Improvement Service

Local public service information portal focusing on issues such as economic development, education and skills, performance management, government and public administration, planning. The site acts as a gateway to information from government departments, agencies and public bodies.

Ingenta provides access to over 20 million articles from more than 30,000 publications including academic and professional journals. The site is free to search and browse. Full text access (online or by fax) is by subscription.

IRISS is a charitable organisation that works to improve access to and use of knowledge and innovation in Scottish social services. It's site includes access to the Learning Exchange - a digital library, case studies, toolkits and other resources.

A free service providing access to the best online resources for education and research. Subjects include Business and Management, Economics, Government Policy, Politics, Social Welfare, Statistics and Data. All material is evaluated and selected by a network of subject specialists.

Research platform providing access to over 22,000 journals, plus thousands of books, websites, and conference proceedings in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Access by subscription

JISC is an advisory service for managers in further and higher education and promotes the use of IT in the sector. Its site has a useful listing of social software tools including blogs, wikis, podcasts,and other social networking and sharing tools which includes definitions, benefits and barriers to use and examples of the tools in use.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is one of the largest social policy research and development charities in the UK. It publishes research on housing and neighbourhoods, poverty and disadvantage, practice and research, drugs and alcohol, governance, immigration and inclusion. The site includes summaries of research findings and the ability to download full research reports.

A commercial provider of business information in a variety of areas, including legal, corporate, government, and risk and compliance assessment. The Nexis service allows searching of and full text access to approximately 12,000 publications from national and local newspapers, press releases, transcripts of TV broadcasts, newswires, statistical bulletins, magazines and trade journals. Access by subscription.

The website of the Local Government Chronicle provides news, best practice, careers, archives on subjects relevant to local government professionals including policy and politics, finance and corporate services, families, development and communities. Contains a section on Scottish local government.

Organisation dedicated to English and Welsh local government improvement. The Knowledge area of its website contains the latest knowledge about good practice in local government, focusing on improving your council, leadership, workforce improvement, partnership working and people and communities.