Text messaging has become part of 21st century everyday life, but both public and private sector organisations have been slow to bring it in to their communication strategies. In the public sector, local government is leading the way. This feature describes how a council has adopted text messaging to keep residents in touch and to provide alerting information to staff.
Almost two thirds of public sector workers would like the chance to be more creative at work but almost as many believe their bosses are unaware of their creative talents and a new report is warning public sector employers to take note that three-quarters of those surveyed felt career fulfillment was more important than financial reward.The survey was undertaken by SWNA on behalf of the sector skills council for the creative and cultural industries. The study also shows that when they were children people now working for public bodies were more likely to dream about being a doctor, a nurse or a teacher than a footballer or a movie star. For 35 per cent of them those dream careers changed when they grew up, although teaching remained a firm favourite with public sector workers both in childhood and later in life.
More than 100 local authorities across England are to benefit from a 1.3 billion pound package of government funding to help them tackle crime and anti-social behaviour, improve education and housing and deal with inequalities in health and the problems of worklessness. The money will be available under the Neighbourhood Renewal and Safer Stronger Communities Funds.The package was announced by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and will see just over a billion pounds of Renewal Fund cash going to the 80 most deprived local authority districts in 2006 to 2008 and to six now significantly improved districts. The 265 million pounds from the Safer Stronger Communities Fund is split between the Neighbourhood Element. That will see money going over the same period to the 84 local authorities that contain pockets of deprivation in small neighbourhoods. The Cleaner Greener element of 105 million pounds will be targeted during 2006-2008 to the 50 councils that need to make significant improvements to their public spaces.