The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued new sets of guidance for local authorities clarifying points of the Data Protection Act. The ICO is urging councils to consider the implications of the Act when they publish documents relating to council meetings and it has set out further help for local authority staff dealing with housing records. 

Figures today show that more than half of English universities have agreed to sponsor academies. So far 45 of the 88 universities have signed up to sponsor or set up a partnership with an academy in their area and even more have expressed an interest in being involved. 

This evaluation report from Communities and Local Government argues that community strategies have added value and that they have supported the delivery of central Government objectives.
Increasingly community strategies are being assigned the role of the key strategic document in localities and they provide the vision and strategic framework for other local plans and strategies. They also have a key role in relation to ‘place shaping’.