The Government has launched a consultation process ahead of the referenda on the creation of elected regional assemblies. The exercise will cover campaign spending limits, the registration of permitted campaign groups and the running of a local referendum by all-postal ballot.The consultation comes before the votes on regional assemblies in the North West, the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, which are expected to take place next autumn. Because the referenda will take place at the same time, the consultation paper proposes that they should be operated under the same set of rules.

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The Improvement and Development Agency is creating two new units to support local authorities with the implementation of e-government. IDeA is working with the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office and the Local Government Association to help councils with e-government and it has been asked to expand this work through the creation of specialist and complementary teams that are funded through the Local Government Online programme.The first is the e-Government Strategic Support Unit which will be an advisory service on local e-government and which will be available free of charge to support authorities by sharing good practice and by responding to enquiries and problems. The plan is for it to work on a ‘research once and share many times’ basis to reduce both the costs and risks of implementation.

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By Charlotte Revely. Reproduced by permission of the Centre for Management and Policy Studies. The future for public services is radical change. The reading on the change ‘Richter’ scale is set to rise. For the people concerned in the upheavals this is the time to take stock. The author describes the way the issue is being tackled in the Civil Service and how people are being helped to establish what they want to do, and work out how to get it. This can convert threat to opportunity.