By Ed Ferrari and Alasdair Rae

The UK’s housing market is one of the most volatile in the world. There are intense concerns about the problems this brings, including the issue of low-income households being priced out of the housing market. The authors highlight differencies in house price growth and argue that deep structural variations in the demand for housing require a different sort of policy response.

Read more on LOCAL HOUSING MARKET VOLATILITY…

The severe weather conditions in December 2010 brought chaos to road, rail and air transport across the UK. The Transport Select Committee investigation found widespread evidence of a weak passenger care culture and has called for change.

Read more on MPs CALL FOR CULTURE CHANGE IN PASSENGER CARE…

Edited by David Hillson.

Many of us are afraid of failure and spend our lives trying to avoid it. But society’s most high achieving figures would all recognise that failure has been an integral part of their success.

Read more on THE FAILURE FILES: PERSPECTIVES ON FAILURE…

Despite pay freezes, recruitment bans and efficiency savings, public sector pay kept rising until December 2010. This is the conclusion of Policy Exchange, the think tank for new politics, following a scrutiny of statistics from the Office for National Statistics. The figures give cause to revise the proverb: there are lies, damned lies and statistics from ONS.

Read more on PUBLIC SECTOR PAY CONTINUES TO GROW – WHEN BANKER’S BONUSES ARE INCLUDED…

The Indices of Deprivation 2010, measure the relative levels of deprivation in small areas of England called Lower layer Super Output Areas. Most of the indicators are based on statistics are from 2008.

Read more on MEASURING DEPRIVATION…

By Doris Kearns.

The book is a remarkable study in leadership.

It describes how in May 1880 William H Seward, Salmon P Chase, Edward Bates and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry.

Read more on TEAM OF RIVALS: THE POLITICAL GENIUS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN…

The u-turn away from creating a level playing field so that private companies could bid for public services has run into more turbulence. A report from Co-operatives UK claims that the building blocks for turning public services into mutuals are not yet in place.

Read more on PUBLIC SERVICE VISION SUFFERS ANOTHER SETBACK…

The coalition government has rowed back from its radical plan to allow private industry to run schools, hospitals and council services, such as parks and adult care. Publication of the White Paper ‘Open Public Services’ has been delayed since March 2011 and it is now going through another re-draft stage to reflect the latest thinking. The plan to extend the delivery of services to third sector organisations, including charities and mutuals, run by former public service employees, is expected to go ahead.

Read more on PRIVATISATION U-TURN RESHAPES VISION FOR PUBLIC SERVICES…

Support for e-voting has more than doubled in the last five years as more people use the Internet as a part of everyday life.

A survey by Virgin Media Business of more than 2,100 adults found that 43 per cent backed a digitised ballot card system. This compares with 19 per cent support in 2005.

Read more on E-VOTING GAINS SUPPORT…

Mis-spending of child benefit payments on luxuries such as plastic surgery or foreign holidays can be limited with the latest versions of pre-payment systems.

The latest pre-payment cards have a range of benefits which automatic reloading on set dates through a central system. This reduces staff workloads and has significantly reduced the costs for processing payments.

Read more on ADVANCES IN PRE-PAYMENT TECHNOLGY CAN LIMIT BENEFIT SPENDING MIS-USE…