The magistrates’ courts have been waiting for a new IT system for ten years, and the wait goes on. The National Audit Office sets out the ten year saga in a critical report which highlights management failures in the Lord Chancellor’s Department.IT systems in magistrates’ courts have been inadequate for many years and current systems do not allow information to be shared electronically with other courts. A further weakness is that electronic information transfer to other enforcement agencies is piecemeal. Development of the first project designed to meet the information sharing need was started in 1992. The project failed and was abandoned, as was the project which succeeded it. A third project was started in 1996, using the public finance initiative. In July 2002 the project was scaled down and this resulted in the signing of a separate contract for software. Nothing has been delivered so far.
Procurement has a low profile in local government with a short term focus on costs. A strategy to produce a radical change in thinking about procurement is being developed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Local Government Association. A key aim will be engaging decision makers and winning the “hearts and minds” of members, Chief Executives and officers. There will be a joint publicity campaign with top down messages from the ODPM and bottom up messages from the LGA.The national strategy will identify leading edge experience and good practice that can be shared between authorities to deliver improvements across the sector. It will address key issues such as how to build skills and competencies, engaging council members in procurement at a strategic level and securing a long term focus on strategic procurement. The aim will be to avoid prescription, but rather provide a facilitating and enabling framework with a clear objective to improve procurement performance throughout local government within a reasonable timeframe. The Byatt report published a year ago found that 75% of councils had no procurement strategies and it is hoped that the new national strategy will provide the impetus for developing local strategies.
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By Mark L Lengnick-Hall and Cynthia A Lengnick-HallMore organizations are recognizing the importance of intellectual capital and knowledge management to success, yet the field of human resource management continues to be criticized for its operational and bureaucratic focus. Human Resource Management in the Knowledge Economy examines how it must change if it is to remain a vital part of the organization. The Lengnick-Halls show how HR departments can move beyond a simple operational focus on attracting, selecting, developing, retaining, and using employees to a more strategic focus on managing human capital and managing knowledge. The authors outline the new roles of human capital steward, knowledge facilitator, relationship builder, and rapid deployment specialist,.that HR must adopt in order to help organizations succeed in this new environment:
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