Merry Christmas from all at Civica!

On behalf of everyone at Civica we wish you a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.

As part of our ongoing commitment to give back to the community and reduce our carbon footprint we will make a donation to our chosen charity, 'Water for Kids' instead of sending Christmas cards.

For further information about the great work Water for Kids undertakes visit www.waterforkids.org.uk

DWP Public Consultation: Supporting People into Work

The DWP has launched the consultation documents for their Supporting People into Work: The next stage of Housing Benefit reform.

The consultation process seeks views from local authorities, housing associations, advice workers and landlords regarding the department's reforms of housing benefit. The proposals aim to ensure that housing benefit is better able to help people into work, is fairer, more efficiently delivered and represents good value for money for the taxpayer.

Full details can be downloaded here

Big week for Public Service Changes!

The pre-budget report may be the most important event of the week, but it stands amid other announcements that reflect the way public services are changing. We've also seen the first release of results from a new way of monitoring local councils' performance, plus the Treasury report on public sector reform, Smarter Government,

Oneplace Launch
The new framework for inspecting local services, known as Oneplace and accessible via the government's Directgov website, is a bid to get over the well-known problem of previous inspections: councils were capable of meeting the targets, but missing the point. Their internal workings could be four-star, but the services they were actually delivering might fall well short of excellence.

Oneplace assesses not just councils, but also police authorities, primary care trusts and fire and rescue services. The output is not a league table or star system, but a "narrative in plain English" of the priorities that areas have themselves set. The initial launch appeared to be a success with reports that on the first day the site was visited by more than 54,000 people a volume which led to the collapse of the site for a period.

The new monitoring system, which covers 152 areas of England, uses a flag system to signal examples of particularly good or bad practice.

A Solution to better Services?
It's new for local areas and it's new for the six inspectorates involved, led by the local authority watchdog, the Audit Commission. However, there has already been criticism of the amount of time and resource local authorities must now allocate to various inspection and reporting processes. And the key question remains will it get closer to what the public perceive as good-value local public services?

Links
Oneplace
Audit Commission Website
Audit Commission Tweets
DirectGov
Adapted from original article featured in The Guardian

IFS Claims More Public Sector Cuts to Come

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has claimed that the Chancellor has still to announce a further £15bn of cuts to Public Sector spending. This is on top of those included in the Pre Budget Report on Wednesday.

If true it would appear that, along with a few bankers, Public Sector budgets are amongst hardest hit by the final PBR before the Election. But the figures are being denied by Jack Straw who said the IFS had not taken into account savings the government has already made "We've already spent £4bn less on unemployment benefits and income support for the unemployed than was anticipated." He added that the government hoped to make further savings by "moderating the rate of increase of unemployment".

Strong Provider/Authority Partnerships Key
Whatever the truth of the real depth of the cuts, it will be those managers within the sector who produce the most innovative solutions across their service provision who'll benefit the most. Following the recent announcements by the Prime Minister, there can be no doubt that investment in technology has a role to play in this process. However, with tightening of budgets, greater emphasis will be placed on providers and Local Authorities to work together to identify the most suitable initiatives that will achieve long term efficiency savings and improvements to services.

Links
Institute of Fiscal Studies
Pre Budget Report 2009 Microsite
PBR Summary facts & figures from FT.com

2009 Pre-Budget Report Announcement Predictions

Alistair Darling will deliver his Pre-Budget report Wednesday 9 December. The main focus of the headlines will inevitably centre around the on-going war between the Government and the City, Inheritance Tax thresholds and Captial Gains Tax, but there will also be implications for the public sector.

Possible areas of interest include:
- Further details on the plans to reduce public spending
- Announcement of £2.5bn for training schemes & benefits to help reduce youth long term unemployment
- Reduction on upper limits of means tested benefits
- Possible taxation plan for child benefit but only for high income earners

The FT has summarised a number of expert predictions for the report content. Click here to read more

You can follow the latest announcements and possible implications live on the sites below:-

Links
HM Treasury PBR Microsite
Deloitte UKBudget Twitter Live Updates
HM Treasury Twitter site
BBC PBR Site

PM Announces Plans for Online Government Future

The prime minister has confirmed the government's ambitions to make many services available only online and to open access to data

In a speech to mark the publication of the Putting the Frontline First: smarter government paper, Gordon Brown said that moving services and data online was part of "the third generation of changes" to public services.

"Our aim is - within the next five years - to shift the great majority of our large transactional services to become online only”

Over the next year, the government will say how it plans to move transactions online as soon as it can, starting with student loans, jobseekers' allowance, working tax credits and child benefit. In 2011, VAT and employer tax returns will move exclusively online. Mr Brown said this could save £400m as a first step and billions further on.

On online information, the prime minister said: "Every citizen will from next year have access to all information on the performance of our public services showing how, and in great detail, hospitals schools and all our public services perform in your own neighbourhood.

"We will give our frontline services greater freedoms and flexibilities to respond innovatively to this data, reducing the number of ring fenced budgets, rationalising different central funding projects and joining up capital funding within a local area," he added.

More resources will also be switched from back office functions to the front line of public sector workers, as outlined in the Frontline First paper, and emphasised the role of technology in making services more responsive to users' needs.

"Information is the key. An informed citizen is a powerful citizen," he said, adding that more public sector datasets could be opened for general access, including those within local authorities, the NHS, police and education.

"And these must all have the opportunity for feedback and interaction, for that is where power lies for the citizen," added Brown, mentioning NHS Choices as an example of allowing patients to review and rate services.

To help citizens get online, the government will put another £30m into the UK Online programme, to get another 1m people online by 2012.

Links
Frontline First Website
Frontline First Paper
Smarter Government Speech by Gordon Brown
Government Digital Engagement Blog

Stockport MBC - Another Civica OPENRevenues Winner!

Stockport MBC were named winners at the recent LGC Finance Awards!

We're delighted they were successful in the category for Quality of Service and Innovation at the event in Claridges Hotel, London hosted by the BBC's Bill Turnbull. You can see pictures from the evening here

This is the second announcement we have been able to make for Stockport within 6 months, following their recognition at the Guardian's GC Awards for their Flexible and Remote Working Programme earlier this year!

It brings to a total of six major awards won by Civica OPENRevenues customers in the second half of 2009!

We're pleased to pass on our congratulations once again to everyone involved.

Government Five Year IT Strategy Proposal Leak

A version of Government ICT Strategy: “New world, New challenges, New opportunities” which is aimed at positioning the government's approach to IT for the next five years has been leaked prior to its planned release later this month.

Below is a brief summary of the alleged main findings and recommendations of the "review".

New Technology focus:
The leaked report claims many new technologies will become mainstream over the next 5 years, but that the three it names are of particular interest.

Web 2.0: will provide the basis to improve public sector interaction with customers and partners.

Cloud technology: will enable the development of different business models for the procurement, use and reuse of applications; and service oriented architecture – which provides a set of principles and concepts defining how services interact with each other – can enable the delivery of the G Cloud and an online store of government applications.

Semantic technologies: which separate data and content files from application code and meanings, and could enable computers to handle transactional tasks that currently require human intervention also feature with the review.
It also points to location aware services, human computer interaction – which removes the need for a keyboard – and technologies for more energy efficient operations.

Extension of existing Intiatives
The paper also provides details on a number of existing initiatives, outlining 14 strands of activity. Among other uses the first of these is the Public Sector Network, which will lay the ground for a number of standardised services such as authentication, secure file transfer and federated email.

A prototype of the G Cloud infrastructure is scheduled for delivery early in 2010, and a pilot version of the Government Applications Store, an online portal for the sharing and re-use of business applications, should be launched in the first half of the year.

Shared Service and Convergence
The paper also outlines plans to develop 10-12 highly resilient strategic data centres for the public sector over the next three years, and to develop a common desktop strategy. This will involve delivering 80% of central government desktops through a shared utility service by 2015, and promoting wider use by the rest of the public sector. It is also planned to converge with the cloud by 2015.

Other areas covered in the document include shared services, architecture and standards, open source, green ICT, information security and assurance, the government IT profession, better project delivery, supply management, and internal alignment and compliance.

Finally, the paper emphasises that, while the Cabinet Office, the Chief Information Officers Council and the Office of Government Commerce will provide leadership, the strategy will be implemented primarily by individual organisations.

Early reaction has been mixed and we’ll be posting a summary of responses and opinions as the story develops.

Original article posted on www.guadian.co.uk

LA Revenue Expenditure and Financing: Final Outturn

The latest national statistics on the final outturn estimates of local authority revenue expenditure and financing for 2008-09 were released on 3 December 2009 under arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

The key points from the latest release are:

- Total net current expenditure by local authorities in England was estimated to be £113.1 billion in 2008-09 compared with £108.2 billion in 2007-08, an increase of 4 per cent.

- 37 per cent of net current expenditure in 2008-09 was on education, 17 per cent on social care, 13 per cent on housing benefits and 10 per cent on police.

- 54 per cent of revenue expenditure (on a non-Financial Reporting Standard 17 basis) in 2008-09 was funded by government grants, 25 per cent by council tax and 21 per cent by redistributed non-domestic rates.

The full report is available here

Government reward for housing fraud whistle blowers

Housing Minister John Healey has launched the first-ever national crackdown on tenancy cheats to recover up to 10,000 council and housing association homes fraudulently sublet, and release them to those in real need.

Tenancy cheats can earn thousands of pounds a year by unlawfully subletting their properties whilst they live elsewhere. If caught they will now lose their tenancy, and could lose their right to social housing in future.

147 councils have signed up to the Government's first ever national crackdown on housing fraud, including every council in London. With councils working alongside the housing associations in their areas, they will benefit from a share of £4m to set up their own anti-fraud initiatives - including special hotlines and crack squads to investigate allegations of fraud.

Councils and housing associations have been given around 8,000 thousand leads to follow to potential tenancy cheats in their communities. But Mr Healey admits public tip-offs are vital to tackling the fraudsters - half of all homes recovered from cheats are done so after tip-offs from neighbours. So he is offering a reward/bounty of £500 to anyone whose information leads to the recovery of one of the first 1,000 homes.

The average cost of recovering a property from a tenancy cheat can be as little as £3,000 - while the total cost of building a new council or housing association home can reach well over £100,000.

Councils and housing associations are also being given practical advice on how best to tackle housing fraud, as well as access to posters and leaflets that they can adapt to meet their needs, to encourage people in their area to come forward with any information they may have on local fraudsters.

For further details please click here

LG Minister Barbara Follett predicts a 16 year low for council tax increase next year

The local government finance settlement for 2010-11 has been announced today. Local Government Minister Barbara Follett confirmed that English councils will get a four per cent funding increase for next year confirmed

Ms Follett said that given the current level of inflation and resources made available in the settlement, the Government expects the average Band D council tax increase in 2010-11 to be the lowest for at least sixteen years. However, the Government remains prepared to take capping action on excessive increases set by individual authorities if necessary.

The average Band D council tax increase has been steadily falling in recent years and this year's average increase of three per cent was the lowest since 1994-95. Ms Follett expects to see it fall further next year while councils protect and improve front line services. Already many councils have indicated that they plan to freeze or cut council tax next year.

The Minister said "We and the public also expect councils to play their part and find efficiency savings that make each taxpayer's pounds work as hard as possible. Local government has an excellent record saving £1.7bn this year and next year I want to see them build on that. We are helping them maintain high quality local services in a time of public expenditure constraint through our Total Place pilots and Smarter Government initiatives."

For further details please click here
For the full Ministerial Statement click here
Full local government finance settlement for 2010-11 available here

Civica OPENRevenues New Contact Numbers!

2010 Civica Customer Annual Conference

Explore the Civica User Conference 2010 with Sir Ranolph Fiennes Manchester: 27-28 January 2010

Please find below a link to the Civica Annual Conference - open to existing Civica customers and business partners.

Please click here for 2010 Civica Annual Conference Registration

Every year Civica invite customers from all our business areas to attend this event which includes specially selected seminars, interesting guest speakers such as explorer Sir Ranolph Fiennes OBE, Finance expert Rene Carayol, and comedian Hugh Dennis, plus an exhibition area where you can hear about all the latest product developments.

This year will be the first opportunity for Civica OPENRevenues customers to attend, so we’ve put together a special package offer - only £125 per person for a two day delegate pass, one night accommodation and a place at the Conference dinner OR if you choose not to stay overnight you can attend the Conference and dinner for free!

In 2009 over 400 customers attended the event and we’d be delighted if you can join us this January. For further details please click the link below where you’ll also find details of the Conference schedule and registration form.

We hope to see you there

For further details about the 2010 Civica Annual Conference please click here!

PS: Please pass this invite on to other members of your team who you think will benefit from attending. However, please note numbers may be limited depending on demand.

Local Authority Council Taxbase Data Released

Details of the local authority council taxbase 2009 for England have been announced today. The latest statistics release includes data from 2005 to 2009 updates those previously issued on 26 November 2008.
Below are summary details.

Download the full document here

Number of dwellings

• In England there were 22.0 million dwellings on the Valuation Office valuation list liable for council tax as at 14 September 2009. This is an increase of 1 per cent compared with 2008 and an increase of 3 per cent compared with 2005.
• The number of dwellings on the valuation list that are exempt from council tax increased by 1 per cent compared with 2008 and by 11 per cent compared with 2005.
• The number of class E exemptions (unoccupied dwellings because the resident has moved into hospital or a care home) increased by 7 per cent from September 2008 to stand at 32,700 in September 2009.
• The number of class G exemptions (unoccupied dwellings when occupation is prohibited by law) fell by 8 per cent between 2008 and 2009.
• The number of class L exemptions (unoccupied dwellings repossessed by a mortgage lender) broadly levelled off in September 2009 at 15,500 after having more than doubled between September 2007 and September 2008.
• The number of class Q exemptions (unoccupied dwellings where the person who would otherwise be liable is a trustee in bankruptcy) increased to 1,800 in September 2009 compared with 400 two years ago, in September 2007.
• 7.6 million dwellings were entitled to a discount as a result of being occupied by single adults. This represents 33 per cent of all dwellings.
• 2.7 million Band A dwellings (50 per cent of all dwellings liable to Band A council tax) were entitled to a single adults discount.

Empty properties

• While the number of long term empty properties has remained broadly stable between 2005 and 2009, the percentage of all long term empty properties that were subject to a discount has fallen from 67 per cent to 55 per cent.

Number of dwellings by region and valuation band

• Nationally, two thirds of properties are in Bands A to C and only 9 per cent are in the top three bands.
• The pattern varies widely across regions. In the North East 56 per cent of all properties are in Band A; in London the figure is just 3 per cent. London and the South East accounts for 70 per cent of all Band H properties in England.

Civica OPENRevenues: New Contact Numbers - Monday 23 November

From Monday 23 November 2009 our main contact telephone numbers will be changing. These changes are part of the next stage of our successful transition following the acquisition of the OPENRevenues business by Civica UK Limited.

New Numbers to Remember:
General Enquiries: 01635 264200*
Fax: 01635 264202
Benefits Hotline: 01635 264222
Workflow Hotline: 01635 264233
*including call escalation and critical calls

Please note: If you wish to log a call, e.g. to register a fault, you should still email the details to ORHelpdesk@civica.co.uk

And that’s not all....
We will shortly be introducing further improvements including a new helpdesk system, and in the New Year we’ll launch the new customer portal which will allow you to log calls through the Civica OPENRevenues website. This customer portal will also give you access to a whole range of information resources related to our products and company news. We will keep you informed of all the new developments.

We hope you find the new changes useful if you have any problems or questions please contact us by email at ORHelpdesk@civica.co.uk

South Norfolk - Winners: IRRV Benefits Team of the Year!

Congratulations to everyone at Civica OPENRevenues customer South Norfolk Council, who last night were announced winners of the prestigious Benefits Team of the Year Award at the IRRV Annual Conference Performance Dinner.

Click here for photographs of the winners with Civica OPENRevenues Managing Director Bill Loughrey.

Congratulations also to Great Yarmouth BC who were Highly Commended in the "Most improved Team of the Year Category", and to the London Borough of Merton - nominated for the "Excellence in Customer Service" award.

We'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the award winners in particular, but also everyone involved in the teams nominated in each category. Let the competition commence for 2010!

IRRV Annual Conference 2009

Come and visit our team at the 2009 IRRV Annual Conference in Bournemouth.

We'll be demonstrating a selection of our latest products on Stand 44 in the exhibition area. If you'd like to pre-book a meeting with one of our team please email chris.civica@gmail.com.

We look forward to seeing you there.

More Civica OPENRevenues Winners!

Three Civica OPENRevenues customers have been announced as winners of the 2008/09 Direct Debit Challenge.

Congratulations to:

• Bournemouth Borough Council
• Sunderland City Council
• Warwick Council

Each have won £1000 for their nominated charity! A great effort by everyone involved.

For full details of the Direct Debit Challenge and information on how you can take part please click here

3 Civica OPENRevenues Customers Nominated for Top IRRV Awards!

Congratulations to three Civica OPENRevenues customers who have been nominated for the IRRV Performance Awards. Great Yarmouth BC, Merton LBC and South Norfolk DC all made the short list for the awards which will be presented at the IRRV Annual Conference in Bournemouth later this month.

We're delighted for all three organisations, wish them the best of luck and hope they enjoy the awards evening. We will name the winners on this site following the final announcements.

Full details of the awards shortlist is available here.

Nomination details for Civica OPENRevenues: Great Yarmouth BC: Most Improved Team of the Year; Merton LBC: Excellence in Customer Service; South Norfolk DC: Benefits Team of the Year

Meet Civica OPENRevenues at Crieff

Civica OPENRevenues will have our first conference outing since our recent change of ownership. You can meet the team at the IRRV Scottish Annual Conference 2 -3 September 2009 at Crieff Hydro Hotel.

We'll be pleased to see you at stand 11 in the exhibition area.

Blog Renamed Civica OPENRevenues

Following the acuisition of the OPENRevenues by the Civica Group Ltd this blog will now be re-branded Civica OPENRevenues. There are no plans to make any further changes to the site at this stage.

Announcement: Civica Group Ltd Acquire OPENRevenues

31 July 2009, London … Civica Group Ltd, a market leader in software-based solutions that help to improve service delivery and efficiency, has announced that Civica UK Limited, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, has acquired the IBS OPENSystems Revenues and Benefits business (“OPENRevenues”) from Capita Group Plc. The business has been renamed Civica OPENRevenues.

Based in Newbury, Civica OPENRevenues specialises in software systems and services for the local government market. Its highly rated product family, which enables the management and collection of council tax and non-domestic rates together with the provision of housing and council tax benefits, is used by more than 60 local authorities across the UK.

Following the acquisition, the Civica group now supplies 94 per cent of the 407 local authorities in Great Britain including more than 170 Revenues and Benefits customers.

Simon Downing, Civica chief executive, said, “I am delighted to welcome the OPENRevenues business into the Civica group. The acquisition adds specialist capability and expertise to Civica’s current activities in an important and highly visible area for local government. With a market-leading product and service portfolio across front and back office, complemented by business process, systems integration and IT managed service expertise, the group is well placed to help customers meet increasingly pressing service and efficiency challenges.”

Bill Loughrey, formerly managing director of the IBS Group, joins as managing director of Civica OPENRevenues. Loughrey said, “This acquisition is a very positive step in the development of the business. OPENRevenues has a proven reputation for developing strong customer relationships, and has provided the product of choice for many customers that have come to market over the last 8 years. I look forward to continuing our product and support programmes while building on the broader capabilities of the Civica group to deliver increasing value to customers.”

The set of specialist applications provided by the enlarged Civica group includes leading products for workflow and document management, administration of council tax, non-domestic rates and benefits, and associated applications including fraud management, mobile working, performance management analysis, on-line forms capability and internet portal facilities for both internal and external users.

About Civica Group Ltd
Civica Group Limited (www.civica.co.uk) is a market leader in software-based solutions that help organisations to improve service delivery and efficiency, with specialist expertise in local government, social housing, enforcement, education and regulated markets. Blending consulting, software and managed services, the group supplies more than 1,800 customers in the UK, Australia, Singapore and the USA, including 90 per cent of the UK’s local authorities.

Reduce Downtime with Status Monitor

System downtime can be expensive and inexcusable - but with Status Monitor it can be predicted and prevented. One of the key problems for our customers is a lack of knowledge about the Progress database.

If a problem occurs, one of our experienced members of staff will carry out a number of tests to determine the cause. Status Monitor replaces these tests with a proactive monitoring system. It constantly checks the important aspects of the IBS application and generates an alert when something occurs which is likely to cause a problem. As a result, predictable errors can be avoided and action taken to minimise the problem, risk to your business and associated costs.

More detailed information is available by emailing a request here alternatively you can contact your Civica OPENRevenues Account Manager on 01635 550088.

New Consumer White Paper: Council Tax Implications

The new Government White Paper "Better Deal for Consumers" released on Thursday, and aimed at helping those in financial difficulty, has implications for Council Tax Collection:

"The Government wants to ensure that consumers in financial difficulty are treated with consideration by all their creditors. Council tax is rightly considered a priority debt and given precedence over other debts by people unable to pay all their debts when drawing up a repayment schedule. But local authorities recognise that some people will face real difficulties in meeting their obligations during the downturn. Council tax benefit is available for those on low incomes and we are keen that everyone entitled should claim it. Councils have discretion to agree a payment arrangement with any taxpayer to enable them to clear arrears. They can also, and frequently do, make such arrangements instead of pursuing formal enforcement measures."

There are also two further initiatives announced: "Council tax collection protocol" and a "Statement of good collection practice"

Full text of the white paper can be reached via a link on our Discussion Board or by clicking here. The relevant pages are 20-22.

Temporary Accommodation Subsidy Proposals for April 2010

The DWP have circulated an advance copy of proposals to change the way subsidy is calculated for temporary accommodation cases i.e. non HRA rent rebate claims. From 1st April 2010 they wish to remove the two different rates of excess benefit that qualify for lower rates of subsidy and calculate the subsidy threshold based on a level linked to the LHA rate. The formal consultation process is due to start about now.

The initial response from OPENRevenues is now available to members of our Discussion Group and will be posted in edited form on this blogsite shortly.

NEW! OPENRevenues Discussion Board Launching Soon!

In response to requests from recent User Groups we will shortly be launching the new OPENRevenues Discussion Board. This new facility is designed to allow system users across all our customer sites and our product team to communicate with each other in real-time.

All system users will shortly receive an invitation email linking them to the site and instructions on how to activate their membership.

We hope this channel will add another way in which the OPENRevenues Community can interact with each other, and gives everyone direct access to our product team. If you use our OPENRevenues product look out for your invitation email and we look forward to reading your posts soon!

Real-time reporting of the DWP HoBoD performance statistics

In response to the need for monitoring the DWP derivation rules for the SHBE extract, and financial information on payments and overpayments. We have introdued two new modules to their product suite.

The HBoD module enables users to view performance for the current month prior to submission plus the two previous months and matches how DWP apply their derivation rules to determine your performance. This facilitates daily monitoring of benefit performance together with a full analysis before the data issubmitted on the SHBE extract.

The HB Finance module provides detailed information on both payments and overpayments. Allowing monitoring on paid on time from both date determined and date all information received together with outstanding, new, recovered and written off overpayments. In addition within the overpayments area you can now also see details of transactions that affect the outstanding debt such as returned cheques, offsets etc. There is also a drill down on subsidy data and a year on year aged debt analysis.

This software is just part of a suite of products that will help improve efficiency and drive cost savings for LA work processes for further details or to request additional information please ask your Account Manager for details via 01635 550088 or email openrevenues@civica.co.uk

John Denham moved to Cummunities Secretary

John Denham has been appointed communities and local government secretary in Gordon Brown’s reshuffle

Mr Denham previously Innovation, Universities and Skills secretary, described himself as honoured to move to the role.

“Having started out as a local councillor, I know how important it is to have strong local government running outstanding public services. Families and businesses which are struggling in these difficult times are looking to this department for practical help, and I am determined to deliver what they need."

Yvette Cooper Replaces James Purnell

Yvette Cooper has moved from her role as Chief Secretary to the Treasury to head up the DWP position vacated by James Purnell last night.

Ms Cooper previously held the job of Minister of State for Housing and Planning until January 2008. She is MP for Pontefract and Castleford.

James Purnell Resigns from DWP

James Purnell has stepped down from his cabinet role as Work and Pensions Secretary.

Mr Purnell is the third cabinet member to announce in the past few days they are standing down from cabinet.

Leeds CC hits 100% Green IT Target

Leeds City Council, announced last week that it has satisfied an audit process confirming it is recycling 100% of its redundant IT equipment.

Leeds is not the only public sector organisation trying to greenify its computing. May saw the Ministry of Defence promising completely carbon neutral ICT by 2020, the Foreign Office is looking at video conferencing and collaboration systems and the Department for Work and Pensions making carbon reduction part of its IT contracting strategy.

The UK has rightly set itself hugely demanding targets for cutting its carbon emissions. Computing has huge potential to help in ways that are relatively painless, such as using virtualisation to cut servers, and even beneficial for staff, through remote working and less need for business travel.

Full Story from GC Weekly

Find out more about how IBS OPENSystems can help improve your efficiency ratings

OPENRevenues User - Stockport MBC Receives Prestigous Award

Congratulations to Stockport MBC on receiving a "Highly Commended" honour for its Flexible and Remote Working Programme at the recent prestigious GC Awards. The awards are organised by the Guardian Newspaper to reward excellence in public sector IT (previously GC Awards for innovation)

Stockport MBC have been an OPENRevenues customer for nearly ten years and were nominated in two categories:

Delivering efficiency: Projects that can show clear efficiency gains for their organisations. One of the top priorities for government bodies is to produce sustainable efficiencies in their operations.

Green IT: Projects whose benefits include a significant contribution to the environmental agenda. It was in this category Stockport won the "Highly Commended" Award.

The GC Awards were established 13 years ago to highlight the excellent work done by public servants across the UK, and to disseminate the projects' contributions to best practice - they are the original and most prestigious awards for using technology to raise the game in public services.

Congratulations to all involved at Stockport MBC!

Hazel Blears Resignation

Hazel Blears has resigned from her Cabinet position as Communities and Local Government secretary.

Ms Blears has been under fire over her expenses claims despite repaying £13,000 and was tipped for the axe in the forthcoming reshuffle expected after European and English local elections. The Salford MP had denied doing anything wrong.

In a resignation statement, Ms Blears said: “Today I have told the prime minister that I am resigning from the Government.

“My politics has always been rooted in the belief that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, given the right support and encouragement.

“The role of a progressive Government should be to pass power to the people. I’ve never sought high office for the sake of it, or for what I can gain, but for what I can achieve for the people I represent and serve...I am glad to be going home to the people who matter the most to me: the people of Salford.

The prime minister’s spokesman said: “Gordon Brown respects and understands Hazel Blear’s decision to quit the cabinet and believes that she made an outstanding contribution to public life.”

Ms Blears is the third leading cabinet figure to resign in the last 48 hours. Replacements as head of the CLG include: Margaret Beckett, John Healey and Yvette Cooper.

Tom Watson to Resign as Digital Minister

Tom Watson the minister for digital engagement has decided to stand down as part of Gordon Brown's planned reshuffle after being caught up in arguments over Red Rag, a planned Labour party blog, despite not having seen the controversial emails discussing how it might work

Mr Watson was appointed as Cabinet Office minister for digital engagement and civil service issues in January 2008. He has had a more natural affinity with public sector IT issues than some of his predecessors, having been an enthusiastic advocate of government making use of web 2.0 technology, and one of the first MPs to begin a blog. He also gave active support to the campaign for wider re-use of public sector information.

Calls for Local Income Tax Gain Momentum

All-Party proposals from the DCLG Select Committee to create a Local Income Tax have been warmly welcomed by the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Local Government.

Cllr Richard Kemp said, "local government finance is badly in need of reform. Yet, up to now both Conservative and Labour Parties have run scared of making the fundamental changes so badly needed. Now the Select Committee has bravely, and with all party support, put their head above the parapet and urged a local income tax which is the only fair and transparent way of raising the money needed to fund local services from local residents.

It is particularly important that this proposal has been published at a time when Westminster politics is held in such disrepute.

One of the major ways of cleaning up Westminster is to transfer a lot of its powers and responsibilities to a local level where people can influence decisions more and create their own priorities for service delivery. That can only be done if councils have a much more open hand in setting their own budgets and have their sources of income separate from the grant giving handouts of the Whitehall machinery.

I wouldn't just add another tax to the public burden, but the consensus for local income tax is good starter for 10!"

Futher details at http://libdemgroup.lga.gov.uk

DWP announces Business Plans 2009 -12

The DWP has published business plans for the next three years and a specific report for 2009-10 which includes their response to the "Current Economic downturn" plus key targets and milestones for 2009-10

Downloads
DWP Business Plan 2009 -10 click here
DWP Business Plan 2009 -12 click here

Work and Pensions Secretary gets support from PM

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell was caught up in the MP's expenses saga but has been given full support by Gordon Brown

Full Article

OPENRevenues – Did You Know: SMS Texting

By being amongst the first to use our new SMS Texting module, you can benefit from a simple, modern, cost effective and targeted method of customer communication that:

• Uses mass communication to contact customers on specific subjects such as reminders or requests for information
  
• Reduces your customer communication costs, but improves the speed and accuracy of delivery
  
• Tailors your message groups to target certain recipients only, for example, depending on the recovery stage of an account
  
• Provides a full audit history of messages sent by using the central delivery tracking and reporting system

Find out more about our new SMS Texting module

See the full benefit of using SMS Texting to communicate with your customers. Contact your Account Manager on 01635 550088 or email us for further details.