The development of e-procurement across public services is lagging because of incompatible software that prevents computers talking to each other. The Office for Government Commerce is collaborating with the Business Applications Software Developers Association to break the language barrier. The aim is to generate substantial value for money improvements across government departments and agencies with e-procurement and offer significant process-cost reductions for suppliers.The OGC and BASDA are running trials of standard software to establish common IT standards for e-procurement to allow suppliers and public sector buyers to conduct business online more easily. The software under trial has already been used commercially across Europe. The common vocabulary has cut costs by eliminating re-keying of data.
Contractual and legal changes have been published that will affect the daily lives of head teachers, teachers, and support staff across schools inEngland. The changes are founded on a national agreement between theGovernment, employers and school workforce unions, which was signed in January 2003, The practical application of the reforms have been worked out by the Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group, comprising representatives from all the signatories. The agreed contractual changes will now be subject to a formal 4 week consultation and, subject to Parliament, will become law from 1 September 2003.From September 2003, teachers will no longer have to undertake administrative duties, they will be given time for leadership and management responsibilities and will benefit from a new work-life balance clause that will help to achieve progressive reductions in their overall hours. These changes will help to free teachers from inappropriate and excessive workloads and boost the role and status of school support staff, allowing teachers to teach.
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Iain Roxburgh and Natalie ArendPublic sector bodies are faced with the challenge of bringing about a real shift in the quality of local services. One response has been for local authorities to work together, across geographic and institutional boundaries. Crossing Boundaries: New Ways of Working looks at how they are getting on.