This draft document sets out six core principles benchmarking good governance in the UK’s public sector organisations. The draft is published for consultation by the Independent Commission on Good Governance in Public Services. It identifies the key ingredients necessary to deliver good governance in the public services. In particular it analyses the critically important role of the 450,000 elected or appointed governors who lead the UK’s public service organisations. The draft Standard encourages governors to review, challenge and question governance practice and to evaluate whether their organisations are fully applying the standard.Responses to the draft are required by 29 October 2004 and should be sent to goodgovernance@cipfa.org

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The mid-stage of the teaching workforce reform package, agreed last year, has come into effect with a 38 hour per year limit on teachers covering absent colleagues. In September last year teachers were relieved of administrative and clerical duties to give them time for their leadership and management roles. In September 2005 the final stage of the reform package will give guaranteed time within the school day for planning, preparation and assessment. This should be a minimum of 10% of their teaching time.The changes are founded on a national agreement between the Government, employers and school workforce unions, which was signed in January 2003, The recruitment of teaching assistants is another significant element of the package. They now operate within a professional standards framework and receive training developed by the Teacher Training Agency and linked to relevant Qualified Teacher Status modules. The framework provides a foundation from which many teaching assistants could progress, in time, to become qualified teachers.

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The public perception that crime is rising when, in fact it is falling, has been reversed following a concerted effort by police forces and the Home Office. A survey published by the Home Office shows that worry about violence is down 22% and worry about burglary is down 15%. Underlying these perceptions is a 6% reduction in robberies and an 8% reduction in domestic burglaries. The only area where performance deteriorated was in detection of offences, down nearly 2%.A new performance measure introduced this year, reveals that 63 % of time was spent by officers on frontline policing. Absence of officers on sick leave has been reduced by over 9% in the past year.

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