A Primary Care Trust is to use a mobile phone service to offer sexual health and relationships advice for young women. The service, which will begin in Durham and Chester-le-Street next month is designed to build on the success of a similar system aimed at young men that was launched earlier this year in County Durham.The new service has been funded by the Durham and Chester-le-Street Teenage Pregnancy Local Action Group and will be completely confidential and anonymous.

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The think-tank – the Local Government Information Unit – is calling for an easing of the restrictions that prevent council staff playing their part in local democracy. It has used its submission to the Government’s parallel consultations on a code of conduct for local government officers and on political restrictions, to renew demands for the legislation to be updated.Proposals for the reform of political restrictions are seen by the LGIU as one of the key measures needed to encourage more people to take part in public service as councillors or school governors. It has won the backing of 135 MPs from all political parties who have signed an Early Day Motion supporting its campaign.

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Fears that the Government will not be able to deliver the measures outlined in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, either because of the shortage of time or the lack of staff, are among the reactions from the public sector to the proposed legislative programme.The Local Government Association broadly welcomed the contents of the Speech saying it showed the Government moving in the right direction. It was concerned though about plans to centralise school funding. These, it said, threatened to blow public service reform off course. It accused the Government of being reluctant to make a consistent and coherent long-term improvement to public services by freeing-up councils to join up public services at a local level. The plans to centralise funding would end local people’s ability to assess and meet local educational needs, and damage the link between schools services and other public services.

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Local authorities that serve the most deprived areas of Wales are to get extra resources under the Welsh Assembly Government’s final budget settlement for local government.Assembly Finance and Local Government Minister, Sue Essex, has included a 5 per cent increase in the deprivation grant in recognition of the need for additional resources for those councils serving the most deprived communities if they are to deliver key public services without introducing undue increases in council tax for people who are least able to pay. The increase is in line with the provisional local government settlement announced earlier this month.

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A MORI survey for the Local Government Association found that clean streets and effective communication are more likely to impress residents than council tax level comparisons. The report highlights the need for local government to communicate better what it is delivering for local communities. It concludes that the key drivers of people’s perception of their councils are: the visible streetscene and ‘liveability’ services; effective communication and explanation; caring responsiveness; and residents’ views on whether they are getting value for money.While education and social care are seen as very important by the public, public and user perceptions of these services have relatively little impact on the overall rating of authorities as only minorities experience these services directly, even though they absorb the majority of top-tier council budgets. The report explains why recent improvement in council services is not yet fully reflected by news coverage or by much of the public’s perception of Local Government.

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A survey by Manpower, a leading workforce management company, found that employers in the public sector are positive in their hiring intentions for the remainder of 2004. The survey shows that the balance of employers looking to take on more staff in the public sector is +17% compared to a UK average of +18%. This represents a quarter-on-quarter increase of four percentage points and a year-on-year increase of three percentage points. The effect of the predicted cut of 100,000 civil service posts is that many government departments are only taking on temporary staff rather than offering permanent placements. The survey also reveals that because the public sector offers good career opportunities, training and support, there are many high calibre candidates.

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The Department of Health has joined forces with a with private sector company in an initiative designed to save more than 200 million pounds in the provision of corporate services.The partnership with Xansa is also expected to improve and expand the range of corporate services provided for the National Health Service. The anticipated 220 million pounds in savings over the next ten years will be achieved by getting more NHS Trusts to use centralised service centres to carry out back office work. That could include payment of invoices, VAT returns, debt collection and bank account reconciliation.

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A gathering of more than a hundred charity lobbyists and campaigners will be told today that the voluntary sector had a vital role to play in the run up to the next General Election. They will hear the message at the Political Conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which coincides with the Queen’s Speech.The same meeting will also hear a call to make the most of Britain’s Presidency of the European Union, which is due to begin next July, as an opportunity to get their issues onto the EU agenda.

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The New Deal programme for helping the unemployed into work has been revamped and the highly structured route to employment replaced with a ‘pick and mix’ approach to suit the needs of individual jobseekers. The new approach will reduce complexity and give more flexibility to customers and staff.The New Deal was launched in 1998 for those aged 18-24 who had been claiming Jobseekers Allowance for at least 6 months. Eligibility has been extended over the years to effectively remove the age limit. In addition particular groups of people such as ex offenders, refugees, homeless people and people with addiction problems can join on a voluntary basis.

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Eighty eight primary care trusts, covering seventy local council areas, have been included in the ‘Spearhead’ group to pilot initiatives such as health trainers and enhanced stop smoking services. Over a quarter of the population are covered by this group of trusts including large urban areas such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and parts of London. The group were selected using information on deprivation, mortality from cancer and heart disease as well as life expectancy, to determine the areas that face the greatest health challenges.The aim of the Spearhead group will be to reduce the significant differences in the health of people in their areas, compared to the rest of the country. Department of Health targets have been set to narrow the geographical inequalities in life expectancy, cancer and heart disease mortality and they are focused on narrowing the gap between the average and the areas with the worst health and deprivation indicators by 2010.

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