The Home Office is funding projects in five localities to find out what motivates people to get involved in community life. The findings from the projects will be used in a strategy to encourage volunteering.The projects will build on work in progress and will bring together representatives from the Volunteering Bureau, local authorities, NHS Trusts and Business in the Community. Each project team will act as a hub for a range of projects in the locality and present a one stop shop where people can find out about volunteering. They will make extensive use of new media and IT and one project will run a cyber cafe. A principal aim of the projects is to find out how to encourage more young people and ethnic minorities to volunteer.

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Negotiations on a long term pay deal for health service staff not covered by a pay review body will start soon. Talks will focus on replacing the annual pay round with an agreement covering several years. The outcome of the talks will effect some 350,000 workers such as clerical staff, scientists, ambulance staff and porters.The talks will be used to hammer out a completely new pay system which removes weaknesses in the present arrangements. Currently there is little incentive for staff to take on extra responsibilities or to acquire extra skills. A new approach to pay progression will seek to remedy this defect. Other changes to be negotiated include the replacement of a wide range of pay scales with three national pay spines and a radical overhaul of conditions of service.

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NHS managers have been challenged to face head on the danger to rural areas posed by increasing specialisation and centralisation of services.At a Rural Health Forum conference in Warwickshire, delegates were told that the needs of rural areas could be compromised by current trends in the NHS.

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The Department of Health is to review how it can better support the fledgling level of consultation being introduced in primary care.Health Minister John Denham has told the NHS Alliance that the Department of Health will look at its work programmes on patient and public involvement and provide better targeted support to front-line clinicians as they involve the public in the delivery of local services.

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Grey power has been highlighted in a new report from the Better Government for Older People Programme.The report, ‘We’re All Getting on in Life’, indicates as previous surveys that older people do not feel consulted about public services.

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The Government has set out its longer term thinking on tackling poverty and ending social exclusion.In a speech and accompanying pamphlet on social reform for the think tank DEMOS Education and Employment Secretary David Blunkett looked beyond the Government’s anti-poverty strategy, published in September.

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The DETR has put some fences around the flagrant use of the word partnership’ by local councils.The word featured in proposals for the ‘third way’ and as a result many activities are now attracting the label of being ‘partnerships’. Consultants Newchurch and Co., who have produced a definition of the word on request from the DETR, say some of these projects are a simple re-badging of something that was previously described in other ways.

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From April next year, 527 Further Education Colleges, 4,300 public libraries and 785 Citizens Advice Bureaux will be able to save more than 50% on standard charges for Internet access.Under BT’s proposed Public Institution Internet Caller package these bodies will enjoy unlimited daytime Internet access for six hundred pounds a year, or twelve hundred pounds for a higher-speed ISDN line.

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Local councils are making an early bid to be key deliverers in the Transport Bill expected in the next Queen’s Speech.The Local Government Association, which acts on behalf of local councils, is arguing for legislation that sets out to solve transport problems at local level.

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The Scottish Parliament has given details of how it intends to engage the people of the country in its work.At a time when all parts of the public sector are being urged to be more responsive to citizens and customers, the new Parliament has the opportunity to build a new political culture that incorporates external participation in the development of policy and legislation.

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