NEWS

Scottish councils to pilot councillor CPD framework
Seven Scottish councils are to pilot a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Framework for Elected Members following a consultation by the Improvement Service earlier this year.

East Renfrewshire Council joins National CRM project
CRM early adopters becomes the 12th council to join national project and adopt Lagan solution.

Innovation showcased in Glasgow
From addiction services to IT systems, nine projects in receipt of IS 'innovation funding' shared their learning, outputs and experiences at an event in Glasgow.

Power to the people to improve public services
Scotland must introduce radical new ways of delivering public services that offer real value for money, a new independent think tank says.

PSIF Phase Two getting ready for launch
Five organisations signed up, with room for more, ahead of August/September implementation.

Change programme continues apace
The Diagnostic Pathway programme is forging ahead with councils using their findings to find strategic opportunities for transformation.

In search of the UK's best council to work for
The ‘Best Council to Work For' initiative, delivered by the IDeA, Local Government Employers and Best Companies, is looking for participants in its 2008 list of the best councils to work for in the UK.

National Gazetteer progress report
Update on the national Customer First programme.

Knowledge sharing on the rise
Increasing practitioner collaboration and knowledge-sharing taking place as groups sign up to use the IDeA/Improvement Service communities of practice platform. Search for 'Scottish' at http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/welcome.do to see the current groups.

EVENTS

Understanding customer satisfaction and local government: Emerging findings seminar - 13 June 2008, Glasgow
The Improvement Service and the Scottish Consumer Council have jointly commissioned research to identify whether Scottish local government would benefit from a standard approach to measuring customer satisfaction with its services, and what this approach might look like. Following a series of workshops with staff from local government and interviews with key stakeholders, the event is an opportunity to share and explore the implications of the emerging findings from the research and to test potential options for collaborating on customer satisfaction across local government in Scotland.

LATEST PUBLICATIONS & RESOURCES

Scotland's Councillors 2007 (COSLA/Scottish Government/Improvement Service)

National Survey of Local Government Candidates 2007 (Scottish Government)

Community Empowerment in practice: lessons from Communities First (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

***REMINDER***

A range of management resources and tools designed to improve the performance of managers and staff is being made available to Scottish local government by the Improvement Service. "Stepping Stones to Improvement" contains sets of information and tools on 15 management topics including change management, communication, leadership and performance management. To access it, visit our Toolkits section or go straight to http://member.goodpractice.net/is-management-toolkit/Login.gp

Also just launched is a Leadership Toolkit aimed at senior managers and leaders operating at strategic levels within organisations. The Leadership Toolkit can be accessed via the Toolkits section or http://member.goodpractice.net/is-leadership-toolkit/Login.gp

Both tookits have been developed by goodpractice.net, which regularly updates and refreshes the material. You must complete a simple registration process to access the toolkits.