The government has stressed the need to stamp out low level environmental crime before those responsible go on to commit more serious offences, and it believes the measures in the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill will help in this.Local environmental quality minister Alun Michael visited the People and Places conference in Birmingham, organised by campaign group Keep Britain Tidy, to set out his vision of cleaner, safer communities.

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Random drug-testing in schools should not be encouraged until there is better evidence about its likely impact according to a research review today. The paper says in spite of political endorsements for drug-testing programmes by Tony Blair and the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, there is little high-quality evidence to show it is effective in reducing drug use among young people.The review has been produced for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by Neil McKeganey, Professor of Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow. He says encouragement for schools to introduce random testing of pupils would be an ethically complex move which might have unintended adverse consequences. As a result he argues that it would be better to avoid the ad hoc spread of testing programmes.

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By Theodore H. Poister and Gregory StreibThis article focuses on the use of strategic planning and management processes in municipal governments with populations over 25,000. Strategic planning has been used in municipalities for 20 years now, but little is known about how it is used and the results obtained. In particular, we explore whether municipal governments tie other components of the overall strategic management process to their strategic plans. Findings do not show a dramatic expansion in the use of strategic planning, but there is some evidence of growing sophistication, as demonstrated by links to other management and decision-making activities. Managers were enthusiastic about their experiences with strategic planning and largely satisfied with their achievement of goals and objectives. Overall, we find a raising of the bar as far as strategic planning is concerned, but the use of comprehensive strategic management is only beginning to develop in a small number of leading-edge municipalities.

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