Council leaders have reacted to a report stating that they are using so-called ‘spy laws’ to snoop on their citizens and are claiming they use the powers as part of their commitment to putting local people first. The Press Association used the Freedom of Information Act to ask 97 councils if they had used powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to carry out surveillance. It found some councils had used the Act more than 100 times in the last 12 months.

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Schools across the country are to get access to advice and training materials on how to support children and young people who stammer. The work will be done by the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children, which has been given 340,000 pounds by the Government to develop a stammering information programme that will be rolled out to all schools by 2010.

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By Deborah Rowland & Malcolm Higgs

A huge amount of change initiatives fail and drawing on success stories can limit the risk. Based on a combination of four years rigorous research and practical application of the emerging findings, the book explores the dilemmas related to the growing need for change and the difficulty in making change work. It is destined for leaders who wish to implement change more intelligently and effortlessly. Drawing on a combination of research and extensive organisational experience, the authors present a framework for leading change that describes the specific leader practices they have found make the biggest difference between success and failure in implementing high magnitude change.

Read more on SUSTAINING CHANGE: LEADERSHIP THAT WORKS…