Treasury announces £1.25bn DCLG cuts

Last week the Chancellor George Osborne and Chief Secretary David Laws announced that they would set out plans to cut £6.2 billion of Government spending this financial year. Today they set out the details of these savings. 

1.2bn cut for Local Government
Local government will be charged with making £1.2bn in in-year cuts with the Department for Communities and Local Government hit by a further £780m. Mr Laws said as part of £6.25bn in cuts from public spending in 2010-11, DCLG would come up with £780m in cuts and local government would be asked to contribute £1.165bn in savings.

He added that rather than simply asking departments to find savings, the Treasury had actually “cut the departments budgets”, so there was no question of whether the savings would actually be delivered or not.

Mr Laws added that the aim was to send a “shockwave” through departments to ensure a “step change” in behaviour across Whitehall.

In other headline measures, Mr Laws said the Child Trust Fund programme would be scrapped as would the Future Jobs Fund, a £1bn council-led job creation fund for the youth unemployed, which laws said provided “low value for money”.

Along with the cuts to DCLG and local government, other departmental cuts were also announced along with news that the Cabinet Office and Treasury will join forces to reduce waste. The savings will be driven by the Efficiency and Reform Group

Full details of the announcement

Cabinet Office & Treasury to Join Forces

Further covereage

New Government First 100 ICT Days Checklist

Public Technology.net suggests the challenges facing whoever takes the reins of the next  Government for their first 100 ICT Days.

Topics include:

- NHS National Programme for IT
- Cloud Computing
- Outsourcing
- Where to allocate budget
- Data Access
- Public/Private sector relationship
- Procurement
- E-voting

Full article click here

The finalists for the 14 categories in the 2010 MJ Local Government Achievement Awards have now been announced on their website. 
 
From the finalists in each category a winner will be announced at our gala awards night on Thursday 24 June 2010 at the Hilton Hotel on London’s Park Lane hosted by TV presenter, political pundit and former Cabinet minister Michael Portillo.

Congratulations to all the finalists - best of luck on the evening!

Link
The MJ 2010 Achievement Award Finalists

How to Save £70bn in the Public Sector!

An article in the April issue of Management Today tackles the issues surrounding making savings in the UK Public Sector. 

Extracted from the book 'Driving Down Cost: How to manage and cut costs - intelligently' by Andrew Wileman, and entitled "How to trim the fat..." the article attempts to address the public sector challenges and identifies six possible areas where savings totalling £70bn could be made. It will be interesting to gauge the response to some of the suggestions from those within the sector - watch this space!

Six areas of saving:

1. Privatisations and disposals of Government Assets
2. Investment deferral
3. Revenue-raising offsets
4. External purchases
5. Redistribution and social protection
6. Reduction in staff costs

Read the full article here

Research Report: Government Must Safeguard Investment in Public Service IT

Research from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, shows that its members believe government should accelerate investment in public service IT, and not cut it, according to 62% of respondents.

63% believe that IT and the internet are improving the delivery of public services. A similar number (60%) indicated that still more could be done for this to translate in to improved efficiencies for both local and national government.

The report also claims 59% of members felt the public fail to recognise the improvements in public services the IT industry has delivered, despite the fact that over half of respondents (55%) believe that IT and the internet are improving citizens’ rights and freedoms. The Institute’s Savvy Citizens campaign, aims to help the public recognise the value of information, and IT, plus how they access, use and manage it in their daily lives.

Elizabeth Sparrow, President, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, said: “It’s clear from this research that our members feel strongly that the value of IT and the internet in the lives of citizens, and how they access and use public services, should not be overlooked."

Links
Full Report
Savvy Citizens Campaign

OPENRevenues Customers Recognised at LGC Awards

Civica OPENRevenues customers were amongst the "winners" and "highly commendeds" at the LGC Awards 2010. Congratulations to all the teams involved but especially to:

North West Leicestershire DC - highly commended "Finance Team of the Year"
Waverley BC - highly commended "Standards & Ethics"
Hull City Council - winner "Most improved Council of the Year"
Sunderland City Council - winner "Innovation"

For a full list of winners, photos from the evening and details on how to enter for next year please click here

Budget 2010: One Stop Shop

As the initial round of debate begins to settle on the last budget before the General Election, we've put together some of the most relevent data and related releases to impact on our sector. Please click the links below for further details:

General Facts, Stats & Comment
Budget 2010: the key points
Budget 2010 in graphics
Budget 2010 - public sector and public spending highlights
Action being taken in your area - an interactive map
IRRV Comment: Changes to the Small Business Rate Relief

Government Departments
DWP Delivers Efficiency and Smarter Government Savings
CLG contribution to operational efficiency and smarter government savings
Govt departments line up for ICT cutbacks -but IT "key to overall objective"

Council Finances
Councils must deliver £2.1bn fresh savings
Ring-fencing removed on £1.3bn of council cash
Young Persons Guarantee extension to create 35,000 placements
Budget ring fencing fails to deliver for public services - Chief Executive of LGiU

Civica Services awarded Buying Solutions’ framework agreement

Civica Services, the specialist licensing and consulting division of Civica, has announced that it has been appointed as an approved supplier for Buying Solutions, the national procurement partner for public services.

Civica Strengthens Position as Key Software Supplier
Civica Services now provide commercial off-the-shelf software solutions from major vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe and Symantec, as well as Software Asset Management (SAM) consultancy services to aid public sector organisations in assessing software needs and ensuring the most cost effective solution is provided. The agreement is valid for three and a half years and continues to strengthen Civica Services’ position as a key software supplier to all public sector bodies.

Continued Delivery of "more for less"
“The ethos of Buying Solutions is to maximise value for money for public sector organisations. The award of this agreement means that we are able to offer public sector organisations a comprehensive selection of software, quickly and easily, without needing to negotiate the formal tender process.

With the continued pressure on public sector organisations to achieve more with less, our SAM software consulting service will also ensure that customers receive appropriate software offerings, exactly meeting requirements in a cost effective way.” Steve Reynolds, Managing Director, Civica Services

Buying Solutions - Improving Value for Money
Buying Solutions is the national procurement partner for UK public services and is an Executive Agency of the Office of Government Commerce in the Treasury. As an organisation it works closely with customers across the public sector, to provide a professional procurement service, delivering improved value for money in their commercial activities.

Links to Further Information

Full Article
Civica Services
Buying Solutions

Auditor Urges Increased Shared Service Savings

Audit Scotland a statutory body set up in April 2000 ensure that the Scottish Government and public sector bodies held to account for the proper, efficient and effective use of public funds.says the country's public sector is making slow progress in achieving savings from shared services

The report, Improving public sector efficiency, says that shared services remain a "key challenge" for Scottish public bodies who are facing the greatest financial pressure since devolution.

In the first year of Scotland's Efficient Government Programme, the report says £12m was saved through shared services projects. Local authorities reported efficiency savings of £3.8m and the central government reported £3m.

The public sector must continually strive to improve efficiency
The Scottish Executive has said that shared support services, including IT, have the potential to generate "substantial" efficiency savings. It has called for public bodies to join up support service arrangements within and across sectors.

Welsh First Minister also calls for efficiencies
The Scottish report comes on the same day the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, is due to call on public service bodies in Wales such as the NHS, police and councils to become more efficient at Wales' first Public Services Summit.

Audit Scotland Report Highlights
• The public sector has reported £839 million of efficiency savings in the first year of the Efficient Government Programme. 57 per cent higher than the £534 million target. Of the reported savings, £254 million (30 per cent) have been delivered through better purchasing, better asset management and shared services, but there is still scope to increase savings from these areas.
• The scale of the financial challenges facing the Scottish public sector means that a new approach is needed that fundamentally reviews priorities and the delivery of services.
• While there is a significant amount of joint working, there's a continuing need for more and better coordination between public sector organisations to improve productivity and safeguard quality of service delivery.
• The public sector needs a better understanding of the relationship between costs, volume and quality of services to maximise improvements in productivity and reductions in cost.
• There must be less reliance on seeking efficiencies, through non-recurring savings such as asset sales
• Planning for two per cent efficiency savings each year will not be sufficient to bridge the gap between projected future spending and future funding.
• Better coordination could provide more consistency in reporting efficiency savings and allow better sharing of good practice.

Report Recommendations: The Scottish Government and public bodies should:
• ensure they have a priority-based approach to budgeting and spending
• continue to improve collaboration and joint working, overcoming traditional service boundaries
• improve information on costs, activity, productivity and outcomes, including setting baselines to measure performance against
• give greater urgency to developing benchmarking programmes
• maintain the momentum of activities and initiatives to improve purchasing and asset management and extend shared services
• ensure there is a joined-up approach to efficiency savings across the public sector, avoiding duplication
• ensure that plans are in place to deliver savings, clearly setting out what action will be taken, the level of savings to be delivered and how these will be measured
• strengthen the involvement of front-line staff, service providers and users in redesigning public services

Full Report

Links of the Week w/c 22 Feb 2010

Most popular Twitter updates this week from www.twitter.com/openrevenues
- Barnet Managed Service Deal Tops New Business Wins for Civica OPENRevenues
- DWP Release: Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Bulletins 2010
- Council tax rises expected to be lowest since 1993
- Socitm and LGA preparing advice to help councils make more of their data publicly available

Useful links from elsewhere:
- Total Place ‘could save £20bn nationally’
- IT helps public sector improve customer service performance
- Online services will make savings
- Top 50 political influencers

Four Friday Fun Facts
- An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards.
- Polar bear fur is not white, it's clear.
- Men are 4 times more likely to get struck by lightning than woman.
- "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
Facts sourced through www.omg-facts.com

New Legislation: Social Security (Credits) Regulations 2010

The Office of Public Sector Information has released new legislation relating to Social Security (Credits) Regulations which come into force from 6 April 2010


For the explanatory memorandum - please click here
For full legislative details - please click here

DWP Release: Pathways to Work Official Statistics

The DWP has released a summary of the activity statistics for the Pathways to Work programme:

Jobcentre Plus Pathways to Work
Key features of Jobcentre Plus Pathways to Work are:
- a series of mandatory work focused interviews (WFIs);
- new specialist adviser teams of specially trained incapacity benefit personal advisers (IBPAs);
- a Choices package of interventions to support return to work;
- new work focused condition management programmes developed jointly with local NHS providers; and
- 52 week return to Work Credit (RTWC) of £40 per week.

To access the latest information for Jobcentre Plus Pathways to Work, click here

Provider-Led Pathways to Work
Key features of Provider-Led Pathways to Work are:
- a series of mandatory work focused interviews (WFIs);
- a range of back-to-work support designed by providers
- new work focused condition management programmes developed jointly with local NHS providers; and
- 52 week return to Work Credit (RTWC) of £40 per week.

To access the latest information for Provider led Pathways to Work, click here

Barnet Managed Service Deal Tops New Business Wins for Civica OPENRevenues

Capping a run of new business wins Civica OPENRevenues has been selected by the London Borough of Barnet for a 5-year managed service to provide integrated council tax, business rates and benefits software.

The transition to a fully managed service will enable Barnet's 250-strong team to focus on improved service delivery and efficiency. As well as application hosting delivered by Civica Connect the service covers electronic processing of documents and represents a landmark deal for the business. The new Civica service will replace the council's current Northgate system.

More new business for Civica OPENRevenues
The Barnet deal is one of several significant contracts signed in the last few weeks by the Civica OPENRevenues team including new business with Staffordshire Moorlands DC, South Lakeland DC, Eden DC. Thanet & Dover DC's have also agreed a shared service model using Civica software - more details will follow in the next few days.

Links of the Week!

Most popular links from our Twitter updates

Socitm concerns over direction of Government ICT strategy
Unitary plans move to High Court
Councils turn to Twitter for local emergency management

Follow our Twitter updates at http://twitter.com/OPENRevenues or see the live feed in the left margin of this blog.

Links from elsewhere

Don't spend less, just use IT better
Council tax payers scam warning
Devon County Council starts Exeter breakaway review
Lords to investigate new unitary authorites

Friday Fun Facts
Women speak about 7000 words a day. The average man averages just over 2000.
Over 2500 left-handed people are killed each year using equipment made for right-handed people.
The most money ever paid for an iPhone case is $3.2 million
Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest - he didn't even make the finals!

Facts sourced through www.omg-facts.com

Soctim concerns over direction of Government ICT strategy

Socitm, the association for ICT and related professionals in the public sector, has released a policy briefing document in response to the Government’s ICT strategy.

The overall findings of the socitm report were that whilst they agreed with much of what was proposed and recognised a need for financial considerations they were “disappointed” that the Government appears to be promoting a programme geared towards cutting the costs of ICT, rather than focusing on cost savings and efficiencies that could be made through improved application of technology.

"...reducing spending is critical in the current financial climate – but it is disappointing that the Strategy fails to discuss or demonstrate the wider opportunity for reducing cost and
improving all public services through the application of ICT. We believe that a much greater emphasis should be placed on savings that would come from better technology deployment in order to achieve the Strategy’s stated aim of “improving the lives of the citizens and businesses it is here to serve”.

Areas to be "addressed"
The report also expresses concern "that a number of areas, currently missing from the strategy, will need to be addressed in order to achieve its successful local implementation." These include:

• a vision for (local) public services delivery and accountability;
• greater focus on data and information handling (personal and public) and information assurance for local public services;
• integration of the third sector in the Strategy given its prospective growing role in service delivery;
• a more sophisticated approach to IT infrastructures (Public Sector Network - PSN, G-cloud, Shared Data Centres, Government Applications Store – G-AS);
• greater emphasis on opportunities from new, potentially disruptive technologies; and
• the possibility of incentives for early adopters.

Lords to debate "cost saving" decision
The socitm report is delivered when the debate over the role IT plays in achieving current cost saving objectives, is high on the agenda at both a local and national level. At the recent Civica Annual Conference 60% of Managers stated that IT was "critical" to improved performance in 2010, and the recent announcement of new unitary authorities in Norwich and Exeter, has now been passed to the House of Lords following reports of a split within the Government and opposition by the Conservative party.

Links: To read any of the supporting documents - please click on the links in the copy above.

socitm Policy Briefing Report
socitm website
Government ICT Strategy outline

Links of the Week

Twitter - most popular links from our Twitter Updates

CLG denies split over Unitaries decision
David Cameron pledges Housing Benefit Reform
Cabinet Office release summary of ICT Strategy document

You can follow our Twitter updates at http://twitter.com/OPENRevenues

Links from elsewhere:
HM Treasury Announces changes to public expenditure National Statistics releases
Process driven government enjoys higher efficiencies
Twitter etc and the election - is it worth the risk?

Friday Fun Facts
On average, a person will spend about five years eating during his or her lifetime.
Your heart rate can rise as much as 30% during a yawn.
Bluebirds cannot see the color blue.
It takes about a week to make a jelly bean.

Facts sourced through omgfacts.net

Two new Unitary Authorities Announced

Two new unitary councils have been announced by local government minister Rosie Winterton.

She confirmed new unitary status for the cities of Exeter and Norwich, leaving the surrounding counties as two-tier authorities.

Norfolk and Devon will remain unchanged. Suffolk, the third county reviewed by the Boundary Committee, has been asked to decide locally as there was ‘no over all consensus’

Mrs Winterton explained 'Exeter and Norwich are at the centre of regional economic activity in their areas and their economic performance is crucial for their residents and the wider area but added wit regard to the Suffolk decision that "No single proposal emerged that ministers believed local councils would unite behind.'

Councillor Steve Morphew, leader of Norwich City Council, said: '...A unitary Norwich on its existing boundary would benefit both the city and county and could deliver more efficiently and effectively...'

Please click here for the full article from the LGC

Cabinet Office Releases ICT Summary Document

The Cabinet office has released a summary document outlining the Government ICT Strategy

The ICT Strategy supports existing core public sector goals, set in Digital Britain, Building Britain’s Future, Excellence and fairness, and the Operational Efficiency Programme. The focus of these programmes is to:

• improve public service delivery
• improve access to public services, and
• increase the efficiency of public service delivery.

Read the ICT Strategy Summary here
Links: To read any of the supporting documents - please click on the links in the copy above.

IT “critical” to local authority performance improvements

60 per cent of council managers at the 2010 Civica conference said IT is “critical” to local authority performance improvements and that the pressure to achieve ‘more for less’ drives council choices.

IT-based programmes will be “critical” to local authority performance improvements in 2010, according to our survey at the Civica annual conference held in Manchester last week. Nearly 60 per cent of those surveyed indicated IT remains “a key investment area” for 2010 in order to deliver critical service improvements.

Unsurprisingly, financial pressures continue to dominate the local authority landscape, and in response the re-engineering of workflow processes (33 per cent) and greater use of mobile and flexible working (31 per cent) were identified as key strategies for driving further efficiencies.

Shared Services & Organisational Change key to success?
Shared services were also seen as a key lever within the current environment (25 per cent). Recognition is also growing that while effective technology has an important role to play in helping to sustain services and drive down costs at the local level, organisational change is critical to the transformation process.

The conflicting pressures on local organisations to do ‘more with less’ were highlighted in the key priorities reported by respondents, which include sustaining service levels and delivering improvements in service performance and efficiency.

New Service Innovations influenced by data.gov.uk
Respondents are closely watching new service innovations. Nearly two thirds of respondents think that the newly-launched local information site data.gov.uk reported on this blog here will influence community services in some way: one third (33 per cent) believe that it will help councils identify demand for specific services and 29 per cent believe it will drive local authorities to improve service levels.

Nearly half of those interviewed (47 per cent) are expecting spending cuts as the government has not provided the complete picture on public finances.

David Roots, Managing Director, Local Government, Civica, said: "The uncertain economic and political climate presents plenty of challenges for local authorities; however, it is clear that technology continues to be seen as a powerful lever for achieving efficient service delivery while meeting local needs.

“As the survey indicates, rationalising, re-engineering and automating processes is critical to delivering greater service effectiveness whilst reducing costs in all areas. There is still plenty of scope for local authorities and their partners to exploit technology in addressing the ‘more for less’ demands made upon them."

For the full report on our survey results please click here

Sir Tim Berners- Lee Opens Web of Government Data

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, will launch the new government website data.gov.uk later today. The site offers free access to a huge amount of public-sector data for private or commercial reuse.

The aim is to encourage British web developers and companies to create websites and information feeds that combine the data with other information such as , maps or other datasets – and potentially to discover hidden patterns that may not obvious from the raw information.

In his Government data manifesto Mr Berners-Lee said: "For the first time we have created a single online place where those looking for government data can go to find it, without having to know which department holds what and where it is.This is an important step in setting the groundwork for further progress. Our ambition is to make the release of data part of the 'business as usual' of public bodies."

He added "Data.gov.uk is not finished. In fact, we hope it never is: there will always be scope to add more data as it is collected. However we have created the platform and the community for moving forward together."

The US government already has a similar site, data.gov, set up by the incoming Obama administration last year and London also launched a "datastore" earlier this month.

The government has previously sponsored a competition, Show Us A Better Way asking for examples of what people would do with public sector information and with a £20,000 prize fund. Among the winners were maps for local recycling, cycle paths, school catchment areas and postbox locations.

The US government already has a similar site, data.gov, set up by the Obama administration last year and officially launched in May by the US's "chief information officer", Vivek Kundra. London also launched a "datastore" earlier this month, hosting a number of London-specific datasets corralled from government departments as well as Transport for London data.

See the site for yourself - please click here

Read Sir Tim Berners-Lee manifesto for Government data here

CLG Announcement: Local Government Finance Report

Local Government Minister Barbara Follett has released a statement covering the local government finance report (England) 2010-11.

The final figures published today for 2010-11 confirm those originally published in January 2008 equating to a total formula grant for 2010-11 of £747m.

The full report, which is available to download below, establishes the amounts of revenue support grant and non-domestic rates to be paid to local authorities in 2010-11, and the basis of their distribution. Supporting information is available on the Communities and Local Government website - please see link below.

Links
Barbara Follett Statement
The Local Government Finance Report (England) 2010/2011
Communities and Local Government website

DWP Data Releases including HB and CTB Statistics

The latest national statistics on Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit produced by the Department for Work and Pensions were released on 20th January 2010.

Statistics are based on Housing Benefit (HB) and Council Tax Benefit (CTB) claimants in Great Britain at November 2008 to October 2009.

The key points from the latest release are:

• At October 2009, the total number of people claiming Housing Benefit was 4.57 million, with 5.59 million claiming Council Tax Benefit.
  
• 3.03 million Housing Benefit recipients were of working-age, representing almost two thirds of all Housing Benefit recipients.
  
• 70 per cent of Housing Benefit recipients were tenants of Social Sector landlords and 29 per cent were tenants of Private Sector landlords.
  
• Over two thirds of both Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit recipients are in receipt of a Passported Benefit.
• The overall average Housing Benefit award is £81.90 per week, and for Council Tax Benefit recipients, the overall average award was £15.59 per week.
  

For full release and details please click here

Additional statistical publications added by the DWP include:

• Statistical Summary: January 2010
• Early Estimates for Working Age Inactive Benefit Client Groups
• Lone Parents Receiving Jobseeker's Allowance
• Children in Out-of-work Benefit Households
• Jobseekers' Allowance Six Month Offer

Links to all this data can be found here

DWP Appointment to Social Security Advisory Committee

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Yvette Cooper, has appointed Ms Nicola Smith, as a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) for a term of three year.

Nicola Smith is currently a Senior Policy Officer in the Economic and Social Affairs Department of the Trades Union Congress and was previously responsible for the coordination of the work of the TUC’s Commission on Vulnerable Employment. Prior to joining the TUC, she was employed as a Principal Researcher at the Centre for Economic and Social Exclusion. She has also held research and policy posts at the Children and Young People’s Unit within the Department for Education and Skills, and at Barnardo’s Policy and Research Unit.

The SSAC is the advisory body for the United Kingdom on social security matters, except those relating to industrial injuries, war pensions, occupational pensions, and national insurance contributions.

New Blog Feature: Links of the Week

In this new section on our blog we will be posting the most popular links from our previous 7 days Twitter updates, plus others which hopefully you’ll either find interesting or enjoy reading.

Our first weekly offerings are below simply click the headline to be taken to the main article:

The most popular from our Twitter updates...
Councils should play more of an ‘economic activist’ role to help create jobs and boost growth.
Local government taking the initiative over the Treasury in search for new revenues
The big issues of 2009 as seen through the covers of the Local Government Chronicle

And from elsewhere...
George Osborne identifies cuts for first weeks of Tory government
100 achievements of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London
UK National Statistics Dept for Local Government & Communities Data Release Calendar

And for the fun Five Minutes link…
Futurists predict fewer butchers, more space pilots – and spare legs for top football stars

You can follow our Twitter updates at http://twitter.com/OPENRevenues

New Welfare Benefits Report Calls For More Government Action

The leading housing and care charity Housing 21 has published a new report which calls for government action to help support and encourage older people who are eligible for benefits which they don't claim.

The report 'A World of Difference' analyses the experience of older people who have successfully claimed benefits with the support of Housing 21's specialist benefits advisors. It also examines national benefit and pensioner policy and
compares key current issues with those outlined in a similar report published six years ago.

Lyn Davey, welfare benefits manager at Housing 21 and co-author of the report, said:

"It's both frustrating and disappointing that so little has changed in the last six years. Whilst someone's quality of life can be radically improved by a modest increase in income, benefit levels are hardly generous. The Government can and should do more to encourage benefit take up and ensure older people get the benefits they need."

To download a copy or read summary details of the report please click the image above.

Free mobile calls for benefit claimants starting from 18 January

The Department of Work and Pensions today announced agreement with six of the largest mobile networks in the UK to no longer charge their customers for calls to the Department’s 0800 Benefit Claim lines.

Currently 12% of UK households use only mobile phones and do not have a land line. Calls to claim benefits and state pension use 0800 numbers which are already free to customers using BT land lines and mobiles. But currently people calling 0800 numbers from other mobile phone providers are charged for these calls.

The Department has now reached agreement with O2, Orange, Tesco Mobile, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone to end charges to their customers for mobile calls to around seventy of its 0800 numbers. These numbers are used by people making initial claims for benefit and pensions and to request emergency payments, such as crisis loans.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Yvette Cooper, said: "We don't want people who lose their jobs or the poorest pensioners to be penalised when they need to claim benefits just because they call from a mobile phone. Lots of people need to use mobiles rather than landlines." The DWP estimate that there are around 60 million phone calls to its 0800 numbers each year, and around 15% (9 million) are from mobile phones.

Civica Launches Health & Social Care Unit

Civica Group Ltd, has launched Civica Health and Social Care, a dedicated business unit for the sector and a new identity for in4tek following its acquisition in 2009. The unit will help customers, including health service providers and local authorities, to access broader service capabilities and resources for all aspects of community-based care, while capitalising on their existing investments in service delivery and technology.

The launch coincides with the latest new customers for the company's comprehensive 'Paris' software application, which has been selected to help Child health and Community staff improve care delivery at St Helens and Knowsley PCTs.

The new division builds on Civica’s integration of in4tek. It will continue to deliver and develop the Paris suite of person-centric application software, used across the UK and Canada to streamline the management of adults’ and children’s services, mental health, child health and community care. The new unit will also enable customers to access the company’s broader expertise in key service delivery technologies including web services and electronic workflow and document management.

Please click here for full details

DWP Consultation: Employment & Support Allowance Regulations 2010 & HB/CTB Amendments Regulations 2010

The DWP is seeking views on proposed regulations that provide for the movement of benefit claims from incapacity benefit, income support paid on grounds of incapacity and severe disablement allowance to employment and support allowance and associated changes to housing benefit and council tax benefit.

Before the Committee considers and reports on proposals, it would like to hear from organisations and individuals who have views on these proposed regulations.

Full details can be downloaded here

New Local Government Ombudsman Appointed

Dr Jane Martin has been appointed as a Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) by Her Majesty The Queen following the recommendation of the Communities Secretary John Denham.

Dr Martin will take up her new post on 11 January 2010 when she will also succeed Jerry White, who retired in September, as Vice Chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England.

The Minister for Local Government, Rosie Winterton MP said:

"I am delighted that Jane Martin has been appointed as a Local Government Ombudsman, and that she has been designated as Vice Chair of the Commission for Local Administration. The Local Government Ombudsman has a vital role to play in ensuring that people get swift and fair redress if things go wrong in the delivery of their local services."

The LGO was set up by the Local Government Act 1974, to conduct investigate complaints from members of the public who consider they have suffered injustice, as a result of maladministration by bodies within their jurisdiction.

The objective of the Ombudsmen is to secure, where appropriate, satisfactory redress for complainants and better administration for the authorities. Since 1989, the Ombudsmen have had power to issue advice on good administrative practice in local government based on experience derived from their investigations. In 2008-2009 the LGO decided on over 17,000 complaints. Where remedies and settlements resulted in a payment being made, the amount of compensation obtained or recommended came to over £2.2m.

A Positive Spin on the Bad Weather!

As we're all only too aware, and this amazing snowy image from space clearly shows - the UK is in the middle of a record breaking cold snap - even a ski centre in Plymouth has had to close due to the conditions! But at least one man in Birmingham is seeing the positive side to his transport and gritting problems!

"Walking in the snow yesterday, it was very cheering to be called 'Good morning' to and have some banter with nearly everyone else on foot. Shows how isolating cars are and also how the British generally deal with adversity with good humour!"

However, on the flip side no prizes for the school in Kent where pupils had coats confiscated because they didn't meet uniform regulations!

Keep warm and cheery everyone, and best wishes for 2010 from all at Civica OPENRevenues