The Care Council for Wales will begin the process of registering social care workers in Wales in Autumn 2004, with residential child care managers being the first to be invited to register. Residential child care workers, adult care managers and domicilary care managers will be required to register from April 2005, residential adult care workers from September 2005, and domicilary care workers from September 2006. The timetable takes account of the need to work in partnership with employers and employees.The programme proposed by the Care Council provides a framework to advance objectives for raising standards and protecting vulnerable people. It is also designed to put social care staff on a more professional footing. The Care Council will consult with stakeholders on the registration and conduct rules.

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By Deborah WilsonThis article analyses the impact of a value-added performance indicator (PI) on the rankings of secondary schools in the English league tables. School rankings are seen to be very sensitive to the type of PI employed, and the new value-added PI is likely to result in significant movements up and down the rankings. There is still scope for schools to try and game the system in order to improve their league table position.

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Hardy, B., Hudson, B. & Waddington, EThis self-assessment tool emerged through collaboration between the Department of Health and the NHS Trent Region. It is applicable to many cross-sectoral partnerships, although it was developed in the context of health and social care. It describes the key elements of a partnership profile: recognition and acceptance of the need for partnership; development of clarity and realism of purpose; ensuring commitment and ownership; developing and maintaining trust; creating clear and robust partnership working arrangements and the ability to monitor, measure and learn.

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The drive for better financial management in the public sector is resulting in the creation of new senior finance posts and fuelling salary increases. The latest edition of Hays’ Guide to Salaries in Accountancy, reporting on trends in the public and private sectors for second half of 2003, reveals that Directors of Finance in Higher Education secured the greatest salary increases with 4.8 per cent. Finance Heads of service areas in central government and government agencies secured 3.4 per cent increases. As a result, the gap between private and public sector salary and benefit packages for accountants has never been closer.The report notes that public sector employers are increasingly looking to the private sector to find the right candidates. At the same time many commercial candidates are keen to move into the public and not-for-profit sector because of the benefits associated with work-life balance, including perks such as 30-days holiday, flexi-time, on-site creches and home-working. Those with caring responsibilities outside work are particularly open to considering these benefits equally alongside salary and other rewards.

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Chancellor Gordon Brown has promised that more grants and loans will be available to voluntary sector organizations in the summer to improve their capacity to deliver public services. The funding will support the development of financial management and other skills and be made available through the Futurebuilders Fund. The Home Office is also finalising work on a new capacity and infrastructure framework including funding to help improve performance management and governance in the sector.Other measures to support and develop the voluntary sector and encourage people to undertake some sort of voluntary activity will be announced in the Budget. In addition Home Secretary David Blunkett will call a summit of organisations and businesses involved in mentoring in such areas as drug and alcohol abuse, to discuss how more can be done.

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Local authorities will benefit from a new device designed to raise awareness of the risks and effects of flooding around the UK. FloodRanger, a flood simulator, has been launched by the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King. It puts ‘players’ in control of a fictional area of Britain’s coastline over a 100-year period.It is expected to become a useful tool for local councils, the Environment Agency and other government departments as well as being used in universities to educate and inform all those involved with flood planning and management. The simulator is designed so that those using it have to defend cities, towns and the countryside in a virtual terrain while still maintaining levels of housing and jobs for a growing population.

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The National Health Service is to be the first major user of significant broadband capacity in the public sector. It follows the announcement that BT has been awarded a 530 million pound contract to provide and manage a broadband network to link all health service organisations in England.The New National Network, also known as N3, will provide a platform on which to run new systems being delivered by the national programme for IT. It will cover all 18,000 NHS locations and sites rather than the 10,000, covered under the current NHSnet contract.

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By Patrick Abrahams Much is being done by people in power to relate to local communities, but many communities currently feel disaffected by central government and its local representatives. The author looks at the role of the 12,000 parish and town councils in the UK as a conduit for local opinion and feedback. He examines the barriers to them establishing websites and calls for local portals that people can use without knowing who is responsible for what

Six good quality early years services have been praised for their joined up thinking and named as Sure Start Children’s Centres. The schemes are the Somerford Children’s Centre in Dorset, and five based in Leeds, the Bramley, Chapeltown, Hawksworthwood, Beeston and Windmill Centres.They join a growing network of centres each providing integrated access to five key services, early education, childcare, health services, family support and help into employment. The government hopes they will act as a model for the transformation of children’s services.

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Four hundred Community Wardens are to be recruited by local authorities across Scotland as part of a campaign against anti-social behaviour. In total the country’s 32 local councils will spend thirty million pounds on measures to combat the problem over the next two years.Other measures will see some authorities expanding mediation services to deal with problems before they get out of hand and an increase in the number of specialist teams run by councils to deal with anti-social behaviour.

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