JGP News

Communities and local government secretary Ruth Kelly, who is also the minister for women and equality, has stepped up a new initiative designed to reduce the gender pay gap.

Since September last year, more than 100 organisation and companies from around the UK have signed up to the Exemplar Employer plan, committing to a series of schemes that should help women achieve higher salaries and better positions in the public sector. (more…)

Twenty-six English councils have applied to become unitary authorities as part of the government’s drive to improve efficiency in two-tier areas, local government secretary Ruth Kelly has confirmed.

Welcoming the proposals, the minister championed the scope for improved efficiency and stronger leadership that unitary status would afford certain councils, adding that such authorities could provide better value for money and potentially lower council tax. (more…)

Department for Work and Pensions minister James Plaskitt has launched a comprehensive initiative designed to save the benefits system £1 billion over the next six years.

Entitled ‘Getting Welfare Right: Tackling Error in the Benefits System’, it is the first such strategy of its scope and outlines plans to identify and correct extant flaws in the system, prevent new problems arising and reduce the number of incorrect benefit payments. (more…)

Risk management plays an integral role in financial planning for 81 per cent of local authorities, a new survey reveals.

The National Forum for Risk Management in the Public Sector (Alarm) also found that risk management is closely tied to strategic planning at 78 per cent of councils. (more…)

Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) have voted decisively in favour of industrial action in an ongoing dispute over pay, job security and civil service privatisation.

Objecting to the approach adopted by the government in its drive to improve efficiency and reduce costs by cutting 84,000 civil and public service jobs, 61.3 per cent of civil servants in the poll voted for a strike, while 77.9 per cent called for action of some form. (more…)