Residents are taking advantage of legislation to develop local councils with limited spending power as a form community self-help. The introduction of local councils, where all residents can attend meetings and vote, is creating tensions and the author examines the issue of how bottom-up and top-down forms of representing communities can be successfully linked and how tensions can be resolved. He also examines the challenge of sustaining interest amongst residents and amongst individuals willing to stand as local councilors.

New guidelines have been published to make the implications of Government accounting rules easier to understand for funders in the voluntary and community sector. ‘Guidance to Funders’ has been produced by the Treasury as a direct response to recommendations of the 2002 Cross Cutting Review of the Role of the Voluntary and Community Sector in Service Delivery.The Treasury claims it will make a significant contribution to the Government’s commitment to creating a framework in which the voluntary and community sector can flourish, be strong andindependent. The review identified the need for clear and consistent guidance around funding relationships between the sector and the government. The new document clarifies what practices are and are not allowed under Government Accounting standards.Paul Boateng, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said that if the Government reaped the rewards of the sector’s role in service delivery, it must improve the funding relationship. “This guidance to funders is designed to make it clearer and therefore easier for funding bodies to distribute money to the voluntary and community sector.”The guidance is aimed at government departments, Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), and funding bodies themselves. “Guidance to Funders: improving funding relationships for voluntary and community organisations” is freely available on the Treasury and Home Office websites.

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The idea of closer working between health and education professionals, social workers and advisers based in and around schools and Children’s Centres is at the heart of plans to reform children’s services set out in a Green paper – ‘Every Child Matters’. The proposals would also see a Children’s Director in every local authority but the Local Government Association has called for councils to be free to decide for themselves which officer is most appropriate to carry out the duties and UNISON is warning that without proper resources good policies would be useless.The Green Paper proposes steps to end legal, technical and cultural barriers to information sharing to allow effective communication between everyone with a responsibility for children. It also sets out plans for the establishment of a clear framework of accountability at a national and local level with the appointment of a single director in each local council responsible for bringing all children’s services together as Children’s Trusts.

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