Local councils may struggle to employ enough staff to run services over the next ten years because a third is due to retire. This warning comes from the New Local Government Network in a report that reveals that authorities are set to lose significantly higher proportions of senior managers over the next decade compared to other areas of the public sector.
Local government employees make up 12.6 per cent of the country’s work force and nearly half of the public sector work force. 

The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations has proposed that the Government should develop a university for the third sector to harness the talents of many talented graduates now considering the sector as a serious career option.
The third sector is made up of organisations that are not-for-profit and non-government, together with the activities of volunteering and giving which sustain them. 

Social evils in 1904 were poverty, war, slavery, intemperance, the opium trade, impurity and gambling according to the founder of the Joseph Rowntree Trust. In a 21st century consultation the Trust has found that people are now concerned about the way society has become more individualistic, greedy and selfish with a cost to a sense of community.
The consultation reveals that people feel a strong sense of unease about some of the changes shaping British society. 

Greater Manchester Police are working with Facebook, the social networking site, to allow users to receive a news feed, as well as links to a crime-reporting form, Police Web sites and videos. This ground breaking development opens the way for other public sector bodies to tap in to the power of social networking sites.
Users are able to submit intelligence about crimes and they are kept up to date with news stories. 

The leaders of churches in the Black Country are calling on local people to make sure they vote in May’s local elections. Black Country Churches Engaged, which wants people to see voting as a responsibility as well as a right, has also issued a list of questions it wants voters to think about. 

A joint initiative by Liverpool City Council and the local Primary Care Trust will see every secondary school in the city getting 10,000 pounds to improve school food and the dining rooms in which it is served. The payments are part of a two million pound campaign to promote better health and tackle the rise of obesity in school children.
The council and the PCT hope giving the money to schools will encourage more children to have school meals by making the food more nutritious and tasty. 

Local authority leaders are calling for any fines imposed on construction companies found to have been involved in rigging bids for contracts to be given to councils rather than going into central government coffers. Construction workers’ leaders, meanwhile, have claimed the price fixing uncovered by the Office of Fair Trading is an inevitable result of privatising and outsourcing of public sector building work. 

Birmingham City Council believes it is on course to having the best customer services of any local authority in the country. The council says dramatic improvements have taken a big step forward after members of its Cabinet Procurement Sub Committee considered the full business case for its package Customer First plan.
Customer First is one of nine programmes in an ambitious Business Transformation programme. 

Sir Michael Pitt, the man leading the review into last summer’s floods, will call today for changes so that society takes the risk of flooding and other natural hazards more seriously. Sir Michael’s review is due to be completed in the next few months when he will present a series of recommendations in his final report. 

The Home Secretary has denied breaking election rules by making an inappropriate political announcement during the run-up to the local polls on May 1st. The Conservatives lodged an official complaint after Jacqui Smith unveiled plans for 300 new police officers and staff to undertake anti-terror duties.
The Home Office said careful consideration had been given to the announcement, including discussions with the Cabinet Office.