Policy Announcements, Monday 14 May

Government

• Today the Prime Minister announced there are now over 200 schools on track to get Trust status - double the number expected at this point. Over 140 primary, secondary and special schools have applied to become Trusts in the last six months, alongside 69 full pathfinder schools piloting Trust status. The first of the pathfinder schools plan to become Trust schools from September 2007. There are now plans to work towards having 300 schools who have become Trust schools or are in the pipeline by the end of the year. Organisations currently signed up to partner the pathfinder schools, strengthen their leadership and build their ethos, include Barnado's, Microsoft, the Co-operative Group, Unilever, Dyslexia Action and a range of FE colleges and universities.
• Fourteen councils and six NHS Trusts have joined together to save nearly £7 million in the latest IT hardware eAuction run by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) with the London Centre of Excellence (LCE). The councils and trusts auctioned IT hardware requirements worth £13.7 million at pre-auction benchmarked prices, achieving a price at the end of the five hour auction of £6.9 million: an average saving of 50 per cent across the six lots. This brings the number of central government and wider public sector organisations that have so far participated in OGC eAuctions to 325, saving a total of £21 million since the first eAuction in September 2005.
• Road safety officers are calling on the government to ban smoking behind the wheel to cut the number of accidents. Simon Ettinghausen, of the Local Authority Road Safety Officers' Association, said smoking was a dangerous distraction. He said there were concerns the ban on smoking in public places from 1 July might tempt more drivers to light up.