The Employment Outlook Survey from Manpower, a leading employment services company, shows that employers in the public sector expect to hire more people this summer than their private sector counterparts. The survey reveals that 22 per cent of public sector employers will increase their headcount in the next quarter and just five per cent expect to make cut-backs; compared to 17 per cent and six per cent respectively of those in the private sector. These latest results for the public sector show an uplift from the previous quarter when 16 per cent of employers took on more staff and seven per cent reduced numbers.The survey indicates that budgetary constraints of the last financial year have eased slightly and public sector employers are now more positive about their hiring plans. Growth is not uniform, but there is a demand for staff at central government level as well as from a number of local authorities.
The Improvement and Development Agency has launched a project to share experiences and information on the development of partnerships. It is planned that the website will bring together examples of good practice and identify where there may be gaps. During the summer and into the autumn it is hoped to use online collaboration to build a set of guidance contributed by users for users.Each week a new topic based on the draft guidance will be introduced. Then it is down to the users. With the help of theme leaders it is hoped to build up a picture from comments provided.
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This study of purchasing practice in leading organizations from PA Consulting Group reveals that most have focused on price leverage and overhead cost reduction, but only price leverage has actually delivered significant benefit. The survey included central government agencies; health authorities and local government.A key finding is that organisational constraints have meant that most are only half way along the journey to best practice and have realised less than one quarter of the potential benefits.
This programme is now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernisation. It looks at the opportunities and benefits mobile computing can bring to the public sector, and in particular local authorities.Through a combination of expert panel discussions and interviews, the programme considers the business case for mobile computing and the key issues to consider for successful implementation, with advice on the different technological options available.
The survey published by the Department for Communities and Local Government suggests that interaction between different communities is key to building cohesion and reducing racial prejudice. The majority of people in England and Wales, some 80%, feel that people from different backgrounds get on well together. The survey shows that people with friends from different ethnic groups were far more likely to feel racial prejudice in Britain has got better recently than those with friends of the same ethnic group to themselves. People living in ethnically diverse areas were also more positive, with more people who live in ethnically diverse areas feeling that ethnic differences are respected. This is an improvement from 2003 by 5 per cent to 83 per cent.Other findings include: over two thirds of people feel that, in their neighbourhood, people pull together to improve it, 57 per cent of people trust their local council, an increase from 52 per cent in 2001, half of adults in England volunteer regularly, which is equivalent to 20.4 million people, up from 18.4 million people in 2001 and over three quarters of people in England gave m ney to charity in the four weeks before the survey.
Proposals have been published by the Home Office for a National Policing Improvement Agency to support the delivery of more effective policing and to foster a culture of self-improvement in the police service. The new body has been created because there are currently too many agencies and too many staff involved in policing improvement. Roles and responsibilities need to be more clearly defined and more accountability is needed. There is also significant duplication in corporate services and this gives scope for efficiencies. About 2600 staff are currently engaged in supporting the delivery of policing at the centre across all the existing organisations and the proposals will reduce this number by half.The new organization will bring together improvement work currently carried out by the Home Office, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary and the Association of Chief Police Officers. The bodies currently responsible for training and development and for information technology will be abolished.
The annual survey of recruitment and retention from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shows that employers are responding to recruitment difficulties and new age regulations by recruiting older workers. The survey shows that 70% of employers are actively seeking to recruit people aged between 55 and pension age, while 31% of organisations are seeking to recruit people already entitled to the state pension.The survey also shows an increase in e-recruitment with almost two thirds of organisations using this approach. The main reason for using e-recruitment was reducing costs (71%), followed by broadening the selection pool (60%) and reducing the time it takes to hire (47%). Despite almost half (47%) of organisations agreeing that e-recruitment will replace paper based applications in the future, the same number believe online recruitment is increasing the number of unsuitable applicants. Website recruitment is also increasing with 75% of organisations using corporate websites to attract applicants, compared to just 67% last year.
Flexible learning is increasingly being used by local councils to meet the complex staff training and development needs posed by new initiatives like the efficiency agenda, multi-agency working and changes in legislation. This programme now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernization, examines flexible learning, looking at the opportunities and benefits it can bring, including improved training access, reduced training costs, shorter delivery times, improved employee productivity and morale.Four London Boroughs join forces to deliver flexible learning to their Youth Services departments. This shared services approach has allowed these authorities to overcome the cost and delivery limitations of traditional classroom training to address the efficiency agenda, legislative and policy changes affecting their staff. It also provides the potential to roll out to other service areas and regionally.
The BTEC Professional Award in Local Governance has been developed by Bristol City Council and is administered by Edexcel, the UK’s largest awarding body offering academic and vocational qualifications. The Award is designed to equip Councillors with a full range of effective community leadership and partnership skills, enabling them to represent their communities within a wider governance context. It is the first nationally available qualification for Councillors.The course is an 80 hour commitment, spread across a range of modules. The cost is 1000 pounds.
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This programme is now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernisation. It looks at the potential to reduce the paper mountain and streamline the processes that support a wide variety of services. It considers how techniques like Business Process Re-engineering, Workflow, Document Management, and Content Management can be harnessed to improve effectiveness. It explores the opportunities for efficiency gains that can come from over-hauling the historic administrative processes and the correspondingly high costs that still remain in many areas of local authority operations.The panel discussion takes a strategic view of the opportunities for efficiency gains and considers the most appropriate services and processes to tackle in order to reduce administrative costs and redirect resources to the front line.