By Jo Blanden and Steve Gibbons Children growing up in poverty are at greater risk of becoming poor in later life. The authors looked at how life had turned out for two groups from poor families who were teenagers in the 1970’s and the 1980’s. They found that the persistence of poverty from the teens into the early thirties has risen over time. They conclude that there is no quick fix available through specific interventions, but initiatives to improve skills and employment opportunities are a sensible way to tackle the problem.

FUND WILL REWARD INNOVATION IN ROAD SAFETY

Local highway authorities can gain a share of a four million pound fund set up to encourage innovative approaches to improving road safety. The Road Safety Partnership Grant Scheme will provide funding to about 20 English local highway authorities.

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COUNCILS CAN JOIN NEW NEIGHBOURHOODS LEARNING NETWORK

Local authorities are being invited to join a new learning network on the role of the ward councillor at a time when the neighbourhoods agenda is evolving. The Local Government Information Unit is looking for 15 authorities that will share and develop innovative practice in a project sponsored by the IDeA and the Department for Communities and Local Government.

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The report is aimed at those involved in planning, using or evaluating e-government. Benchmarking has a value in learning about best practice through comparative measurement, for accounting to stakeholders and for demonstrating the return on investment.The report draws on models of e-government and current practice of benchmarking e-government to answer questions about why benchmark? what to benchmark? how to benchmark? and how to report? It provides a series of recommendations based on good practice or innovative practice, backed up by a set of conceptual frameworks and statistical findings. Checklists are provided for those planning and for those evaluating e-government benchmarking studies.

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GOVERNMENT AND VOLUNTARY SECTOR TO MARK COMPACT WEEK

Special events will be taking place over the next few days to mark Compact Week, designed to raise awareness of the Compact, which aims to give a practical framework for improved working between the public and the voluntary sectors.

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BUSINESS CASE FOR FiRe CONTROL PROJECT PUBLISHED

The Government has set out the business case for the planned FiReControl Project, part of its major investment in the Fire and Rescue Service, including the the roll-out of New Dimension assets and training, better communications through the new FireLink digital radio network and a common procurement service.

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Following publication of the White Paper ‘Strong and Prosperous Communities’, the Government has issued an invitation to county and district councils to make proposals for mergers into unitary councils, or to be pathfinders developing innovative two-tier models for counties and district to work together. The invitation makes it clear that those councils in two-tier areas that are not pathfinders will be expected to achieve the same level of improvement and efficiency gains as the new unitaries and pathfinders will be achieving.The White Paper sets out in detail the issue that the Government is seeking to address. Strong leadership and clear accountability is harder to achieve where for the same place there are two council leaders each with a legitimate democratic mandate and often having different and sometimes conflicting agendas. As an example of the difficulty, it quotes Cumbria which has seven council leaders and 62 other executive members for a population slightly smaller than unitary Sheffield which has one council leader and nine other executive members.

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CALL FOR GOVERNMENT TO DO MORE TO PROTECT PUBLIC FROM FRAUD

The Government is accused today of failing in its duty to protect people from fraud because it is refusing to spend the money needed to tackle the problem. A new report also claims police forces are reluctant to accept reports of fraud. It comes from the independent watchdog the Fraud Advisory Panel.

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WHITE PAPER WELCOMED AS ‘SIGNIFICANT STEP TOWARDS DEVOLUTION’

The future of local government has been set out in a White Paper, “Strong and Prosperous Communities”, with proposals for greater powers for councils, which will have stronger leadership but be more accountable to those they serve. Local people will have more opportunities to influence decision making and the number of targets imposed on authorities by Whitehall will be radically reduced as the Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly detailed what she called: “a new settlement with local government, communities and citizens.”

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By Neil RecordWhilst private sector pension schemes have been closing down rapidly in the last few years, public sector employees continue to enjoy “gold plated” benefits. Proposed reforms to public sector schemes will make little difference to the benefits available to new employees and no difference at all to benefits of existing employees.

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