Here’s your starter for ten as we experiment with a new Saturday slot posing a view for debate: The enthusiasm across the political spectrum for using choice to raise standards in public services is misplaced because: For many public services, it’s vital to get the service right first time – for everyone. Children only get to go

NEVER before has there been such fear for the effective delivery of services in the future. Political debates, opinions and discussions all focus on money and as we all know,

The decision of Deputy Minister for Social Services to set up an intervention board to oversee improvements in Swansea's Children Services was most probably the right decision given the way that this department has been kicked around like a political football on that authority in the last year. The administration there is unhappy but has accepted the decision and is buckling down to work with...

Today in the House of Lords, Gillian Shephard has a debate on the functioning of Children's Services Departments in local authorities in England and why they seem to be failing vulnerable children. I spoke to her about it a couple of days ago and she told me that since 1997 there have been 69 green and white papers affecting children, nine health service reoganisations and seventeen Acts of P...

Nearly a third of councils' children services have been rated adequate or poor, despite the attention focused on children services in the wake of the Baby Peter scandal.

Government anti-drinking campaigns are woefully inadequate and have failed to tackle the growing drink problem, research shows. It concludes that politicians must learn from hard-hitting and effective campaigns on issues such as smoking and Aids if the rise in "high risk" drinking is to be contained. But the report, by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, warns that scare tactics or messages that blame...

Monmouthshire County Council has always aspired to be an efficient and effective organisation in delivering services to its citizens. The launch of Monmouthshire’s new web site is to provide a robust and flexible platform from which the County’s future service delivery strategy can be built.

The government is sending council children's services chiefs on intensive training programmes to help them deal with complex child protection cases in the wake of the Baby P tragedy. The move will address concerns that children's services directors have been too focused on schools at the expense of social care. Since children's services departments were merged in 2004, most director...

THE government has guaranteed the future of the "unique" school where children of Scottish military service personnel are taught, ending speculation that it could beco

Three years ago, the BBC World Service embarked on radical change. Radio services to Eastern Europe were closed down and the Russian service pared back, all to fund new TV stations in Arabic and Persian. I cannot disagree in principle...