Aunified system for dealing with complaints about health and social care services is to be tried out in a number of areas before being rolled out nationally in April next year. It will replace the present separate complaints procedures and put the focus on problems being dealt with locally.
The present system is believed to be particularly difficult for people who use a combination of services to make a complaint and for the bodies running the services to respond. 

A high-level working group is to be set up in Wales to learn from best practice in regeneration in other parts of Britain. It will investigate the possibility of a Welsh national centre of excellence in regeneration to be based in the Heads of the Valleys area. 

By Jane Martin
The view of many is that the local political process is not the place to go if you want to get things done. We hear all too often that the public has lost confidence in the political system, that people distrust politicians and care less and less about collective problems and more and more about their individual needs and wants. Some of this must be true, judging by the evidence of low turnout at elections and decreasing membership of political parties.