This publication contains statistics obtained from the staffing census held across all local authorities on 01 October 2007. It presents findings from a range of statistics to provide an overall picture of demand for, supply of and outcomes from the social care workforce.

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 measure customer satisfaction with their services. The research will also explore what this standard approach across Scottish local government might look like.

We are now inviting staff from local government to attend workshops to share their experiences of measuring customer satisfaction and to find out more about this project.

These workshops are for any member of staff in local government with an interest in customer satisfaction, including service managers, front-line staff, customer service managers, performance managers, policy and research officers and many others. We need a range of views and experiences to help us determine the best way forward.

The National Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Programme - coordinated by The Improvement Service and West Lothian Council as lead council - has established a Partnership involving The Improvement Service, Lagan, West Lothian Council and a national steering group.

The Partnership's been successful in making available an attractive proposition, commercially and collaboratively, open to all Scottish councils to implement Lagan's enterprise caseload management solution to manage customer interactions, service and information requests.

Research suggests, however, that there are relatively straightforward ways of improving the performance of any partnership and that even effective partnerships require constant nurturing.

The Improvement Service commissioned a short review of the Partnership to identify and make recommendations and suggestions for improvement. ?This report presents the key findings, conclusions and next steps emerging from this review.

The Improvement Service gratefully acknowledges the support of those individuals and organisations who kindly contributed to the review. ?The National CRM Programme wishes to acknowledge the valued support of Claire Lightowler, Research Manager, The Improvement Service in conducting the research.

Any queries relating to the National CRM Programme or to the review findings can be directed to:

Martin Brown
Head of Customer Relationship Management
The Improvement Service
T: 01506 775558
M: 07824-548407
martin.brown@improvementservice.org.uk

This is the final report of the independent Councillors Commission, established in February 2007 to develop recommendations to encourage a more diverse range of people to become councillors so that communities are better represented. The Commission's remit has been to make recommendations regarding the incentives and barriers:

• Encouraging people who are able, qualified and representative to be candidates to serve as councillors.
• Retaining and developing them once they are elected (or appointed under the Local Government Act 2000).
• Enabling them to secure public interest and recognition for the work they carry out for their communities.

Paper which explores improving the process of policy formulation, resource planning, performance monitoring and data sharing across Scottish local authorities and partnerships.