A big public consultation exercise has been launched by two local authorities that have worked together to establish a vision for the future of the city of Durham. The consultation will allow local people to have their say on redevelopment options and follows 20 months of joint working by Durham City and Durham County Councils.
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The Government is considering allowing local authorities to hand over their responsibility for pursuing contract Anti Social Behaviour Orders to the organisations that manage their housing stocks. Consultations on the possibilities have been announced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
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Editors: Mike Losey, Sue Meisinger and Dave Ulrich.This is the follow-up to the bestselling Tomorrow’s HR Management. It presents an international panel of expert contributors who offer their views on the state of HR and what to expect in the future. Topics covered include HR as a decision science, understanding and managing people, creating and adapting organizational culture, collaborative ventures, and investing in the next generation. 64 thought leaders explore the critical HR issues of today and tomorrow.
Salaries for all managers in the public sector rose by 5.5 per cent in 2005, against a national average of 4.3 per cent. Combined earnings, including bonuses, rose by 5.6 per cent, again above the national average. The survey, carried out for the Chartered Management Institute and Remuneration Economics reveals that the average total earnings for managers in the public sector are 43,578 pounds, putting the sector sixth in the UK ‘earnings league table’.
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Ministers from six departments have jointly launched an action plan ‘Together We Can’ to bring Government agencies and the public closer together in a drive to improve the quality of life. It will take Ministers out to the communities so they can hear people’s concerns and find out at first hand what they want. The initiative will involve central and local government, the health service and the voluntary sector. The essence of the plan is to give local people the capacity to influence and create change. It is described as the first step towards a significant shift in the balance of power between local communities and Central Government.The ‘Together We Can’ plan sets out the Government’s commitment to citizens, communities and public bodies working together to set and achieve common goals. It outlines eight key policy areas – Citizens and Democracy, Regeneration and Cohesion, Safety and Justice and Health and Sustainability. The plan will be carried out by twelve Government Departments to strengthen citizens’ engagement in delivering success across those policies. The 65 action points in the plan represent the start of this work.
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This publication from the Centre for Public Scrutiny raises important questions on the nature and effectiveness of current mechanisms for public scrutiny; what value they add to public services in terms of accountability and improved performance; and how they might develop to ensure services are genuinely shaped around citizens’ needs. It charts the range and reach of scrutiny bodies across the public sector, outlining current mechanisms for scrutiny and potential future developments at all tiers of government at local, regional, devolved and central levels. It also examines selected policy areas including criminal justice, education, health and social care, housing and regeneration, public utilities and transport.The Scrutiny Map highlights recent developments in the public scrutiny landscape including moves towards increased scrutiny at the local level, as well as initiatives designed to encourage greater public involvement in scrutiny: i.e. via foundation trust boards of governors, courts boards and patient and public involvement forums. It also looks at trends towards greater flexibility and coordination of inspection mechanisms in order to reduce burdens on service providers and ‘join up’ mechanisms within and across policy areas: This includes the Audit Commission’s recent emphasis on ‘strategic regulation’, suggested moves towards a combined criminal justice inspectorate and Ofsted’s new role overseeing inspection of children’s services.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has warned health managers that targets for improving cancer services and reducing waiting times for treatment must be met. The warning comes after preliminary data shows that some NHS Trusts are not making the progress expected on cutting waiting times.The NHS Cancer Plan, published in 2000, set out two targets for cancer waiting times. All patients with cancer who have been urgently referred by their GP should begin treatment within a maximum of 62 days of referral. In addition when a decision is taken to treat a patients diagnosed with cancer, treatment should start within a maximum of 31 days. There is clear evidence that diagnostic tests are currently causing delays which could prevent the targets not being met.
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Despite recent failures and reported under performance, the Department for Education and Skills is pressing on with the specialist schools implementation programme. A further 194 schools have been awarded specialist status bringing the number to 1957 out of a total of 2382 schools. Some 2.5 million students are now benefiting from the programme. As a result of the new additions, seven Local Education Authorities are now fully specialist.The most popular specialism in the newly approved schools is arts with 41 approvals. This is followed by humanities with 28, business and enterprise with 26, sport 24, maths and computing 22, science 19 and technology 10. Just four of the newly approved schools specialise in languages.
This programme is now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernisation. It reviews the potential gap between staff competencies and the functions they are expected to perform, and how the necessary education and training programmes can be made available to all staff, from heads of finance to social care workers.The programme includes panel discussions on the opportunities presented by eLearning as the core of blended learning programmes to provide all members of staff access to the training and education content they require. The discussion reviews how eLearning can complement traditional class-room education with the benefits of easily accessible, personalised education content for role specific training, through to life long learning and continuous professional development.