Archive for the ‘local government’ Category

Challenges for public service delivery in rural England

Friday, April 17th, 2009

by Diane Beddoes For people who are disabled or amongst the growing ageing population, accessing services can mean relying on the goodwill and time of friends or neighbours. People who live in urban areas, with public services close by and public transport relatively frequent and wide-ranging, often forget that things can ...

Interview with Carolyn Downs, chief executive of Shropshire County Council

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Carolyn Downs has been chief executive of Shropshire County Council for five years. During that time, the authority has become the highest performing county council and one of the top ten councils in the country – it is rated as four star and improving strongly. Carolyn also played a key ...

The budget holding lead professional pilots have lessons for all children’s services authorities

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

by Gillian Gillanders Giving lead professionals budgets may be one way of better meeting the needs of children and young people with additional needs. OPM has been supporting the budget-holding lead professional pilots for children with additional needs. So far, these budgets have been used to make purchases as diverse as ...

Creating innovation

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

What if you could get a group of public servants in a room and help them to innovate? Better still, what if you could have a lot of fun doing it? OPM is experimenting with the idea that we can do both these things. By combining the latest evidence with ...

Involving children and young people in research

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

by Nina Mguni As part of a project for Children's Workforce Development Council, we recently reviewed what is being written and talked about on the best ways to conduct research with children and young people. In reviewing reports and other writing, we found that certain issues repeatedly emerged. Understanding these issues can ...

Common values for sustainability

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

Work we have done to highlight the values and beliefs of practitioners in the field of sustainable communities could be used to help the UK address the environmental challenges it faces, while maximising overall social results.