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Government

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Government

Government

• Today the Prime Minister announced there are now over 200 schools on track to get Trust status - double the number expected at this point. Over 140 primary, secondary and special schools have applied to become Trusts in the last six months, alongside 69 full pathfinder schools piloting Trust status. The first of the pathfinder schools plan to become Trust schools from September 2007. There are now plans to work towards having 300 schools who have become Trust schools or are in the pipeline by the end of the year. Organisations currently signed up to partner the pathfinder schools, strengthen their leadership and build their ethos, include Barnado's, Microsoft, the Co-operative Group, Unilever, Dyslexia Action and a range of FE colleges and universities.
• Fourteen councils and six NHS Trusts have joined together to save nearly £7 million in the latest IT hardware eAuction run by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) with the London Centre of Excellence (LCE). The councils and trusts auctioned IT hardware requirements worth £13.7 million at pre-auction benchmarked prices, achieving a price at the end of the five hour auction of £6.9 million: an average saving of 50 per cent across the six lots. This brings the number of central government and wider public sector organisations that have so far participated in OGC eAuctions to 325, saving a total of £21 million since the first eAuction in September 2005.
  

Government

Government

Government

Government

• As part of reforms to deliver a patient-led NHS and to meet targets to cut waiting times by 2008, the Department has involved the independent sector in delivering health services. These services are run by the independent sector, but funded by the NHS. The Department has signed a contract with to BUPA to provide approximately 6,000 NHS procedures a year across the region, including general surgery, gynaecology, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, ear, nose & throat surgery and plastic surgery.

Government

Government

• Grants to help climate-conscious householders to install microgeneration technologies will be up for grabs again later this month, Alistair Darling announced today. The Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) has already allocated £6.8m in grants to householders and, following the addition an extra £6m in the Budget, applications for the remaining £11.9m will be open from 29 May. Since it launched in April 2006 the LCBP has directly funded 2175 installations on homes. This includes 242 mini-turbines, 313 Solar PV projects and 1467 solar thermal heating systems.
• Twenty-five local highway authorities and their partners across England will share the first award of a new £4 million road safety grant, Dr Stephen Ladyman, Road Safety Minister, announced today. The Road Safety Partnership Grant Scheme will provide funding to local highway authorities who are taking an innovative and collaborative approach to improving road safety.
• US and UK companies need to face up to the realities of climate change and the risks that it poses to their long term interests, Environment and Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson will say today. Mr Pearson, addressing a meeting of US businesses in New York, will say that a business's vulnerability to the threats of climate change is of increasing concern to investors and shareholders. Companies need to respond to this to stay ahead of the game.
• The prime minister's final ministerial reshuffle has taken effect, with changes to three government departments. Lord Falconer, previously constitutional affairs secretary, becomes secretary of state for justice at the head of the Ministry of Justice. The MoJ is the new name for the Department of Constitutional Affairs, which will take on new criminal justice functions from the Home Office. Lord Falconer, who also remains lord chancellor, is joined by David Hanson, currently Northern Ireland Office minister, also becomes minister of state at the MoJ. Following the restoration of devolved government at Stormont on Tuesday, Hanson will not be replaced at the Northern Ireland Office. Neither will parliamentary undersecretary David Cairns, who previously held that post in both the Northern Ireland and Scotland, but is now "full time" at the Scotland office. Gerry Sutcliffe, previously parliamentary undersecretary at the Home Office responsible for probation, moves to the MoJ. Harriet Harman remains a minister of state in the MoJ, along with junior ministers Baroness Ashton of Upholland, Bridget Prentice and Vera Baird.

Government  

• Tony Blair planned to divide Gordon Brown's fiefdom of the Treasury into two after the 2005 election under proposals drawn up in intense secrecy for the prime minister. The idea was fleshed out in a 200-page document prepared for Mr Blair by his strategy adviser, Lord Birt; the head of the No 10 strategy unit at the time, David Halpern; and another senior No 10 aide, Gareth Davies. Had the plan gone ahead, Mr Brown may have been asked to move to the Foreign Office. It was abandoned when political advisers told Mr Blair voters wanted him to cooperate with his chancellor.

Government

• A new proportionate code of conduct for local councillors in England is now in force. The code will remove rules which have stood in the way of councillors acting as advocates for and leaders of their local communities, as proposed in last year's Local Government White Paper. The revised code is part of the Government's wider vision for a more devolved conduct regime, including more locally-based decision-making with most misconduct allegations being investigated and dealt with at local level.

Government

• Alex Salmond, almost certain to be elected Scotland's next First Minister, conceded last night that his failure to attract the Liberal Democrats into a ruling coalition meant that the country was now heading for minority devolved government for the first time. The Scottish National Party leader, speaking the day after the Lib Dems had comprehensively rejected a power-sharing coalition, said that the bulk of his party's preparations for taking power for the first time was now based on "the responsibilities of government as a minority". Mr Salmond, who led his party to an historic one-seat victory in last week's Scottish elections, said that minority rule was "not entirely a bad thing" and that, while his preference was still for a majority coalition, it could be "exciting" to govern without a majority.

Government

• Reviews of big government IT projects that track progress and problems could be made available to the public following a ruling by the High Court yesterday. Projects ranging from ID cards to the £12.4bn National Health Service electronic patient record are reviewed regularly and given traffic light status: red, amber or green coding. But the Office of Government Commerce has refused to release the findings of the so-called gateway reviews, arguing that to do so would discourage openness about problems and the involvement of IT companies as assessors. That would "fundamentally undermine" the process and defeat its objective, the OGC argues. The information tribunal has upheld a ruling by Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, that the first- stage review of the ID cards project and its coding be published. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/65b302a0-f9db-11db-9b6b-000b5df10621.html
• Britain is being promoted as a "tax haven" on a government website, highlighting the unusually generous tax treatment of foreign residents. "It is also perhaps the only tax haven which has the high degree of respectability sought by the international business community," says the article by Mike Curran, of PwC, the professional services firm, on the UK Trade and Investment website. The message aims to attract wealth creators. But it is likely to stoke the un-ease about the perceived unfairness of the rules, already fuelled by the non-domiciled status of some political donors and the prominence of wealthy foreigners in league tables of the UK's richest people. In most countries, residents are taxed on their worldwide income and gains. But UK residents who are not domiciled in the UK - usually because their fathers were not British - are liable for tax on their overseas income and gains only if they are brought in to Britain. By bringing capital rather than income into the country, very wealthy people can pay little tax. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0cf4a2d0-f9dc-11db-9b6b-000b5df10621.html
• Spy-in-the-sky cameras are being used to identify householders who are wasting the most energy and to shame them into turning the central heating down. Thermal images of homes have been taken by a light aircraft fitted with military spy technology to record the heat escaping from people's houses. Maps identifying individual homes have now been placed on the internet to encourage occupiers to reduce their wastage and carbon emissions by fitting insulation and turning the thermostat down. Haringey Council, in London, has become the first authority in England to place house-by-house thermal maps on the web, after the example of Aberdeen in Scotland. Making the information available to the public is intended to raise awareness of how much energy is being used needlessly, putting up bills and contributing to global warming. It is hoped that homeowners with high wastage levels will be shamed into improving the property's insulation. http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article1744293.ece
• More children are attending independent schools than ever before despite steep increases in fees and six years of education being the Government's "number one priority", the Independent Schools Council (ISC) said yesterday. Smaller classes, more individual attention, a wide range of extra-curricular activities and increasingly elaborate facilities were the main reasons heads cited for their success in attracting a record 620,000 pupils. Among the 80 per cent who attend the 1,300 schools represented by the ISC, numbers rose last year by more than 5,000, the eighth successive annual increase and the 16th in the past 21 years. Contributing to the increase was a small rise in boarding numbers for only the second time in living memory. The ISC attributed this to schools' huge investment in improving their boarding accommodation, amounting to nearly £70 million in the last year alone. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2003/05/05/tenindy01.xml
• Tony Blair will seek an "executive role" after he stands down as prime minister this summer, which could include a new post of president of the European Union. Mr Blair, who is expected to leave office at the beginning of July, is unlikely simply to take to the international lecture circuit, according to Downing Street insiders. He has not ruled out the possibility of a heavyweight job representing his former fellow heads of government as the president of the European Council in two years' time, assuming such a position is created under an overhaul of the EU treaty later this year. Mr Blair will formally announce his resignation as prime minister next week. His spokesman yesterday denied reports that he intended to stand down as an MP at the same time, which would trigger a potentially awkward by-election for his successor, almost certain to be Gordon Brown. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4918db06-f9db-11db-9b6b-000b5df10621.html
• However, according to the Daily Telegraph, Tony Blair is to become a roving ambassador in Africa and the Middle East in an attempt to rebuild his tarnished reputation. The paper discloses that the Prime Minister is to spurn the chance to earn up to £10 million a year on the international lecture circuit by concentrating on raising money for his new Blair Foundation, which will fund humanitarian work in Africa. Mr Blair has also agreed to a request from President George W Bush that he will fly in to the Middle East when requested as a special envoy to try to revive the stalled peace process. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/04/nblair04.xml

EU

Conservatives  

• Animal rights supporters reacted angrily to plans by Tory leader David Cameron to give MPs a free vote to repeal the fox hunting ban. The Witney MP told GMTV: "I have always believed that country sports are something that have taken place for years and they do not need the approach of the criminal law. "In a new Parliament, it should have a new vote, on a free vote basis, on the issue of hunting." The MP's spokesman confirmed that Mr Cameron, who voted against Labour's 2005 ban, would also vote to scrap it if he became Pr

Government

• Hundreds of register offices across the country have been ordered to abandon a new online system for recording births, deaths and marriages in the latest IT fiasco to hit the government. The huge £6 million IT project has met with "complete system failure" and online registration has been suspended in half the 3,000 offices. Registrars have been told that a long-term solution will take "many months" and in the meantime those affected should revert to the old computer system, even though that means none of the hundreds of births, deaths and marriages that occur each day will be centrally recorded. Registrars have complained bitterly about the problems caused by the new system, which at times has forced them them to ask grieving family members to give details of their loved ones twice because the data has been lost. In many areas, multiple death certificates cannot be issued because of the problems. Multiple certificates are vital for transferring assets and pensions as companies do not accept photocopies as proof of death. The hardware and software, developed by Siemens and US group ManTech respectively, was tested extensively before being introduced at register offices late last year. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1739313.ece
• Patients could see operations postponed this summer as hospitals struggle to cope with the junior doctor recruitment fiasco, doctors' leaders said last night. Concern was voiced a week after two serious security breaches forced the Department of Health to suspend the new website junior doctors are meant to use to apply for jobs. Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, told MPs this week that the website would only return to action once ministers were satisfied confidential information provided by junior doctors was secure. However, consultants leaders warned the Government last night that the confusion had left hospitals in limbo, with no idea which junior doctors - if any - were going to start working for them this summer. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/03/nhealth303.xml
• Charles Clarke yesterday gave a strong hint he would not be stand for the Labour leadership by lavishing praise on Gordon Brown and describing him as one of the best chancellors for 200 years. The former home secretary had persistently argued that it would not be in the party's best interests to simply anoint Mr Brown as prime minister without a debate on Labour's future. He had even raised questions over his judgment, last year giving a remarkable interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he claimed Mr Brown had profound "psychological" issues to address; Mr Clarke variously accused him of lacking courage and vision, and being both uncollegiate and a control freak. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2071043,00.html
• All schoolchildren should have "happiness" lessons up to the age of 18 to combat growing levels of depression, according to a senior Government adviser. Pupils should study subjects such as how to manage feelings, attitudes to work and money, channelling negative emotions and even how to take a critical view of the media, said Lord Richard Layard, a Labour peer and professor of economics at the London School of Economics. In a speech last night, he said that Tony Blair's Respect programme - the crackdown on young offenders and problem families - was "far more repressive than preventative" and may be fuelling levels of depression. He said all state school pupils should receive tuition in "how to be happy" up to the age of 18 and their progress in the subject should feature in university applications. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/03/nhappy03.xml
• The Ministry of Defence plans to open its "X-Files" on UFO sightings to the public for the first time. Officials have not yet decided on a date for the release of the reports, which date back to 1967, but it is hoped to be within weeks. The move follows the decision by the French national space agency to release its UFO files in March, the first official body in the world to do so. http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2071030,00.html  

World  

Government  

• Tony Blair has firmly rejected Conservative calls for an independent inquiry into the July 7 bombings. David Cameron told MPs on Wednesday that revelations in the wake of the fertiliser bomb plot trial had raised "important questions". The Tory leader said this week's convictions "reminds us about the risks that we face", and said public wanted a full inquiry "to get to the truth". He said there was now a need for "a proper independent inquiry". But the prime minister insisted: "I have ruled out having another proper and independent inquiry." He added that the intelligence and security committee, which is made up of MPs and peers, had gone into "all of these details in immense detail".

Government  

• The government's home information packs came under renewed fire yesterday when a Lords committee said the packs had been stripped of their original purpose and were opposed by the property industry. The committee urged the government to take the criticism of the packs, also known as Hips, seriously before they are introduced on June 1. Estate agents and legal bodies have told the government that they have not had enough time to prepare for the packs. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2070232,00.html  
• Tony Blair effectively disowned his own Government's drive towards fortnightly rubbish collections yesterday when he came out in support of the weekly bin round.
  

Government

• Small business owners and the UK's main business representative organisations will meet today for the first of a new series of round table meetings to discuss key issues facing the UK's 4.3 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The new Small Business Forum will provide an informal way for the Government to engage with the small business community and an opportunity to seek the views of individuals and representative groups, on a range of policy issues. Members have been chosen to reflect the diversity of the small business community and the wide range of issues that affect this sector.

Government  

• Tony Blair poured scorn yesterday on a proposal advanced by Gordon Brown's close political allies for putting the NHS under the control of an independent board free from day-to-day ministerial interference. The prime minister said the idea of taking the NHS out of the hands of politicians might sound good. But handing power to an independent board, representing the service's vested interests, could become a device for avoiding tough decisions. The proposal for NHS independence was advanced by Mr Brown's supporters in the run-up to the Labour party conference as a key change in health policy that the chancellor wanted to make if he took over as prime minister. It paralleled his well received decision in 1997 to give control of interest rates to the Bank of England's independent monetary committee. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2069363,00.html  
• The gap between what voters in the south-east of England pay in tax and get back in public services has widened sharply since Tony Blair won power a decade ago today. The calculations by the Financial Times set an ominous backdrop for Labour ahead of Thursday's local elections. While the prosperity of the south-east has long meant its residents pay more into the exchequer than they get out, the region's net contribution to the national Budget has increased sharply since 1997. This perceived inequity could help to explain why Labour is likely to do badly this week in southern England, where thousands of crucial swing voters have seen their standard of living rise more slowly than the economy has grown. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a2bd6eb4-f77f-11db-86b0-000b5df10621.html

EU