Capital funding has become scarce and councils need to adopt the private sector approach and think about what value they can realise from their assets. This advice comes from the Audit Commission.

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English teaching is excellent in some schools says Ofsted, but there is a wide gap between the most effective schools and the rest. Too much English teaching is no better than satisfactory. In a new report, Ofsted calls for best practice to be spread more effectively and better use to be made of ICT

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Irene Lucas

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

Public services must innovate if they are to meet expectations and the warning of budget cuts in the future have served to place greater emphasis on doing things differently. The author presents a view of innovation from the local government perspective. She describes how innovation has been fostered and calls for a public service wide initiative to change the culture away from risk aversion and towards creativity.

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