05/05/2010

Parliament puts end to talk of Friday count (unless you have very good reason)

PLC Public Sector reports:

Any plans made by returning officers to get a good night’s sleep on Thursday before returning refreshed to count the votes cast in the general election on Friday morning took a blow when the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 was passed in the “wash up” that followed Gordon Brown’s visit to the Queen to dissolve Parliament.

However, the Act still does provide some scope for returning officers who believe they have good reason to delay the start of vote counting to do so.  This post outlines when this may be possible and, importantly for those returning officers that have decided to delay starting the count, what they have to do.

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28/04/2010

The well-being power and shared services

PLC Public Sector reports:

Recent press reports about Slough Borough Council’s decision to pull out of its proposed shared services partnership with Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire County Councils highlights the difficulty in bringing a shared services project to fruition. 

However, a close review of the underlying papers also reveals why action is needed by whoever wins the General Election to give local authorities the power and confidence to use the power of well-being (or introduce an alternative such as the proposal for a power of general competence put forward recently by the Local Government Association).

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21/04/2010

CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme launches – documents to help public sector organisations prepare

PLC Environment reports:

On 1 April 2010, the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) came into force. Public sector organisations will be required to participate in the CRC if they are either:

  • Mandated participants; or
  • Organisations that meet the qualification criteria. That is, organisations having a settled half hourly meter and qualifying electricity supplies of over 6,000 MWh during 2008 (which is the Qualification Year for the Introductory Phase of the scheme).

Those public sector organisations that are required to participate need to be fully prepared as the scheme will require them to buy carbon allowances, as well as require them to put in place systems to collate data about their energy use and CO2 emissions, and report on this annually (which can be a complex and time-consuming task for any organisation, especially those that have little or no experience of the “carbon market” ).

In this post we highlight the materials that PLC has developed to assist public authorities to rise to this new challenge.

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21/04/2010

Local government publicity during the pre-election period

With the election fast approaching, there has been considerable discussion in the media about “purdah” and its impact on public bodies during this time. During purdah, ministers, civil servants, non-civil servants and public officers must refrain from making public appointments, taking decisions or making policy announcements which are significant and may be politically contentious.  Although local authorities are not bound by the convention of purdah, it is within their power to adopt their own version of the convention leading up to local elections. 

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12/04/2010

House of Lords reports on PFI

PLC Public Sector reports:

In July 2009, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee announced that it was carrying out an investigation into the private finance initiative (PFI) and off-balance sheet debt. No such investigation had taken place for nearly 10 years and, particularly in light of the credit crunch and its impact on the availability of private finance, was most certainly needed. 

On 17 March 2010, a report on this investigation was published.  While not proposing any seismic shift in public procurement policy, the report does draw some interesting conclusions.

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07/04/2010

NAO publishes third sector commissioning guidance

PLC Public Sector reports:

We are told that the time when the public sector cost cutting starts to bite will depend on who wins the forthcoming General Election.  However, one thing that is certain is that the cuts will come, whoever wins, and that the bite is likely to be fierce. This need to make savings will not relieve public sector bodies from their duty to maintain and improve standards of service delivery. Therefore, new innovative models of service delivery will need to be developed that are capable of delivering more for less.

One way of achieving this will be through closer working between the public and third sectors.  In this post, we look at the latest Government guidance on successful commissioning from the third sector and also detail the materials we are developing to assist public bodies looking to work in this area.

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