Head teachers are being given special guidance on the role of school bursars and how they can help heads to have more free time to lead their schools. The new guide has been produced by the Training and Development Agency for Schools following a big rise in the number of state schools that now have bursars.Almost 4,000 bursars are currently undergoing training for the National College for School Leadership’s Certificate and Diploma of School Business Management and the total number has risen from 4,000 in 1997 to 6,800 today according to school workforce statistics.

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Patients are to be give more power to influence the way their local health services are organised and run. New plans from the Department of health will mean Primary Care Trusts will be required formally to respond to petitions from the public if more than one person in a hundred in the community is unhappy with a particular health service.The Health Secretary, Patricia Hewiit, has also announced new arrangements for organised patient involvement. The changes are designed to build on existing patient forums by setting up new Local Involvement Networks, to be called LINks, which will have more clout to influence services in hospitals and in the community. The proposal is central to new guidance being issued to the NHS on commissioning services.

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By Rodney Brooke This article was first published in Public Management and Policy and is reproduced by permission of the Association. http://www.cipfa.org.uk/pmpa/index.cfm The world has changed radically in the last half century and this is no less true of the world of local government. The author reflects on the changes he has experienced. They include a major cultural shift within, together with new challenges and re-cycled issues which have yet to be addressed.