. The authors say more jobs need to be created in areas of high unemployment.

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A report by the Society of IT Management and Citizens Advice, the charity representing the national network of Citizens Advice Bureaux concludes that websites are falling short of meeting the needs of those citizens most likely to require information from public service organisations. Websites scrutinised included Department of Trade and Industry, Department for Work and Pensions, NHS and 16 local authorities.The evidence from the research shows that government websites have some way to go before they will be able to fulfill citizens’ needs for information and services in the areas tested. People entering relying on search engines to take them to sources of official information will far too often find themselves led to inappropriate websites if they use everyday language in their search terms, whilst relevant and appropriate sites are ignored. The performance of UKOnline as a signpost to e-government services is disappointing.

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