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General Reports and Other Publications
JRF: New Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) research reveals local fears about the impact of cuts on
Press release & links
Socitm: Socitm Insight has carried out a mini website survey of the usefulness & usability of 9 high profile city-based hospitals in England. The survey assessed how easy it was to complete 5 common tasks likely to be high on the priority list of every patient. The survey revealed a distinct lack of customer focus likely to leave patients & visitors struggling to find key information.
Press release & links
CSJ: Marriage is integral to tackling family breakdown says the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in response to IFS study – ‘Cohabitation, marriage, relationship stability and child outcomes’. Broadly, the headline claim of the paper that ‘Marriage does not improve children's development’ is questionable given the many caveats & nuances contained within the body of research, as well as the fact it takes a very narrow measurement of marriage’s impact on children.
Press release & links
NLGN: A new White Paper from localism think tank the New Local Government Network suggests that by following a model of bulk purchasing from energy providers recently launched in The Netherlands, councils can create significant savings for their residents.
The innovation undertaken earlier this year by a Dutch organisation, Met de Stroom Mee, yielded a 20% saving in energy costs for households. If councils imitate this model in the UK, even a 10% equivalent efficiency would result in a £125 reduction in costs to consumers.
Press release & links
PC&PE: The Commons Home Affairs Committee ‘deplores’ News International's attempt to ‘deliberately thwart’ the original investigation into phone hacking in 2005-06, but also states that the police set aside a huge amount of material that could have identified other perpetrators and victims.
Press release & links
IfG: The Institute for Government has welcomed the announcement that Minister for Decentralisation, Greg Clark, will take on the additional role of Minister for Cities, reporting to Vince Cable, the Business Secretary.
The Institute’s work in this area suggests that the introduction of strong, locally elected mayors provide a vital opportunity for addressing these difficulties and stimulating growth. However, in the briefing note, 'Better Mayors', the Institute argues that current proposals for mayors do not yet go far enough.
Press release & links
PC&PE: The Treasury Committee has called on the Independent Commission on Banking to address a number of concerns that have been raised about its proposal to ring-fence retail banking – including its effect on the competitiveness of
The Select Committee has also asked the ICB to look at how corporate governance in banks could be improved to enhance the stability of the financial system in its final report due out in September 2011.
Press release & links
FRC: The principle of ‘comply or explain’ plays an essential part in promoting best practice in corporate governance, says the Financial Reporting Council in a submission to the European Commission published recently.
The FRC’s submission recognises the need to make the system work better. In particular it will be promoting a dialogue with companies & investors in the coming months to seek a consensus in the market about what constitutes a clear explanation to shareholders if a company deviates from the UK Corporate Governance Code.
Press release & links
CBI: The CBI has called on the Government to fundamentally rethink its approach to employment law in order to bolster workplace flexibility and foster better employment relations. Launching its first ever digital report Thinking Positive: the 21st century employment relationship, produced in collaboration with Hays, the CBI explores how the employment relationship has changed, becoming even more flexible.
The report includes video interviews with employees & staff on the benefits of good communication & flexibility, and looks at how this helped minimise private sector job losses during and post-recession.
Press release & links
PX: Customers could benefit from improved customer services, lower prices & saving water if the water services market in England & Wales was deregulated, according to new research from leading think tank Policy Exchange.
The study, Water Retail Services Competition in England and Wales: Still Hobson’s Choice?, recommends that vertically-integrated local water monopolies should be partially broken up, with businesses & public sector organisations given the right to choose their water retail suppliers.
Press release & links
PC&PE: The Government's proposals for opening up probation services to competition need further thought, MPs on the Justice Committee have warned in a new report. The committee believes that the Government's proposals for payment by results and wider competition in the provision of rehabilitative services are limited because they separate the commissioning of prison places from the commissioning of every other form of sentence provision.
They criticised the very large & incoherent areas used for the tendering of community payback contracts, which they say should not be a model for future commissioning. MPs were also concerned that frontline probation staff spend three-quarters of their time doing administrative tasks rather than meeting directly with offenders.
Press release & links
DWP: Research has been published by the Department for Work and Pensions which presents the findings from a quantitative survey designed to: develop the evidence base around work & health and workplace health initiative from the employee perspective; and to provide baseline data so that progress on health & well-being at work can be measured and monitored over time.
Press release ~ DWP Research Report No 751, Health and well-being at work: A survey of employees
HPA: It is estimated that around 216,000 individuals in the
It is therefore critical that anyone who suspects they could have been exposed to Hepatitis C (for example by using unsterile or sharing injecting equipment) is tested. The future burden of hepatitis C-related infections is set out in 'Hepatitis C in the ', a report produced by the HPA to coincide with World Hepatitis Day on 28 July 2011.
Press release & links ~ Hepatitis C in the UK: 2011 report
CQC: The Care Quality Commission has told the Castlebeck Care Group that it has serious concerns about 4 of the services run by the group, and that a further 7 do not fully comply with essential standards of quality and safety.
Press release & links ~ Independent Safeguarding Authority comment
PC&PE: A report released by the Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee calls for changes to the Government's Draft Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill. Among other things, the committee calls for the powers to fine to be made clear on the face of the Bill, and also wants changes to allow indirect suppliers such as farmers & trade associations (and whistleblowers) to be able to provide the evidence that would spark an investigation by the adjudicator.
Press release & links
CQC: The Care Quality Commission have published the last batch of reports from the Dignity and nutrition inspection programme.
Press release & links
DWP: Research was published recently by the Department for Work and Pensions which presents the findings from a quantitative survey that was designed to collect robust evidence on attitudes held amongst the working-age population towards the relationship between work and health.
Press release & links ~ DWP Research Report No 763 – Attitudes to health and work amongst the working age population
CIPD: A desire to ‘increase pay and benefits’ has become the number one reason why employees want to change jobs, overtaking ‘improving job satisfaction’ in the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) Employee Outlook survey, as the economic downturn continues to erode people’s standard of living.
Press release & links
CQC: Children & young people who offend are more likely to receive the health services they need following improved working by youth offending teams, says a joint report published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMI Probation).
‘Re:Actions, the third review of healthcare in the community for young people who offend’ looks at how Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) help provide health services to the children & young people they work with.
Press release & links
DWP: Over 7m disabled people in the
The steering group have called for other employers to rethink their attitude towards disabled people. They are also encouraging employers to sign up to Clearkit – an online resource, developed by employers, which helps identify & remove barriers in the recruitment of disabled people. The aim is to sign up 1,000 organisations to the resource by October 2011 so that 500 more businesses make their recruitment practices fairer for disabled people.
Press release & links
IPPR: The government should establish a new ‘National Salary Insurance’ to give people extra cash when they lose their job but require them to repay it when they return to work, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research ( IPPR) in a new report.
IPPR argues that a new National Salary Insurance could offer working people who become unemployed up to 70% of their previous earnings in non-means tested support for up to 6 months (capped at a maximum of £200 a week). This would incorporate their existing entitlement to contributory JSA (£67.50 a week), trebling the amount of support available to people when they lose their job.
Press release & links
PC&PE: In a major report released last week, the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee says big changes need to be made to the way football is run in England to address financial instability & levels of debt in the game, and to secure its future.
