STUDY SAYS PUBLIC ARE MISLED OVER LEVELS OF CRIME

An independent think tank is claiming today that the public is being misled about the true level of crime. A report from Civitas says the British Crime Survey omits three million crimes. “Crime in England and Wales: More Violence and More Chronic Victims”, has been written by Graham Farrell, professor of criminology at Loughborough University, and Ken Pease, a former acting head of the Police Research Group at the Home Office. They say that since it began in 1981, the Survey has omitted many crimes committed against people who have been repeat victims.

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This report from the Commission for Racial Equality sets out findings from a research project to identify the level of ethnic minority participation in Local Strategic Partnerships and to assess which groups benefit from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.Researchers looked at participation in LSPs by people from ethnic minorities and found that most LSPs did not monitor their members by ethnic origin. Without monitoring, it is not possible to determine the overall level of participation by people from ethnic minorities in LSPs across the country. Less than one third of LSPs in the survey had set aside places for representatives from ethnic minorities in their core structure, that is, on the main LSP board, and two in five had done this for their wider structure.

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HEALTH PROFILES SUPPORT TARGETING OF HEALTH INEQUALITIES

The Department for Health has published 2007 health profiles for 386 local authority areas to help in targeting resources to reduce health inequalities. They also provide a snapshot of England’s health which shows that health is improving but there are wide variations between different areas. The profiles give information on a range of issues including life expectancy and smoking.

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THIRD SECTOR GETS KEY ROLE IN SUPPORTING VULNERABLE PEOPLE

The new strategy for delivering housing related support services to vulnerable people sets out a key role for the third sector. It also provides for people to have a greater say in the support they receive and seeks to reduce the impact of organisational boundaries.

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This paper is one of a series that highlight findings from research by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP into key local government services markets, on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government. The report highlights key challenges and opportunities in relation to shared services within local government, the implications of recent policy proposals, and potential ways forward in developing shared service in the wider context of local government markets.Although shared services promise substantial efficiency gains only 29% of local authorities are involved in shared ‘back office’ arrangements with other authorities, but 35% claim to be ‘considering’ doing so.

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MORE POWER TO THE FRONT LINE

Public sector staff working on the front line are to be given greater freedom to do their jobs with a promise that red tape will be cut. The anti bureaucracy strategy launched by Cabinet Office Ministers aims to cut out rules and tasks that do not add to doing an efficient job.

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BIG BUSINESS BACKS PRIVATE TUTORS FOR CHILDREN IN CARE

Business has backed proposals for supporting children in care at the launch of the Care Matters White Paper. The package of measures is designed to improve the life chances of children in care. There are 60,000 children in care at any one time, with as many as 90,000 children spending some time in care over the course of a year.

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By David Hunter The third sector is set to play an increasing role in the delivery of public services particularly in employment training, children’s services, correctional services and education. The author examines the benefits and barriers of third sector involvement and describes how the trend is progressing. 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

CIVIL SERVICE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT TAKES A NEW TURN

The National School for Government, the Civil Service staff college, has devised a 360 degree feedback tool to help leaders to identify their development needs. The tool, which is based on self reporting and the reports of stakeholders, offers participants an opportunity to test how others perceive their leadership behaviour in the team and to compare their own work priorities and others’ expectations.

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PLAN TO JOIN UP HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE COMPLAINTS SYSTEMS

Plans have been published to bring together the health and social care complaints processes by focusing on the service user rather than the service provider. The plan would also end the need to make more than one complaint when the service extends beyond more then one provider.

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