By John M. BrysonThis revised edition shows leaders and managers of public and nonprofit organizations both how and why they should use strategic planning to improve the performance of their organizations. This expanded edition includes many examples to illustrate both successful and unsuccessful planning efforts, while new chapters address planning implementation, strategy evaluation and reassessment, and key leadership roles vital to effective strategic planning. In addition, the author presents a planning process used successfully by many public and nonprofit organizations–the Strategy Change Cycle–along with detailed guidance on its application.

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Some of Britain’s poorest rural areas are benefiting from a scheme to ensure fairer distribution of Lottery money, according to a report today. It shows that the Countryside Communities scheme, run by the Community Fund and the Countryside Agency, has given out 1.6 million pounds in its first five years.The report shows, though, that there is still 14.6 million pounds available in the scheme’s budget for 300 rural communities over the next four years. As well as local projects in those areas, 2.2 million pounds has also been earmarked for projects making a wider impact on rural communities across the country.

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New research shows buying a home is now beyond the means of average key public sector workers such as nurses, teachers and police officers in most areas of Britain. The study comes from the Halifax and says housing affordability problems for public sector staff are no longer confined to London and the South East of England as they have been in previous years.The research reveals that the average house price in 504 of the 634 postal towns it has analysed is now more than a hundred thousand pounds. That, it says, has had a serious impact on key workers. Of the towns looked at in the research, 496 are now unaffordable for nurses and 390 teachers.The research used the house price to earnings ratio for each key public sector occupation against the UK average first time buyer annual house price to earnings ratio in 2002 and 2003. Where the key public sector worker house ratio is greater than the ratio for all occupations the town is classified as an unaffordable region. The Halifax says first time buyer affordability is the chosen threshold as the issue is about helping key public sector workers get onto the housing ladder.The prices to earnings ratio for key public sector workers is calculated by dividing the standardised average house price by annual average earnings for the relevant occupations. The earnings figures are taken from the Office of National Statistics New Earnings Survey, which gives average salaries. Importantly, the researchers say, the numbers used in the report are not entry-level salaries. For example the figure used for teachers is just over 30,000 pounds.

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