The national regeneration programme should be wound down and the money distributed according to need. The funding re-distribution should not be restricted to re-generation funding, but should also include government spending designed to get people back to work, such as the New Deal funding streams. The thinktank, Policy Exchange, believes that there is widespread expertise in the British re-generation industry, but much of it is misdirected and it sets out a case for devolution in its report ‘Cities Unlimited’.

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The White Paper ‘Communities in control: real people, real power’ set out a challenging programme for devolving power to communities, but it was unclear how the proposed changes would affect different groups of people. Communities and Local Government has now made a forward look at how the equality agenda might be affected by giving control over local decisions and services to a wider range of people.

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The 2008 survey from the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development shows absence for all workers fell from 8.4 days per employee per year in 2007 to 8.0 days in 2008. Public sector absence remains the highest, but has fallen from
10.3 days to 9.8 days, voluntary sector absence fell from 9.6 to 8.7 days, while in the manufacturing and production sector it fell from 7.6 to 7.2 days and in private sector service firms it remained static at 7.2 days. Employers estimate the average cost of absence at 666 pounds per employee per year.

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