This DVD from the Society for IT Management is designed to promote better accessibility to websites. Some eight million people in the UK are thought to suffer some form of disability causing difficulties in using a standard screen, keyboard and mouse.
Although there are clear benefits from widening the audience for an organisation’s website, by making sure it is accessible to all, some 80-90% of all websites are not currently designed to be so. 

A big step towards more devolution of powers from Whitehall to local councils and communities has come with the unveiling of the first wave of guidance for new Local Area Agreements. One authority that has been working on a pilot project said it hoped the announcement would be the beginning of a new relationship between central and local government. 

The Commission for the Built Environment is today calling on the Government to make Building for Life the national standard against which design quality is measured in the planning system. At the same time it is warning that more than 7 million people will not get the new homes they need unless there is a marked increase in the quality of new housing.
CABE says that an emphasis on quality is the best way to counter local objections to new housing developments.