The Government is being urged to create a ’super audit agency’ by merging the Audit Commission and National Audit Office. The New Local Government Network, which is making the call, says that as councils are facing fewer targets and with the alignment of performance indicators, the time is right for there to be a single body for local government inspection. 

The number of parish or town councils gaining Quality Status has now reached 500 since it was launched in June 2003, following the Government’s Rural White Paper. The National Association of Local Councils has congratulated Church Stretton Town Council from Shropshire as the latest to achieve the benchmark.
The NALC believes Quality Status offers an important opportunity for power and influence to be given to communities, through neighbourhood vehicles such as parish councils. 

By Peter Kemp, Annie Irvine and Katharine Nice.
The Government plans to pay the new Local House Benefit to tenants rather than to landlords as currently. The change is designed to promote personal responsibility and empower tenants to budget for themselves, to help workless tenants to develop the skills they will need when they move into paid work and to encourage them to open bank accounts and pay their rent by standing order. 

Standards of social services care provided to adults by local councils have shown an overall improvement for the fifth successive year. Performance ratings published today by the Commission for Social Care Inspection show a third of councils have been awarded three stars and for the second year running there are no authorities failing to gain at least a single star. 

Local authorities have defended their role in providing services to tackle domestic violence after calls from the new Equality and Human Rights Commission for a huge increase in help for victims. The Local Government Association called, though, for specialist courts to tackle the offences.
Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission said there was a burgeoning crisis of domestic violence against women that needed to be addressed. 

The survey of income trends for human resources professionals from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shows that for the first time in ten years, training professionals earn higher than the average HR salary. The survey also found that one of the main reasons HR professionals working in the public sector experience low levels of engagement is due to bad management.
Managers in the learning and development field earn an average of 45,000 pounds. 

Parents are so keen to control their children’s futures that they are less likely to leave them to make a decision about when to leave formal education to go to work or take a vocational course than they are to let them make up their own minds on when to become sexually active. The findings come today in a report from the educational foundation, Edge following research into attitudes to ‘academic’ education. 

Plans for a single national database containing the personal details of every child in the country are being delayed so a review of its security can be carried out and changes made to the system. The Children’s Minister, Kevin Brennan, said the decision had been taken following the loss last week of computer discs containing details of parents and children receiving Child Benefit. 

This programme is now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernisation. It presents a case study of the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s strategy of flexible working and accommodation rationalisation, that is delivering annual savings of over 11 million pounds. 

The heads of social services have welcomed a report today from the Alzheimer’s Society and say many of its recommendations are achievable. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has also said training is essential to ensure all care is brought up to the standards set by the best providers.