There is a new call for legislation to set up a new body that could lead to the National Health Service agreeing realistic improvement targets and taking responsibility for delivering them. In a report published today, the King’s Fund says the government would then be able to focus on developing wider health policy instead of meddling in health care services on a day-today basis.The report urges a new, more mature relationship between government and the health service. This, it says, would involve a more transparent and inclusive approach to setting expectations for national policy, and would enable greater ownership by NHS staff of targets for improvement. It would also enable Parliament to play a greater role in holding both government and the NHS to account for their respective responsibilities.

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It is claimed that the award winning Cambridgeshire Community Network is the UK’s most ambitious and inclusive countywide broadband community network. It delivers high-speed Internet access and allows the introduction of electronic services for the local community. This article describes how it seeks to bridge the digital divide and provide a seamless service so that users don’t need to know who provides what service.

More health service professionals are to get the chance to work in South Africa on time-limited placements under an agreement which will also see staff from South Africa coming to Britain. The agreement between the two governments is designed to increase the level of co-operation between the two countries in the health sector.The Memorandum of Understanding will also lead to the countries sharing information and expertise in areas such as public health, professional regulation, workforce planning, public-private partnerships and hospital twinning initiatives.

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Details have been announced of a conference next month to encourage public sector bodies to do more to ensure they buy sustainable food. Key speakers will include Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Sir Don Curry, chairman of the Sustainable Food and Farming Strategy Implementation Group.The conference, which will take place in London on November 26th, is part of a government-wide review of the way public authorities and agencies, including schools, hospitals, prisons, government departments and local councils, buy food and catering services. Together they spend more than one and a half billion pounds a year on food.

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This report from the Department of Health sets out the role for local authorities in improving the health of people 50 years old and over. The growth in the number of people in this age group will lead to a skills shortage, unless people can be encouraged to work longer, and to spiraling costs in public services, unless health and wellbeing can be improved. Inequalities in health and wellbeing are widening between the unskilled and professional groups.Local councils have been given powers to use their community leadership role to improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of their local populations. The Comprehensive Performance Assessment assesses performance in relation to their strategic role and their commissioning and service provision. Councils also have powers under the Local Government Act to improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of their local populations, and a duty to produce a community strategy that sets out how this will happen. The guidance provided to local authorities refers explicitly to health improvement.

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The local democracy think tank, the Local Government Information Unit, has teamed up with the Department for Education and Skills to highlight the responsibilities faced by local councillors as ‘corporate parents’ for children in care.They have launched ‘If this were my child’ described as a councillor’s guide to being a good corporate parent, and which the two bodies say is an essential toolkit for local authorities as they face new responsibilities arising from the government’s recent Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ and the Laming Report earlier this year into the death of Victoria Climbie.

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New research concludes that schools must be allowed to make their own best judgements on how to adapt national reading and writing standards in the light of their own circumstances and priorities. The detailed study of the implementation of the National Literacy Strategy was led by Dr Gemma Moss of the Institute of Education, at the University of London and sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council.The study shows that the scheme has, to a large extent, standardised how the English curriculum is covered and has provided standard ways of helping pupils who are making less progress than expected. But Dr Moss says too much emphasis on achieving targets regardless of local conditions can have a distorting effect on teaching and weaken teacher morale

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By Jo Dungey The emergence of the scrutiny role was one of the major outcomes from a change in the political structures of local councils. Council members carrying out scrutiny have moved away from detailed management of services to look at service outcomes and other local issues from a more community-oriented point of view. Jo Dungey provides examples of issues being scrutinized and suggests principles that make for effective scrutiny.

Nominations have opened for the latest Public Servants of the Year Awards, which celebrate success across all the public services and recognise team as well as individual achievements. The awards, sponsored by CIPFA, the Cabinet Office and the Office of Government Commerce, support improvement in and aim to raise the profile of all public services.They were begun to help the exchange of innovative ideas and good practice and to remind the general public of the valuable and important work done by public sector workers each day.

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The Local Government Association has teamed up with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to develop a tool designed to help local authorities deliver real improvement in the services they provide for their communities. The National Procurement Strategy for Local Government was launched by Local Government Minister, Phil Hope.Procurement is seen as a critical issue for all councils and is also a key component in the Government’s modernisation agenda for local government. The joint strategy for councils has been drawn up to ensure that value for money and efficiency savings are obtained on a continuing basis.

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