General Reports and Other Publications

ScotGov: An independent review of Scotland's water rescue capability has concluded that there is no requirement for new legislation or wholesale change in current statutory arrangements & protocols.
 
It makes a total of 15 recommendations as to how local & national government and the emergency services can improve their collective response to flood & inland water rescue. The Scottish Government will issue a formal response to the findings in the first quarter of 2010.
Press release ~ Independent Review of Open Water and Flood Rescue in Scotland
 
LBRO: Local regulatory services across England & Wales are spending around £6m a year dealing with central Government requests for data – roughly half the salary of an extra environmental health or trading standards officer for every council – according to a new report.
 
The administrative burden placed on local authority environmental health services, licensing & trading standards has been identified by The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), commissioned by the Local Better Regulation Office (LBRO) to review data collections in regulatory services.
 
The CIPFA report - Data Collections from Local Authority Regulatory Services - found councils had to return 139 forms – sometimes the same form more than once - asking for more than 15,000 pieces of mostly activity related information, to a total of 22 central bodies. CIPFA also found a considerable amount of duplication in the questions asked.
Press release ~ CIPFA ~ Data Collections from Local Authority Regulatory Services: Data mapping and costing the administrative burden ~ Cutting bureaucracy for our public services (June 2007)
 
Defra: Anna Walker, who was asked to conduct an independent Review of Charging for Household Water and Sewerage Services by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and by Welsh Assembly Ministers in August 2008, has published her final report.
 
The report is based on responses to an initial call for evidence in 2008 and an interim report in July 2009, 8 workshops across the country (including 2 in Plymouth), analysis of existing data and significant fresh analysis.
Press release ~ Independent Review of Charging and Metering for Water and Sewerage services ~ Final report ~ Future Water – the Government’s Water Strategy for England ~ Stakeholder Workshops
 
ESRC: Computer screen pop-ups may slow down your work more than you think, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Although the actual interruption may only last a few moments, the study shows that we then lose more time when we try to find our place & resume the task that was interrupted.
 
The research, led by Dr Helen Hodgetts and Professor Dylan Jones at Cardiff University, examined the cost of on-screen interruptions in terms of the time taken to complete a simple 7-step computer task.
  
The researchers found that, even after only a 5 second interruption, people take longer than normal to complete the next step in the task they are working on. In a more realistic work environment, where there is more information to retrieve after the interruption, the loss of concentration could have a greater impact on work performance.
Press release ~ Now where was I? Cognitive models and support mechanisms for interrupted task performance
 
NEOcean acidity has increased by 30% since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the rate of acidification will accelerate in the coming decades, according to a new guide launched at the UN Copenhagen Climate Change summit.  The results could spell disaster for critical parts of the marine food chain, with knock-on consequences for fishing communities & the global fishing industry and wide-scale destruction of marine reefs.
 
Sponsored by Natural England, the European Project on Ocean Acidification’s (EPOCA) guide called ‘Ocean Acidification: The Facts’ highlights the severity of an underwater time-bomb that could have massive implications for marine wildlife and the health of the marine environment.
 
Acidic sea water may be corrosive enough to kill oyster larvae in hatcheries and other shallower marine habitats and species closer to the coast. Economic interests and food security are at risk, particularly in regions especially dependent on seafood protein.
Press release ~ EPOCA guide to ‘Ocean Acidification: The Facts’ ~ European Project on Ocean Acidification’s (EPOCA) ~ Ocean Acidification Reference User Group (RUG) ~ IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature ~ Natural Environment Research Councils (NERC) - Ocean Acidification Programme ~ Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership report ~ WWF - Oceans ~ Coral Triangle and Climate Change: Ecosystems, People and Societies at Risk (VLF 4.5Mb) ~ Coral Reefs Status reports ~ Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network ~ International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) ~ UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre ~ World Atlas of Coral Reefs
 
ScotGov: Renewable & clean energy enjoys a 'significant comparative advantage' in Scotland according to an independent report published last week. A study carried out for the Scottish Government highlights Scotland's location, natural resources, research & development and manufacturing bases as key advantages for developing Scotland's clean energy resource. 

The report shows:
* 1 additional gigawatt of onshore or offshore wind capacity could reduce Scotland's current total carbon emissions by around 3%
* electricity grid infrastructure will be a fundamental influence on Scotland's ability to accommodate growth in renewables
* if carbon capture & storage (CCS) is proven to be a commercial & technical success at full scale, a network in the Firth of Forth could capture around one third of Scotland's onshore carbon emissions
Press release ~ Scotland's Generation Advantage ~ ScotGov:  energy
 
NAO: Venture capital funds injected by government into young companies can provide benefit to them, allowing them to raise finance not available through conventional means and to grow.  But so far the funds have not been managed as a programme and lack a robust framework of objectives to measure performance, according to a report published by the National Audit Office.
 
In the absence of baselines for measuring benefits, and with evidence of poor financial performance from some of the early funds, the programme cannot currently be said to demonstrate value for money.
Press release ~ Venture capital support to small businesses
 
Ofsted: Having an effective programme in place for gifted & talented pupils is not elitist.  Schools that ensure all pupils, including gifted & talented, are suitably challenged find that all pupils benefit, according to a report published by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. As one headteacher told inspectors; ‘in thinking more about the needs of gifted & talented pupils, it helped to add rigour to lesson planning & teaching for all pupils throughout the school’.
 
The report - Gifted and talented pupils in schools - reveals that although most of the 26 schools visited recognised that improving provision for gifted & talented pupils was important, it was not their highest priority.  All had a policy for gifted & talented pupils, but many of them were generic and these were not sufficiently effective in improving performance.
Press release ~ Gifted and talented pupils in schools ~ Directgov: Supporting gifted and talented children ~ Standards Site: Welcome to Gifted and Talented ~ DCSF: YGT ~ Teachernet ~ National association of gifted children
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