From Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs column

Items about Leicester Labour councillor Iqbal Desai having county court judgments against him for owing money and Newham Labour councillor trying unsuccessfully to become a candidate in the forthcoming Bangladesh General Election. Also a picture of a Camden Council notice at Chalk Farm Library saying: "Do not leave your belongings. Unattended thieves operate in this area."

But the item that really caught my attention was the following:

"Much disappointment among the blue-sky thinking community as Haringey council's children services director, Sharon Shoesmith, axed in the aftermath of the Baby P scandal, pulls out of an important speaking engagement at a conference at New Connaught Rooms next month.

"Ms Shoesmith was to have held forth on the subject of 'Breaking Down Silos: Inspiring Ownership and Sharing Responsibility for Measuring Impacts and Outcomes Across Partnerships' at the day-long event. Hopefully the organisers, Haymarket Conferences, will not face too many demands for reimbursement of the £645 fee from delegates attending the 'Advance Beyond target Chasing and Strategically Measure Impacts and Outcomes' conference on January 28 for there are many other treats in store.

"They can learn from Mark Rogers, chief executive of Solihull metropolitan borough council, how to 'integrate different means of measurement and aggregate data from different service areas to find out if children and young people actually experience material benefits from your service', or hear the views of Parvinder Chana of Telford and Wrekin Council on 'how to embed measurement into the fabric of your service and design a framework that supports monitoring and measurement at every stage to ensure that you effectively evaluate the impact your service is having on children and young people's lives.'
 
"Shoesmith may be gone. But as long as her colleagues carry on breaking down silos, embedding measurements and aggregating data, there is surely hope for Britain's vulnerable children."