All local strategic partnerships are expected to have effective performance management arrangements and those who receive Neighbourhood Renewal Funding must demonstrate that they exist. This paper produced by the Office for Public Management explores how partnerships are progressing. It found that the task is complex and challenging because partners frequently have multiple and competing objectives. It concluded that partnerships need to negotiate and influence performance management rather than enforce it. Given the complexity of performance managing in a partnership context, and the fact that partners themselves are at very different stages in the development of performance management approaches, it is likely that the arrangements will take some years to evolve.The report assesses progress as patchy, but it describes practises that are proving successful. They include a way to map the web of causal links between goals, objectives and actions using an ICT system for tracking and reporting progress and a ‘life stages’ approach to planning in order to encourage agencies to work together in new ways.

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Ballot papers will go to UNISON members in the National Health Service this week with a recommendation that they vote to accept the new pay and conditions package that has been labelled Agenda for Change. The ballot will give the 450,000 health members the final say on whether the deal goes ahead.The voting papers will go out from Wednesday with members having until November 5th to make their decision. The result will be announced three days later. UNISON delegates from across the country voted overwhelmingly to recommend a yes vote in the ballot.

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The public sector is providing the same quality of service to its customers as its supposedly more sophisticated counterparts in commerce, despite lagging behind in the important areas of communications and personal service. The findings, published today, come from a study of public attitudes on customer service.The research was commissioned by communication services providers, Damovo and Ericsson. Those taking part were asked to rate the overall quality of customer service in the public sector and commercial organisations either as poor, average or good. Thirty-eight per cent of consumers rated customer service as ‘good’ in both sectors. They also rated the quality of customer service agents and call response times as virtually identical in the two sectors.

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