NA: The National Archives gets ‘down & dirty’ in May with a talk on the vast array of information related to public health held at The National Archives. A most foul and putrid mess: public health records for historians shows that a significant amount of these records are under-used and demonstrates the best way to approach them.
Other free talks during May look at the administration of the royal household and important sources relating to Oscar Wilde, while their daily drop-in sessions introduce first-time visitors to the services available at The National Archives and how to make the most of their resources. These free sessions start at 11:30 and last approximately 30 minutes; pre-booking is not required.
Press release ~
FSCS: Consumers will benefit from new compensation limits from next January following an FSA review of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) limits. The FSA has announced that new limits would come into force for investments, insurance & home intermediation from January 2010. The changes to the limits were proposed in an FSA consultation paper published in October 2008.
WAG: Contracts reserved for supported businesses & factories have been given the go-ahead, Andrew Davies, Minister for Finance & Public Service Delivery has announced. The Welsh Assembly Government has become one of the first public sector organisations within the UK to undertake a tender exercise that is reserved for supported businesses & supported factories.
These are companies & organisations where 50% or more of the workforce have disabilities and the reserving of contracts for such organisations is encouraged under European law. The contracts will in turn allow the public sector in Wales to engage more with supported factories & businesses and enable them to fulfil their vital role in employing those with disabilities.
Press release ~ Article 19 of the EU Directive for reserving contracts for supported factories and businesses ~ WAG – Improving Public Services
MoD: The Ministry of Defence is encouraging councils, businesses & homes across the country to show their support for Britain's Armed Forces by flying a special flag designed forArmed Forces Day on Saturday 27 June 2009. Hundreds of councils have pledged to raise the Flag at 10.30am on Monday 22 June to officially commence a week of celebrations in honour of our Armed Forces.
The design of the flag is based on the Union Jack and it measures 5ft by 3ft. Flags cost £10, which includes a £1 donation by the flag supplier, Piggotts, to the Forces Children's Trust, a charity devoted to helping dependent children that have lost a parent whilst serving with the Armed Forces.
PCS: Member of the PCS unions in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have postponed their planned industrial action after gaining a significant agreement that protects their working conditions - 10,000 members in Revenue & Customs were set to take action at 20 sites across the UK.
Staff had been angered by ‘draconian’ working conditions such as excessive individual monitoring, tightening of leave allowances and threats to flexible working hours agreements. There have been key gains including that staff should no longer be pressured into terminating calls before the caller’s query is adequately dealt with.
DH: A strategy for accelerating the pace of delivery for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) and introducing additional supplier capacity has been outlined by the Department of Health's Director General for Informatics.
The Department of Health is also working on a toolkit which will allow new products to be developed locally, accredited centrally and linked to existing deployments of information systems such as Cerner and Lorenzo. It is envisaged that work on this toolkit will be complete by March 2010.
It is claimed that good progress has been made in many areas. However, as has been recently pointed out by the Public Accounts Committee, progress in implementing electronic information systems in the acute sector has proved more challenging. Greater pace needs to be injected into these implementations. If significant progress is not achieved by the end of November 2009, a new plan for delivering informatics to healthcare will be adopted.
Press release ~ National Programme for IT (NPfIT) ~ Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework ~ Picture Archiving and Communication Systems ~ Choose and Book ~ Public Accounts Committee - The National Programme for IT in the NHS: Progress since 2006 ~ Computer Weekly article
ACE: Last week marked the half way point in the application stage of Artists taking the lead, the most ambitious & wide ranging art prize in the UK, developed by Arts Council England in partnership with London 2012 and the arts councils of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
Artists of all kinds have been challenged to submit their big ideas for 12 inspirational commissions, one in each of the nine English regions, and in the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Artists have until Friday 29 May 2009 to submit their ideas online.
STFC: The NASA/STFC/ASI Swift satellite has found a gamma-ray burst from a star that died when the Universe was 640m years old, or less than 5% of its present age. The event, dubbed GRB 090423, is the most distant cosmic explosion ever seen and gives astronomers an insight into the early Universe.
Gamma-ray bursts are the Universe's most luminous explosions. Most occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As their cores collapse into a black hole or neutron star, gas jets - driven by processes not fully understood - punch through the star and blast into space. There, they strike gas previously shed by the star and heat it, which generates short-lived afterglows in other wavelengths.
Press release ~ Naked-Eye Gamma-ray Burst Model for GRB 080319B ~ Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ~ UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) ~ Mullard Space Science Laboratory ~ UK Swift Science Data Centre ~ ESO
SE: Sport England recently joined the Mayor of London and his Sports Commissioner Kate Hoey to launch ‘A Sporting Future for London’ – a plan to encourage more people to play sport in London in the run up to the 2012 Games.
Key initiatives in the plan include:
* Mobile swimming pools
* Boxing academies
* Street athletics
* Competitive sport for children with disabilities
Cabinet Office: The Government has announced plans for an award that recognises the extraordinary acts of courage shown by a number of British citizens. Britons who made a difference during the Holocaust include Jane Haining from Dunscore in Scotland - who was sent to Auschwitz after caring for 400 Jewish girls in occupied Hungary - and 10 British prisoners of war who rescued a girl from a death march in Poland and hid her in their PoW camp.
Precise details of the award will be discussed between the Communities Secretary & the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with representatives of families of the heroes and the Holocaust Educational Trust. Full details will be published in due course.
DWP: Recognising the benefits of mutual co-operation, the United Kingdom (DWP), United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand have come together to sign the 'Windsor Arrangement' which aims to achieve stronger prevention, earlier detection and effective deterrence of benefit fraud. This costs the UK taxpayer £800m a year.
The six signatories have agreed to work together to share intelligence and risk profiling, to share strategies & best practice for combating fraud, to determine scope for carrying out investigations & enforcement for each other and to enhance understanding of the nature & extent of identity fraud.
DECC: English and Welsh waters are to be scoped out for their potential to host marine energy devices. A new study will look at the potential for wave, tidal-stream and tidal range technologies around the English & Welsh coastline.
The work will also build on data already gathered for the Offshore Energy SEA, the Welsh Marine Energy Strategic Plan (due summer 2010) and other studies. It will also help identify any data gaps needed to put in place a Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) for marine energy devices in England and Wales.
Press release ~ BWEA – Renewable Marine Energy ~ Offshore Energy SEA ~ Severn Tidal SEA ~ European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) ~ Marine Energy Challenge ~ Future Marine Energy ~ Institution of Mechanical Engineers – Marine Energy ~ University of Edinburgh – Marine energy ~ ScotGov – Marine renewable energy ~ Saltire Prize ~ Pre-Scoping Study to Determine Grid Requirements to Connect Renewable Energy off the Coasts of Northern Europe ~ Atlas of UK Marine Renewable Energy Resources
HA: Traffic access arrangements for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in Northamptonshire have been announced. The arrangements for the Grand Prix on the 19, 20 and 21 June 2009 will be very similar to the past five years.
Drivers who use the A43 and local residents are being given advance notice of these changes and diversion routes so they can plan their journeys or make alternative arrangements if necessary. Non-race traffic is advised to avoid roads in the area if possible.
Detailed access arrangements will be given to residents between now and the Grand Prix for each of the villages affected by the closures and diversions, including the impact on school & public bus services, to keep disruption to a minimum.
LDA: A new centre for the NationalSkillsAcademy for Construction (NSAfC) was launched recently at the National Construction College East London campus to help Londoners develop the right skills to help deliver the venues & infrastructure for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games and other large-scale projects taking place across the region, such as Stratford City and Crossrail.
The centre will offer 2,000 training places a year in much needed trades including plant maintenance, concreting, formworking, steel fixing, flooring and highways maintenance. It is funded by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the London Development Agency (LDA), ConstructionSkills and the five Host Boroughs (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest) working with the Olympic Delivery Authority).
The centre will be managed by, and training will be delivered through, the National Construction College (NCC), which is Europe’s largest construction training provider.
Press release ~ National Skills Academy for Construction (NSAfC) ~ National Construction College (NCC) ~ LDA
ScotGov: A new online system to enable people in all parts of Scotland to apply for developments, appeal against decisions and track progress of proposals has been launched. The £11.2m ePlanning initiative is intended to make Scotland's planning system simpler, faster & more accessible, providing a consistent level of service throughout the country.
The Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA) has also launched a new service. Details of all appeals and all documents considered by the decision maker are now published on the internet where there is access to all current cases.
Press release ~ ePlanning Scotland ~ Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals (DPEA) ~ Speeding up reform of the planning system.
PCS: Last week the start of a major equal pay case brought by PCS union in the Department for Transport (DfT) where there is a 21% gender pay gap. PCS successfully fought a similar equal pay case in the Prison Service in 2006, which cost the employer £50m to introduce equal pay.
Commenting Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: "It is a bitter irony that in the same week the government publishes that Equalities Bill we are forced to once again take a government department to tribunal over equal pay……The department and the government need to face up to the culture of low pay and pay inequality they have created in the DfT with pay gaps of around £5,000 for people doing similar jobs”. See also ‘In the News’ section)
DH: Extra nurses and an experienced Assistant Director of Nursing are being deployed to Stafford Hospital to boost frontline staff & further improve patient care as part of a package of measures in the wake of Health Secretary Alan Johnson's response to recent reports into the standard of care at the Trust.
The extra nurses are being put in place on the advice of Chief Nursing Officer Dame Christine Beasley in response to recommendations from two reports commissioned by Alan Johnson, following the Healthcare Commission's findings last month. Mr Johnson has accepted all the reports' recommendations and made it clear that greater priority must be given to patients' views.
The Department of will also, in future, publish on the NHS Choices website, the Hospital Standardised Mortality Rates (HSMR) for hospitals in England.
Press release ~ CQC press release ~ Reports and Ministerial statement ~ NHS Choices - Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) ~ The Care Quality Commission plan to assess progress at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust
DfT: The dangers of texting while driving are highlighted in a new THINK! campaign launched by Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick after research showed that 30% of young drivers admitted to texting at the wheel. Using a mobile phone at the wheel is considered the second most unacceptable driving behaviour among motorists with 93% agreeing that texting while driving is dangerous. However, 12% of all motorists admit to texting while driving.
The new radio advert features a driver's voice spelling out a text message followed by the sound of a car crash. Anonline 'driving challenge' game- which demonstrates how using a mobile at the wheel can completely distract the driver - is being circulated online via social networking communities & entertainment sites.
STFC: On 14 May 2009, ESA’s Herschel and Planck satellites will be launched on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana together into space, where they will collect the most detailed information yet about the birth & evolution of our Universe and its stars and galaxies. The UK is playing major roles in both missions, with funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
Press release ~ Herschel ~ Planck ~ Science and Technology Facilities Council ~ British National Space Centre ~ ESA
MoD: A brand new £14m training area at Stanford Training Area (STANTA) in Norfolk will provide all troops deploying to Afghanistan with the most advanced & relevant training facilities in the UK. The facilities consist of a RuralMiddleEasternVillage and an Urban Middle Eastern Complex which were designed by the Operational Training Advisory Group (OPTAG) to replicate as closely as possible the situations which troops could face on operations in Afghanistan and South Asia.
With the help of Afghan nationals and others who take on the role of insurgents in these training areas, OPTAG will be able to replicate the sights, sounds & smells of the South Asia. From the call to prayer heard across a busy market place, a bustling family home, to a network of claustrophobic alleyways with high walls, the areas provide for a complex and realistic way to train troops and test their skills under demanding conditions.
