As private sector organizations claim that travel disruptions are delaying managers at a cost of more than 2 million working-hours per week, the Department for Transport has signed a contract for detailed traffic data to be provided from satellite navigation systems fitted in over 50,000 private and commercial vehicles.A survey by the Chartered Management Institute found that it takes the majority of managers more than half an hour to make their 10 miles or less journey to work. 

The Office of Government Commerce plans to give central departments and agencies a powerful lever for procuring goods and services and getting better deals. Currently each organization operates independently and in an earlier study it was found that 180 bodies were dealing with the same supplier. The planned electronic government marketplace, known as Zanzibar - named after the island in the Indian Ocean which is the home of the oldest marketplace - is scheduled to start operating in 2005. 

By Rhys Andrews.This article explores the statistical relationship between deprivation and the performance indicators used for the first round of Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPAs) for English local councils. The statistical significance of the results is described and analysed in light of the Audit Commission’s decision to exclude deprivation from the CPA framework. For over one third of the PIs tested, deprivation had a statistically significant adverse effect on performance.