General Reports and Other Publications
WO: Lack of adequate broadband connections and ‘not-spots’ in some of the most rural parts of Wales are amongst the biggest frustrations for local communities & businesses, according to a recent Rural Economy Taskforce Report published by the Wales Office.
Ofsted: Nurture groups can make a considerable difference to the behaviour & social skills of children who might otherwise be at risk of exclusion according to a new report from Ofsted. However, schools should ensure that pupils in these groups are making academic as well as social & emotional progress.
Nurture groups are small, structured teaching groups for pupils showing signs of behavioural, social or emotional difficulties. This could include aggression, an inability to work independently, or very withdrawn behaviour.
Press release & links ~ Supporting children with challenging behaviour through a nurture group approach
NO: Serious & extensive failures in Leeds City Council’s provision of education & care services resulted in substantial injustice for vulnerable children and their parents, finds Local Government Ombudsman, Anne Seex.
She has issued reports on 3 different complaints where her investigations found the Council’s service provision was inadequate. All the complaints involved children with special educational needs.
She has issued reports on 3 different complaints where her investigations found the Council’s service provision was inadequate. All the complaints involved children with special educational needs.
PC&PE: Local authority control of audit & performance provides opportunities to improve value for money and to focus more closely on local priorities. However, there are significant risks to accountability for public money unless new legal & practical arrangements are put in place to uphold the vital principle of auditor independence, warn MPs in a new report from the Communities and Local Government Committee.
The Government has already stated it plans to introduce a public audit bill in the autumn. The committee argues this legislation must set out a number of key principles to govern public audit arrangements in the future.
The Committee also acknowledges that with costs now exceeding benefits the end of Comprehensive Area Assessment with ‘command and control’ targets & inspection has been widely welcomed. It calls on local authorities to focus on local priorities.
NAO: Despite major expenditure by central government departments on developing the skills of their staff, government does not know how much is being spent and has rarely evaluated its impact on performance.
NAO: The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has delivered some value from the £39.3m spent on its geographic information strategy & activities, the National Audit Office has reported. However, the Department has not tracked the full cost of geographic information and systems to it or its arm’s length bodies, or systematically measured benefits.
The Department has been able to identify savings of only approximately £9m. The figures for costs & benefits are both likely to be underestimates. This lack of financial information means that the NAO cannot determine that value for money has been achieved.
ScotGov: The Joint Action Group on football has met for the final time before the new season delivering wide-ranging recommendations to improve the game. The JAG has agreed 40 points which make significant progress from the initial proposals set out at the meeting in March.
NAO: The Comptroller and Auditor General, Amyas Morse, has qualified the Social Fund White Paper Account for the eighth consecutive year. The account has been qualified because of material levels of error in discretionary awards, which include Budgeting Loans, Crisis Loans & Community Care Grants, and in Funeral Expense Payments. He has also qualified his opinion on Cold Weather Payments, for the first time, because of the level of error found in these payments.
The C&AG has for the second consecutive year, also limited the scope of his opinion on the level of debt within the account, owing to the absence of sufficient appropriate evidence to support the breakdown of the customer debt balance.
EHRC: A new report (All things being equal? Equality and Diversity in careers education, information, advice & guidance) from the Equality and Human Rights Commission looking at careers education & guidance shows there is an aspiration gap for some young people & identifies specific barriers facing different groups.
The report provides strong evidence that careers education & guidance affects the aspirations, subject, career choices and future & and progression for different groups of young people.
The report provides strong evidence that careers education & guidance affects the aspirations, subject, career choices and future & and progression for different groups of young people.
EHRC: New health commissioning bodies should learn from the mistakes of their predecessors and take steps to meet their obligations under equality legislation to make a real difference to health outcomes according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The Commission undertook a study assessing the performance of a sample of Strategic Health Authorities & Primary Care Trusts in England with regard to the race, gender & disability equality duties. It found that many bodies were not taking sufficient action to address the diverse needs of people in Britain and to protect the rights of disadvantaged groups.
It concluded that without a major re-think by new health bodies on how they tackle discrimination and advance equality some groups will continue to experience poorer health.
It concluded that without a major re-think by new health bodies on how they tackle discrimination and advance equality some groups will continue to experience poorer health.
EA: Action should be taken now to protect water supplies for business, agriculture, the environment and people - thereby minimising the risk of water restrictions in the future, says a new report from the Environment Agency. It recommends that ‘more farmers should invest in winter storage and that water companies plan ahead for more long, dry periods and continue running campaigns to encourage customers to reduce water’.
MPA: The Metropolitan Police Authority has published the final report of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Board providing a 5-year retrospective of monitoring, scrutinising and supporting the Metropolitan Police Service's (MPS) performance and response to domestic and sexual violence.
Over the past 5 years the MPA Domestic and Sexual Violence Board (DSVB) has assessed the police response to domestic & sexual violence in each of London's 32 boroughs, identified best practice and made recommendations for improvement.
iea: New research by the Institute of Economic Affairs shows how the government could reduce public spending by an additional £215bn. This would mean the government would be spending around 30% of GDP instead of the government’s proposal of around 40%. The IEA’s proposals would deliver average tax reductions equivalent to around £7,500 per household each year.
The reforms proposed in Sharper Axes, Lower Taxes: Big Steps to a Smaller State (pdf free to download) could also increase economic growth by 0.75% a year leading to dramatic improvements in long-run living standards. The iea claims that opinion poll research conducted for it by ComRes shows overwhelming public support for a much deeper programme of spending cuts.
Newswire – TUC: The widely-held ideological view that buying your home is always best has led successive governments to ignore poorer homeowners, says a recent TUC report. Can Housing Work for Workers? is the latest in the series of Touchstone pamphlets and was written for the TUC by the Fabian Society.
It calls for a new approach to housing policy and says that although more & more people want to own their own homes, home ownership does not always bring prosperity.
It calls for a new approach to housing policy and says that although more & more people want to own their own homes, home ownership does not always bring prosperity.
The report says that back in 1975 only 62% of the adult population aspired to own their own home, but by 2010 the figure had risen to 89%. However huge mortgages taken out by workers in low-paid jobs can leave cash tied up in property while families become poor and unable to move to pursue employment opportunities elsewhere.
Newswire – TUC: The last 20 years have seen a significant increase in the proportion of over-50s and people over retirement age in employment, the TUC has revealed. A new TUC analysis (Age and Gender: What has changed in the labour market in recent years) - published to coincide with the latest unemployment figures, which were issued last week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - finds that the jobs market has changed significantly since 1992.
HEFCE: The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has published a strategy statement setting out its overall approach to implementing the Government's proposals for higher education reform in the recent White Paper. It also identifies a number of high-level objectives in relation to research & knowledge exchange.
PC&PE: Family Courts will need to be more prepared to cope with litigants representing themselves, following Government reforms to Legal Aid – MPs on the Commons Justice Committee have warned in a new report.
The MPs are also calling on the Government to ‘scrap the provisions in the Children, Schools and Families Act 2010 to allow media access to Family Courts’ following universal condemnation of the plans. The report recommends that Ministers reformulate proposals to increase transparency in Family Courts putting the views of children centre stage.
NAO: HM Revenue & Customs' PaceSetter Programme, aimed at streamlining business operations, has improved productivity through new ways of working and may have contributed to greater staff engagement.
However, the National Audit Office has concluded that the Programme is not yet value for money because the extent to which efficiency has improved is not clear; and some key principles of process improvement are not yet being applied strategically across the entire organisation and embedded into the Department's core processes.
However, the National Audit Office has concluded that the Programme is not yet value for money because the extent to which efficiency has improved is not clear; and some key principles of process improvement are not yet being applied strategically across the entire organisation and embedded into the Department's core processes.
Newswire – LC: In a report published last week, the Law Commission recommends reforms to the 5 public services ombudsmen that will make it easier for citizens to complain if they receive poor public services.
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