The primary leadership programme launched in summer 2003 was badly flawed and failed to meet expectations. Ofsted, the education watchdog, has analysed why the aim of strengthening leadership and responsibility for teaching and learning in English and maths in primary schools was not achieved.Under the programme experienced primary headteachers acted as consultant leaders to support and provide expert guidance for headteachers and their leadership teams, working closely with local education authorities’ literacy and mathematics consultants, schools’ advisers and other LEA staff.

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The reluctance of some councils to install customer relationship management systems, and the failure of others to make best use of them, has prompted a research initiative to find out what benefits the systems deliver. CRM systems bring together customer records to a single point to provide a fast and reliable response to personal and telephone callers. The research will be carried out as part of the National Customer Relationship Management Programme, which is sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.Although some three quarters of councils are involved in the National CRM Programme, only about half have installed a CRM system. What is more disturbing is that a recent survey by NDL Ltd found that many councils are using CRM systems as a call logging facility rather than as a business efficiency tool. The survey also revealed that integrating existing systems with a new CRM system is proving a major challenge mainly because processes have to be re-engineered and in many cases the organization has to be re-structured to support new ways of working.

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By Adam Lent and Natalie ArendThis report is based on a year long study of how local authorities across the UK are introducing wider choice in the provision of their services. It offers a practical guide on how user choice can be successfully implemented and managed. In considering the changing nature of user choice and the different providers, the report claims ‘enhanced choice’ is the key to improving local public services.

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