Watership Down it ain't
Mandarins at large
Proposals in last week's Budget to disperse up to 20,000 civil servants from London to other areas of the country met a mixed response in Whitehall. One wag in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out: "The civil service is already ahead of the game – we now manage to do all our tea-drinking on the move." Another opined: "One positive point is that people might actually get to know the regions about which they are making policy."

However, the biggest bonus of the review being spearheaded by Birmingham University's Sir Michael Lyons, is that mandarins' time will no longer have to be spent at the beck and call of ministers.

"It'll be great," says one civil servant. "We normally have to flit from one part of Whitehall to the next – if this goes ahead, we'll hopefully be able to do all our briefings by the internet." Ah, the dawn of www.sirhumphrey.gov.uk.

Is that your final answer?
It seems bidders for the third round of arm's-length management organisation funding could learn some useful lessons from the previous two rounds.

Speaking on the lessons learned from the first round of ALMO inspections, Roger Jarman, strategic policy adviser at the Audit Commission, said housing inspectors would guard against "staged" tenant reactions in future because, he said, there had been evidence of tenants being briefed on what answers to give inspectors. Future ALMO inspections, he promised, would include less formal tenant surveys. Still, if you can't beat 'em, better join 'em.

Thames Gateway: the movie
June Barnes, chief executive of East Thames Housing Group, has an idea thoughts on how to entice people to move to Thames Gateway when the Communities Plan is done: a massive television advertising campaign.

Barnes amused delegates at last week's Guardian conference on urban regeneration with her epic vision of young couples strolling along the riverbank, smiling children in shiny playgrounds and families going shopping on the Tube.

Her slogan? "Thames Gateway – live in the best of the new alongside the best of the old." Wally Olins, eat your heart out.

Communities Plan: the game
Debate is raging over whether or not the Communities Plan can actually deliver, but Danny Friedman, head of resources at the National Housing Federation, has another way. Friedman is an aficionado of the computer game Sim City – in which you design, build and run your own metropolis – and has mocked up several virtual urban landscapes. "It's great," enthuses Friedman. "It's a holistic way of putting a city together: you can plan the policing, the schools." Whatever next – an antisocial behaviour policy based on Resident Evil?

What have they done to Flopsy?!

Ah, Easter. While most of us are thinking of chocolate eggs, floppy-eared rabbits and long Bank Holiday weekends spent queueing for the till in the garden centre, tough-nosed staff at Southwark council have more practical things on their minds. The council has launched a topical “shock tactics” poster campaign to urge tenants to keep on top of rent payments over the spring break: the “Don’t Lose Your Roof This Easter” drive. The Easter Bunny is showed hunting for tenants who fail to pay their rent on time – the message clear, says Southwark: “Pay your rent, or your roof will end up in the Easter bunny’s basket!”

Source

Housing Today