This publication from the Crime and Society Foundation is made up of a collection of essays examining what impact, if any, criminal justice agencies have on crime levels. While offering distinctive perspectives and proposals, the seven authors, who include politicians, opinion formers, campaigners and academics, are agreed that an effective approach to crime reduction must look beyond the criminal justice system, to the wider social and economic policies that lie behind crime trends.The leading article argues that because the criminal justice system only resolves a tiny fraction of the offences that are committed, it is largely irrelevant as a means of controlling crime. This means that attempts to improve the functioning of the system, including the kind of crisis management measures recently announced under the Government’s `Operation Safeguard’, can only have a marginal impact on crime rates.
This survey of customer service directors in public and private organisations across the UK, commissioned by the software company Touchpaper, reveals that 85 per cent believe rising customer expectations about service levels are among the main challenges they face. The survey found that customers are increasingly likely to complain when faced with poor service, according to 97 per cent of customer service chiefs polled.Almost 80% of customer service directors believe that there is a greater awareness of consumer rights and 74 per cent highlight a cultural shift, with customers losing their famous reserve, making them more confident about speaking up for themselves when they experience poor service. The directors believe that for the public sector to be seen as successful it is more than ever important for citizens to be treated as valued customers.
This report from the Department for Communities and Local Government sets out the findings of a qualitative research programme undertaken by BMG Research to examine views and perceptions of local government. The research involved focus group discussions and workshops.For most people, “local authority service provision” means refuse collection and recycling, followed by leisure, sporting and recreational facilities, parks and keeping the streets clean. Awareness of the range of services provided by councils tended to be low. Over two in five respondents, 42%, are satisfied overall with the way in which their local authority runs things.
The report is aimed at those involved in planning, using or evaluating e-government. Benchmarking has a value in learning about best practice through comparative measurement, for accounting to stakeholders and for demonstrating the return on investment.The report draws on models of e-government and current practice of benchmarking e-government to answer questions about why benchmark? what to benchmark? how to benchmark? and how to report? It provides a series of recommendations based on good practice or innovative practice, backed up by a set of conceptual frameworks and statistical findings. Checklists are provided for those planning and for those evaluating e-government benchmarking studies.
Following publication of the White Paper ‘Strong and Prosperous Communities’, the Government has issued an invitation to county and district councils to make proposals for mergers into unitary councils, or to be pathfinders developing innovative two-tier models for counties and district to work together. The invitation makes it clear that those councils in two-tier areas that are not pathfinders will be expected to achieve the same level of improvement and efficiency gains as the new unitaries and pathfinders will be achieving.The White Paper sets out in detail the issue that the Government is seeking to address. Strong leadership and clear accountability is harder to achieve where for the same place there are two council leaders each with a legitimate democratic mandate and often having different and sometimes conflicting agendas. As an example of the difficulty, it quotes Cumbria which has seven council leaders and 62 other executive members for a population slightly smaller than unitary Sheffield which has one council leader and nine other executive members.
This report from the Society for IT Management describes the Chief Information Officer as the agent of transformation. The role should be leading the change required for realisation of the transformation agenda within public services. The report also suggests that heads of ICT are well-placed to take on this responsibility.The report identifies some of the barriers to change that exist even in the most progressive organisations. In some cases there is disagreement that services will improve by being delivered in different ways. In other cases there is outright resistance to change. To overcome these barriers and deliver real improvement, public services require a competent organisation, a supportive culture, and a leader with the right skills. That leader, says the report, is the CIO and the person undertaking the role needs a mix of business, organisational and change management skills.
Many voluntary and community organisations are weak in HR. A report from the National Council for Voluntary Organisation’s and the UK Workforce Hub reveals that they often do not have the resources to employ a dedicated HR role, with the result that line managers carry out functions they are not trained to perform.The report, ‘Consortia purchase of Human Resources (HR) support’ gives forward thinking voluntary and community organisations the opportunity to explore different ways of meeting their HR management needs when planning and developing their workforce. It describes how through collaboration, organisations have the potential to take a far more proactive approach to HR. This will benefit organisations by enabling them to attract and retain good staff, as well as avoiding damaging and expensive litigation.
This report from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations calls on the vital relationship between voluntary and community organisations and local government to be strengthened. It recognises many of the recommendations in the LGA’s recent vision, ‘Closer to People and Places’, and highlights significant opportunities for local government and the voluntary and community sector to work together at both a local and national level.The report outlines key areas where voluntary and community organisations and local government must work together better. Partnership is essential and voluntary and community organisations should be involved in Local Strategic Partnerships and Local Area Agreements. All local public bodies and all local partners, including voluntary and community organisations and local businesses, should be brought together to strategically plan for the future and be involved in developing sustainable community strategies.
Read more on HOW VOLUNTARY AND COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS CAN HELP TRANSFORM THE LOCAL RELATIONSHIP…
This programme is now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernisation. It describes how the National Centre for Applied Learning Technologies is using flexible learning as a way of delivering consistent, cost efficient work skills training to over 105,000 users across the 43 UK police authorities.NCALT, a partnership between the police training organisation Centrex and the Metropolitan Police Service, was established to encourage the use of flexible learning for the UK police service.
This report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development highlights the need for greater use of supervision of coaches in the workplace, and the development of good practice coaching supervision. Despite a dramatic growth in the use of coaching in organisations in recent years, very few organisations are using coaching supervision to support their coaches and to get the best value from their coaching services.According to the research, less than half of coaches say they are receiving regular supervision, and less than a quarter of organisations who use coaching are providing coaching supervision. Despite this limited use of coaching supervision, the picture has improved significantly in recent years, with 58% of those coaches receiving supervision having begun the process in the last two years. Supervision is really only beginning to be established in the coaching profession, but it can yield enormous benefits for coaches, for their clients and for the organisations which employ them.