New research says the National Health Service is no longer meeting its founding aims and compares poorly with other healthcare systems. The pamphlet suggests a scheme of payments to each patient would give better value for money in difficult economic times.
Read more on STUDY CALLS FOR PER CAPITA FUNDING FOR NHS PATIENTS…
The National Audit Office has published its report on financial management in the Home Office, declaring that the department has made “substantial improvements” but still needs to do more.
The report is the second in a series of reports on financial management in Government. It says that the Home Office has come a long way since 2006, when the Comptroller and Auditor-General disclaimed an opinion on the 2004-5 accounts. But it says that “further sustained improvement” is still needed, so that good financial management becomes “business as usual” across the department.
The NAO noted that the Home Office now had more professionally qualified finance staff, and had improved financial governance. It also noted improvements in financial planning and decision making; budgeting; financial monitoring and forecasting; and financial reporting. The unqualified audit opinion on the 2007-08 Resource Accounts was cited as an “important symbol” of the department’s progress.
However, the report also described areas where more improvement was still needed. It singled out the Home Office’s £725 million underspend on its capital budget between 2003 and 2008, saying that strategic management had not been responsive enough. The NAO also recommended a need for the Home Office to develop more understanding of its costs and the relationship between resource consumption and service outcomes.
Tim Burr, head of the National Audit Office, said: “The Home Office has made considerable progress in strengthening its financial management which was much needed. It still needs to establish clearer links between the use of resources and service delivery outcomes. Similarly, the Home Office has to improve individual project oversight and management of its broader capital programme so that it can identify funds which are no longer needed, then release them to be deployed elsewhere.”
Birmingham City Council is refurbishing four neighbourhood offices as part of a 10-year business transformation plan that aims to save £1 billion.
The offices, in the Kings Heath, Quinton, Ladywood and Yardley Wood areas of the city, will see improvements to facilities, including new self-service kiosks and improved IT so customers can check in on arrival without the need to queue and staff can help visitors more effectively.
Read more on BIRMINGHAM REFURBISHES LOCAL OFFICES FOR IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE…
Chris Leslie
This article was first published in Public Management and Policy and is reproduced by permission of the Association. http://www.cipfa.org.uk/pmpa/index.cfm
Reform of the public services is on the agenda of every Government. There are different views on priorities for change, but the fragmentation of local service delivery across a range of agencies with differing levels of accountability is high up the list. The author argues that the way forward is to decentralize and localize services giving councils the power to deliver.
Higher education unions have described a pay offer by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) “the worst in the public sector”, while the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union has opened their annual conference with an attack on the latest pay offer for the civil service.
Five unions representing higher education staff – EIS, GMB, UCU, UNISON and Unite – were responding to the UCEA increasing their pay offer from 0.3% to 0.4%. They are also unhappy about the progress of a proposal to avoid redundancies in the sector.
University and College Union general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘UCEA has managed the remarkable feat of making the worst pay offer in the entire public sector. There is nothing to prevent UCEA negotiating a national agreement to prevent job losses. In fact in these exceptional financial circumstances we think it is absolutely essential. They have failed to understand, or deal with, the full scale of the jobs crisis in the sector.’
Meanwhile, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka claimed that his members were being treated as “second class citizens”. Addressing union members in Brighton, he said:
“The government’s refusal to honour the agreement reached last year and the pressure on employers not to offer more than 1.5% as a basic award is an insult to the low paid workers who deliver our frontline services.
Leading figures in local government have welcomed a call by the Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee for more power to be devolved to local authorities.
In a report issued yesterday, the committee recommended cultural change in central government and parliament, changes to local government financing, and more power for councils in the areas of health and policing. It also warned against over inspection, recommending a “genuinely less obtrusive performance framework.”
Chair of the CLG Committee Dr Phyllis Starkey said that Britain was a “long way from an equitable and healthy balance of power between central and local government:
Read more on LOCAL GOVERNMENT WELCOMES SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT…
Edited by Richard Simmons, Martin Powell and Ian Greener
The consumer in public services critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Drawing on empirical research, it challenges existing stereotypes about the ‘consumer as chooser’ and shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services.
A group of MPs is calling on the Government to prove its ‘localist credentials’ so communities can reap the benefits of more power being moved to local authorities. The Commons Select Committee on Communities and Local Government says cultural change across central government, closer Parliamentary scrutiny of national ministries and reform of local authority finance are all needed.
Read more on MPs CALL FOR REFORMS TO PROVE GOVERNMENT’S ‘LOCALIST’ CREDENTIALS…
A local authority which lost sensitive information about a group of children has signed a formal undertaking that it will endeavour to keep personal details secure in future. Leicester City Council was found to be in breach of the Data Protection Act by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which said it was alarmed at the level of data security breaches.
Read more on CITY COUNCIL SIGNS UNDERTAKING TO KEEP DATA SECURE…
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