General Reports and Other Publications
CBI: A new CBI report calls on recently elected Police & Crime Commissioners to work with independent providers to help them meet budgetary demands, improve service efficiency, and free up more warranted officers to be on the frontline.
A force for the future: transforming policing through partnership also calls on Police Commissioners to leverage economies of scale in their procurement by purchasing products, or by sharing services, at a regional or national level. The report highlights that there are still 6,600 police officers performing back office functions, like HR, finance, procurement, and ICT, which could be carried out by the independent sector.
HL: Many homeless people are being failed by the government’s flagship Work Programme says a new report from Crisis, Homeless Link and St Mungo’s, with the charities calling for urgent reform. The Programme’s Not Working draws upon surveys & interviews conducted by the 3 homelessness charities.
The report calls for Jobcentre Plus staff to identify & assess claimants who are homeless more effectively and provide a better standard of service for them, including through working with charities that already have specialist experience and successful track records of helping homeless people back into work.
NO: Bristol City Council granted planning permission for an illuminated sign without notifying a woman living nearby or considering the effect on her residential amenity, finds Local Government Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin. The Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice.
ScotGov: A report has been published recently to improve medical assessments for children who have been a victim of abuse. The report, led by a group of experts, provides recommendations around the quality & training of health staff, accountability of services & standards of record keeping for medical examinations and collecting evidence. The improvements will reduce delays in examinations and ensure that they are carried out by suitably trained professionals.
NAO: The board of Peterborough and Stamford NHS Trust failed to recognize in 2007 that a PFI scheme to build a new hospital, Peterborough City Hospital, would place considerable strain on its finances for years to come.
According to a report by the National Audit Office, the then board compounded the decision to proceed with the scheme, which it could not afford, with a failure to monitor other changes affecting its income & costs between 2007 & 2011. The result was that the Trust faced a very large, recurrent deficit once the new hospital opened.
Press release ~ NAO report ~ Monitor statement in response to the NAO report on Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
WAG: Deputy Minister for Skills Jeff Cuthbert has received the final report of the Review of Qualifications for 14 to 19-year-olds. The independent Review was commissioned in September 2011 to consider how the Welsh Government can achieve the vision of qualifications that are understood & valued and meet the needs of our young people and the Welsh economy. The Review was prompted by a number of concerns about the complexity of the current system and the extent to which it is understood, and the relevance, value & rigour of some qualifications.
BIS: Entrepreneur & educator Doug Richard has published his independent report on the future of apprenticeships. In his independent report he calls on the government to improve the quality of apprenticeships and make them more focused on the needs of employers.
PC&PE: In a recent report, the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee says that Air Passenger Duty on short haul flights - which make up 98.5% of all flights to Northern Ireland - remains a major stumbling block to rebalancing the NI economy and must be scrapped on all flights to NI from Great Britain and on all flights from NI. There are no realistic alternatives to air travel - especially for business travel - into & out of Northern Ireland.
IFS: A third of those approaching retirement report finding it impossible even to hazard a guess as to how much income they will receive from their private pensions. This is true of nearly 40% of those with defined contribution (DC) pensions. That is one of the main findings of a new report published by researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
NHS Confed: Interim director of the Mental Health Network, Paddy Cooney, says a joint approach to delivering a range of support services is the right way to ensure high quality mental health care.
IoE: Digital technologies in the classroom must go hand in hand with innovative & structured teaching to have a true impact on educational achievements, research from the Institute of Education, London, and The University of Nottingham has shown.
In the last 5 years, UK schools have spent more than £1bn on everything from interactive whiteboards to laptops & tablets, but the study found that buying in the latest technology was no guarantee to raising pupil attainment.
CIPD: A new model of values-based leadership needs to be developed across the public sector if the twin objectives of reducing spending & providing more customer-focused services are to be met. That’s according to new research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Public Sector People Managers’ Association (PPMA), exploring how chief executives and HR directors in a range of local service organisations are leading efforts to transform service delivery in line with the Government’s localism agenda.
Press release & links ~ Leading culture change: employee engagement and public service transformation
ESRC: The use of technology in the classroom is nothing new, but Topcliffe Primary School in Birmingham is breaking new ground by using technology to help pupils with autism communicate more effectively.
The school, which teaches around 30 children with various levels of autism, was 1 of 4 schools across UK, which participated in the ECHOES research project, jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) from universities across the UK to explore how technology can make a difference in the classroom.
The school, which teaches around 30 children with various levels of autism, was 1 of 4 schools across UK, which participated in the ECHOES research project, jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) from universities across the UK to explore how technology can make a difference in the classroom.
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