Management best practice

NEWS

The Government's Response to the final report of the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership

On 25 September 2002, Patricia Hewitt and Estelle Morris announced the publication of the Government's response to the final report of the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership. The response sets out a programme of activity to improve the quality of management and leadership across the UK economy. The Government strategy, at the centre of the response, is to raise awareness of, and increase the demand for, the benefits of improved management and leadership skills among business leaders and organisations. The work will be driven and championed by an Advisory Panel of high profile public and private sector leaders and Ministers, and will be supported by a new joint DTI/ DfES team which will provide a central focus for Government activity on management and leadership.

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International Technology Service mission report on Nanotechnology to Germany and the USA

International Technology Service mission report on Nanotechnology to Germany and the USA is now available on-line. For general information on nanotechnology, please contact the Institute of Nanotechnology at www.nano.org.uk. If you would like a hard copy please contact maureen.clifford@dti.gsi.gov.uk

Study mission to the USA on Cement-based Stabilisation and Solidiication for the Remediation of Contaminated Land

Also avaiable is a report resulting from a study mission to the USA on Cement-based Stablisation and Solidification for the Remediation of Contaminated Land. For further Iinformation and copies, please contact the British Cement Association at www.bca.org.uk, quoting 46.050.

BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR 360 DEGREE FEEDBACK PUBLISHED

A major piece of research, which provides illuminating and challenging insights into feedback processes in organisations has resulted in the publication of Best Practice Guidelines for 360 degree Feedback.

The guidelines are the product of a massive two year project sponsored by a consortium consisting of the British Psychological Society; the Department of Trade and Industry; the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; SHL and the Roehampton Institute, London.

Over a two year period more than 50 major public and private sector organisations have been involved in the study which was made up of five major research strands;

• Organisational Culture and Feedback
• Personality and Individual Difference in 360 degree feedback
• Feedback Skills
• Human facilitated feedback versus Computer Facilitated Feedback
• Measuring Behaviour Change After Feedback

People Skills Scoreboard

The 1998 Competitiveness White Paper highlighted people and skills as being at the heart of the knowledge driven economy and made a commitment to help businesses benchmark investment in training.

The new People Skills Scoreboard benchmark report - for the Multimedia sector - is now available online. This follows the recently published scoreboard for Clothing, Textiles and Footwear. The Scoreboards record individual companies' investment in training and skills development, including investment in training (on and off the job) per head, as a proportion of payroll and of sales, and allow firms to benchmark their own performance against other firms in the sector. The aim of the scoreboards is to raise business awareness of the importance and value of training and help companies benchmark their own performance.Other sector reports will follow.

A very limited supply of hard copies of the Multimedia report is available from the Design Policy and Skills Unit, Bay 357, DTI, 151 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 9SS, tel. 020 7215 3619/5813, fax. 020 7215 3648.

From Quality to Excellence is a new DTI website to help organisations improve their reputation for providing quality products and services.

Business Guide to Continuity Management - To enable organisations to understand Business Continuity Management and to enable its effective implementation, the business continuity, risk management and insurance industries, and supported by DTI, have collaborated to produce a Business Guide to Continuity Management to de-mystify this essential process. Click here for more information

Management Action Note on Value Management
Value management is a process used by many world-class organisations to maximise productivity and achieve best value.

Supporting the new standard BS EN 12973 and the recently developed European System of Training and Certification in Value Management, this second in the series of Action Notes describes the approach and where to go for further information.

To obtain a copy contact the DTI Publications Orderline tel: 0870 1502 500 or e-mail: publications@dti.gsi.gov.uk quoting URN 00/919 or click here (181 Kb) to view/print the document.

How Do You Measure Up To Britain's Best Factories? : Britain's Best Factory Awards are an annual event run by Management Today. For the awards, Cranfield School of Management produce qualitative data from four sectors: process; engineering; electronics and household products. This data provides benchmarks against eleven headings including: delivery reliability; total stockturns; average set-up time and scrap rate.

How do you measure up to Britain's best? Are you a top performer, or un-competitive? Where is the greatest need for improvement? Click here and compare yourself to the best using the results of the latest Awards.

Fit for the Future: a CBI led National campaign helping business learn from business, invites you to take part. Details are available on www.fitforthefuture.org.uk.

Small Business Service
The UK Government has established the new Small Business Service (SBS) which came into effect in April 2000. For the first time, there is a single organisation within Government that is dedicated to the interests of small business.

The new organisation has three main functions:-

• A strong voice for small business at the heart of Government;
• Improving the coherence and quality of Government support for small businesses;
• Helping small firms on regulation.

Visit the web site: http://www.businessadviceonline.org/

The Benchmark Index, the 'Connect' series, Inside UK Enterprise, TCS (formerly known as the Teaching Company Scheme), College-Business Partnerships are now managed by the SBS.