General News
National Archives: An innovative project from The National Archives has won a prestigious Jodi Award for excellence in accessible museum, library and archive technology. The award was for the National Archives´ online resource exhibition Prisoner 4099, which was the culmination of a 3-year collaborative project between The National Archives, a group of blind & visually impaired students from different parts of Britain and other national organisations keen to promote & develop accessibility on the Internet.
Prisoner 4099 deals with Victorian crime and focuses on the life of a 12 year-old boy, William Towers, who was arrested and sent to prison for stealing.
OS: East Riding of Yorkshire Council expects to save at least £160,000 of taxpayer’s money a year by improving school bus services, using data from national mapping agency Ordnance Survey.
The council found that certain bus routes were not running at full capacity while others were over full. Armed with this understanding, the council was able to overlay data about bus stop and pupil locations in OS MasterMap ITN Layer to produce a new set of optimised routes, which would make better use of resources and the available capacity.
DH: Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has unveiled a much trailed website - NHS Choices - which aims to personalise healthcare and provide information that will allow patients to make meaningful choices about when and where to receive their treatment.
The site is meant to provide important benefits for patients, providers and healthcare commissioners. For example, those patients for whom waiting time is a critical factor will be able to identify the most appropriate hospital, while others who may wish to base their decision on travelling times, or incidence of MRSA, will also have their preferences met.
SPCB: A full scale review of parliamentary allowances has been announced by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB). Taking a 'first principles' approach, the review will examine all areas of allowances, to establish what resources are required in order to enable MSPs to perform their parliamentary duties and their duties to their constituents effectively.
The review will cover all three main allowance categories:
* the Members' Allowances Scheme
* the Party Leaders' Allowance Scheme, and
* the Equipment & Furniture Scheme
Press release ~ Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body ~ Allowances Paper ~ Al lowances Search User Guide
DfT: New research has found vehicles equipped with Electronic Stability Control (ESC) are 25% less likely to be involved in a fatal accident than those without it. If every vehicle on the road were fitted with ESC, this would equate to approximately 380 fewer fatal accidents each year.
The research concluded that ESC was especially effective in helping to prevent crashes that involved a vehicle skidding or overturning, with the potential to reduce serious accidents like this by up to 59%. As well as this, it concluded that ESC could offer additional benefits in adverse road conditions such as wet or snowy weather.