25 April 2008
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has announced a review of the way Britain's airports are run after a report from the Competition Commission said that BAA's monopoly was not necessarily in the public interest. The review would look at how to improve customer service, boost investment and deal with environmental concerns, Kelly said on April 22. 'It has been over 20 years since the Airports Act 1986 put in place the current regime of economic regulation,' she said. 'Much has changed since then and there is an urgent need to consider how the framework needs to be updated.'
London Authorities Mutual Ltd — the first local government insurance company to be set up in more than a century — has been given the green light to continue in the High Court. The judgment on April 22 rejected claims from private sector insurers that councils were acting beyond their designated powers. Laml chair Nathan Elvery said: 'The decision is great news for the mutual and for local government as a whole. It backs up everything Laml has already achieved and sends a clear signal to authorities wishing to join.'
School leaders have welcomed plans to extend the remit of the School Teachers Pay Review Body to include head teachers who take on management responsibilities at struggling schools. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said support for other school managers was equally important for such schemes to work. Education Secretary Ed Balls told The Times that he would like top rewards for the best head teachers to deliver rising standards for all children. The National Leaders in Education scheme will also be expanded from 140 head teachers to 500, with involvement from grammar schools and faith schools.
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller is to take a seat in the House of Lords as a crossbench peer. Manningham-Buller was director-general of the security service (MI5) from 2002 until her retirement in 2007, leading the service through a period of major change and an increased terrorist threat. Her elevation was recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which proposes people for non-party-political peerages. She will be joined on the crossbenches by John Mogg, non-executive chair of electricity and gas regulator Ofgem, and Robert Smith, chair of engineering company the Weir Group and of Scottish and Southern Energy.
Scottish councils are to be given £25m to build new housing over the next three years. At the Scottish National Party spring conference in Edinburgh last week, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that with homelessness on the rise, housing was one of the biggest challenges facing Scotland. She added that the Scottish Government's goal to build 35,000 new houses every year by 2015 would need 'all hands on deck' to be met.
Conservative leader David Cameron has accused the government of 'trying to abolish the family doctor' with Lord Darzi's plan for the expansion of 'polyclinics', housing doctors, social workers, nurses and other medical staff. In a speech to the King's Fund think-tank on April 21, Cameron said Tory research suggested that 1,700 GP surgeries would close down under the plans. 'What I object to is the government's policy of imposing polyclinics on local communities without public support and in the face of opposition from doctors,' he added.
PFapr2008
