Oxfordshire County Council has ended an agreement with Carillion that sees Carillion provide many services on the council’s behalf.
Negotiations have been ongoing for many months and now both parties have reached a mutually beneficial agreement which involves no termination costs for the taxpayer and enables changes to the contract that were not efficient for either side.
New arrangements for the design and construction element of the contract that has been terminated will take effect later this year. They will be procured externally.

Position papers outlining how the UK will negotiate on important issues related to Brexit have been published.
The documents lay out the UK’s approach to issues related to Brexit and outline how the UK will take steps towards fostering a ‘new deep and special partnership’ with the EU after we leave.
The papers concern issues to do with: ongoing Union Judicial and Administrative Proceedings; nuclear materials and safeguard issues; and Privileges and Immunities.
Each of the papers will be presented to the Commission for discussion.

Organisations across the public sector are set to make big savings on the cost of training and developing their staff.
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has laid out a new Managed Learning Services agreement which is predicted to save the public sector around £30 million, with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) set to receive more than half of the total investment.

The government has made plans to strengthen the NHS and social care organisations against cyber attacks and protect patient data.
The government, as part of its response to reviews and consultation feedback on cyber issues, has announced that investment in data and cyber security will be boosted above £50 million, and will include a new £21 million capital fund for major trauma centres.

The Home Office has announced a further funding of almost £100,000 to tackle the issues around gang violence.
The funding enables the expansion of local area reviews and targeted support offered as part of the government’s continuing commitment to Ending Gang Violence and Exploitation (EGVE).
The Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability announced the funding at a government forum held to bring partners together to tackle the issue of gangs.

Councils will have to change the way they operate if they are to cope with the challenges and risks facing them, a new report says.

UK unemployment has fallen by 64,000 to 1.49 million, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows.
The unemployment rate fell by 0.2 per cent in the three months in May to its lowest since 1975, at 4.5 per cent, the statistics found.
Wage increases, however, continued to fall further behind inflation. Earnings rose by 2.0 per cent year-on-year, excluding bonuses. But inflation had hit a four-year high of 2.9 per cent in May.
Factoring in the impact of inflation, real weekly wages are shown to have fallen by 0.5 per cent compared with the previous year.

Central government cuts have forced councils to reduce planned spending on public health services, a new analysis shows.
The analysis, conducted by The King’s Fund, shows that spending on public health services such as sexual health clinics will be reduced by £85 million. It also shows that councils in England are planning to spend £3.4 billion on public health services in 2017/18. The King’s Fund has estimated that planned public spending is more than 5 per cent less in 2017/18 than it was in 2013/14.

‘Housing First’ is shown to be cheaper and more effective than the current approach to long-term homelessness, a new report finds.
Crisis and the Metro Mayor for Liverpool City Region are asking for local and national policymakers to consider a new approach to homelessness that a major study of Liverpool City Region has found cheaper and more effective than the current approach.