Socitm: IT Assistant Scott Mansfield (22), a member of the web team at Leeds City Council, has been named winner of this year’s Graham Williamson Challenge Award by Socitm. The learning-through-travel award was set up in memory of the former Head of IT at Argyll & Bute Council, Graham Williamson, who was passionate about mentoring people starting out in their career in IT.
Within his current role Scott supports schools with the use of their online learning environments, which are built on Microsoft SharePoint, and are designed to support 21st Century teaching & learning across Leeds. This involves him working with products such as Microsoft SilverLight and InfoPath forms.
Socitm will be using its international connections to help Scott identify contacts in central & local government bodies to support his plans and will mentor him throughout his involvement in the scheme. Following his return to the UK, Scott will be invited to make a series of presentations to Socitm audiences about his experiences and what he has learned. A report from last year's GWC winner, Frances Kettleday of Cambridgeshire County Council, will be available on the Socitm website shortly.
HO: The Home Office has announced that a multi-million pound boost to the emergency services radio communication system has been awarded as the countdown to the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games reaches 1,000 days.
This significant step in safety & security planning came as the HO made a £39m investment in Airwave - the radio communication system used by the police & other emergency services. The investment will fund an increase in the capability of the system in time for the 2012 Games which will mean it can cater for thousands more users from within the police, fire & ambulance services.
Press release ~ National Policing Improvement Agency ~ Airwave Solutions Ltd ~The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Safety and Security Strategy
WAG: Entrepreneur Ben Giles, who turned a weekend window cleaning round into a successful business employing nearly 60 people, is now targeting police forces around the UK offering a unique crime scene cleaning service.
His Cardigan based company Ultima Cleaning already offers an extensive range of services covering pest control, commercial kitchen cleaning, carpet cleaning, fire & flood damage cleaning, hypodermic needle collection and office cleaning
The demand for this latest service, which requires extensive expertise in a range of areas, has been so considerable that Ben has established The National Academy of Crime Scene Cleaners to develop UK wide standards & accreditation.
Ben said the WAG’s Flexible Support for Business programme helped him expand the business through specialist workshops on tendering for business & opportunities to meet potential buyers. His business has also benefited from WAG training grants to ensure his workforce have the necessary skills & accreditation to work in a number of allied fields.
Press release ~ Ultima Cleaning – Crime scene cleaning ~ The National Academy of Crime Scene Cleaners ~ WAG: Flexible Support for Business programme
NE: Natural England has announced a new partnership with major developers to help deliver a higher quality natural environment in our towns & cities. Launched last week at the 2009 Thames Gateway Forum in London, 'A Natural Development' aims to demonstrate the contribution the natural environment can make to urban regeneration.
The partnership, already supported by key developers from Arup, Barking Riverside, Land Securities and Countryside Properties, will look to highlight best practice and raise the standard of design & delivery for green infrastructure.
Pilot studies are now being established at the Barking Riverside and Lodge Hill developments in the Thames Gateway and a series of seminars will take place throughout 2010, exploring how best to value, design & create quality green infrastructure and to further engage developers with the scheme.
Press release ~ Natural England: A Natural Development ~ 2009 Thames Gateway Forum in London ~
NA: Records from the General Register Office: Miscellaneous Foreign Returns, 1831-1964 (RG 32) have been added to the online service at BMD Registers. Searching the records is free, but there is a charge to download images of the original documents.
The records contain largely non-statutory documents relating to births, baptisms, marriages, deaths & burials abroad (& on British as well as foreign ships) of British subjects, nationals of the colonies, the Commonwealth and countries under British jurisdiction. Events affecting some foreign nationals are also included.
Records consist mainly of certificates issued by foreign registration authorities and copies of entries kept by incumbents of English churches & missions, chaplains and burial authorities. While many are in local languages, these have been translated for this service. The records also contain documents sent voluntarily by individuals to the Registrar General.
The records were previously only viewable on microfilm at The National Archives, Kew as the RG 32 series. This latest release further opens up these fascinating and intriguing records for family historians.
LD: NLIS regulator, Land Data, has announced that a third NLIS channel license has been awarded. GlobalX Information Services (GlobalX), the largest provider of electronic land & property searches to the Australian legal community, has been granted the license and joins existing channels SearchFlow & Thames Water in providing authoritative electronic land & property search information through NLIS, to the conveyancing profession.
GlobalX has been providing online access to title searching and other land & property search services for conveyancers via its GXS.com.au portal since 1995. The company also offers a broad range of commercial information products as well as owning one of the largest legal practice management software solutions in Australia.
DECC: Energy & Climate Change Minister, David Kidney, has granted consent to Peterborough Renewable Energy Ltd for the construction of the 80MW energy from waste & biomass fuelled power station at Storey’s Bar Gate.
The power station will include a cluster of processes which together provide a means of dealing with materials such as waste and provide beneficial outputs such as recovered glass, plastics & metals. The East of England has its own renewable target of 17% by 2020 (not including offshore wind) and this plant could deliver 10% of that target for 2010/11. Over the 20 year life of the station, it will save almost 12m tonnes of carbon dioxide.
BIS: Young people with enterprising ambitions have been given a £1m boost to help turn their ideas into businesses. The funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will enable youth charity, The Prince’s Trust, to help unemployed young people explore the viability of their business plans, develop their initial ideas and bring their businesses to life.
In the next 5 months, 630 young people will take part in The Prince’s Trust’s new ‘Be Enterprising’ course. The Prince’s Trust expects that 270 young people will see their own business come to life through the course, with others moving in to other work, education & training.
50 young people who have already successfully set up a business with help from The Prince’s Trust will become Young Ambassadors, to inspire other young people to be enterprising – particularly in the most deprived areas of England.
OGC: The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has announced that it is to set up a pan-government e-auction Centre of Excellence to increase the impact of e-auctions in the public sector. It will have a remit to provide co-ordination & support for e-auctions across the wider public sector, particularly where there is scope for increased collaboration.
A number of e-auction programmes already exist across Whitehall and the wider public sector, and the centre will look to harness greater efficiencies from these through supporting the co-ordination of resource, establishing a consistency of approach and providing a platform for coalitions. It will aim to influence public sector spend of £820m and help achieve savings of over £250m by the end of 2010/11.
The Pro5 group of Professional Buying Organisations will be supporting the OGC's e-auction programme and planning for a specific e-auction for local government in ICT hardware is already underway and will be built from a Pro5 framework
The announcement of the e-auction Centre of Excellence follows the recent publication of the pan-Government policy on the use of electronic systems to support procurement activity. This new policy requires public sector organisations to make progress towards achieving the outcomes outlined in the HM Treasury's Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) by maximising existing public sector investment in e-procurement systems and tools.
Press release ~ Pro5 group of Professional Buying Organisations ~ Buying Solutions: e-procurement ~ HM Treasury's Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP) ~ Pan-Government policy on the use of electronic systems to support procurement activity
BIS: A project to develop a new all-electric & affordable urban car, manufactured using an innovative & sustainable production process has been announced. The development of the T.27 - the brain child of Gordon Murray Design and Zytek Automotive Technology - has been made possible through a £4.5m investment from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board.
The T.27 is a sustainable vehicle, which means it will be designed in a way that minimises the use of materials and keeps the vehicle’s embedded carbon as low as possible. The aim is to ensure that the environmental impact of the materials & energy used are as low as can be. The iStream® production process is also highly-efficient & flexible, thereby helping to reduce costs.
With a total cost of £9m, a new research & development project will allow the consortium to develop 4 prototypes of a 3-seater all-electric vehicle achievable of 4-star Euro NCAP rating & excellent pedestrian safety, by February 2011.
They will then be in a position where they can further explore the possibility of scaling up & building a manufacturing facility, with the ultimate goal of making this affordable, fun & environmentally-friendly car widely available on the open market.
Press release ~ Gordon Murray Design - iStream® methodology ~ Zytek Automotive Technology ~ Technology Strategy Board
OS: A new mobile phone-based locating service that allows you to view a person’s position to within 10m is the first fully commercial application to use OS OpenSpace Pro. The innovative mobile phone device, called Locatorz, works by using a mobile phone’s GSM connection to transmit its position to the Locatorz server by sending a GPS signal. From this signal Locatorz plots the information on to an Ordnance Survey map and sends it to a viewable, secure Internet page.
The online service is built on the OS OpenSpace platform and allows smooth panning & zooming to locate colleagues, friends or loved ones. The Locatorz service is ideal for a variety of users, ranging from small businesses to individuals. Doctors, district nurses, estate agents, social workers, bailiffs, taxi drivers and many other people are often called to visit locations where their safety may be an issue.
Ensuring that their location is viewable significantly enhances their personal security. In addition, it can also be used by individuals and families to locate children and elderly & vulnerable relatives.
NA: In partnership with The National Archives, Ancestry.co.uk has now made available online the entire collection of British Army World War One Service Records, 1914-1920, detailing the full military careers of more than 2m soldiers who served during World War One.
Service records contain a variety of information concerning all aspects of the army careers of those who completed their duty were killed in action or executed. They include the soldier's name, date & place of birth, address, next-of-kin, former occupation, marital status, medical records, service history, regiment number, locations of service and discharge papers.
The files were chosen for digitisation because they are one of the most popular resources accessed at The National Archives and, prior to now, only available in microfilm format. Digitising the microfilm records makes these valuable records easier to search and more accessible to a wider audience.
ScotGov: The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC) has announced a £17.4m investment in a new marine science research pool that will bring together researchers from several universities and research institutes.
The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) will receive the funding over 7 years as part of a total investment of £74.7m. 10 partners, including 8 Scottish universities - Aberdeen, Glasgow, St Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde, Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh Napier, and UHI Millennium Institute through the Scottish Association of Marine Science - are to form the pool which will carry out world-class research, training & knowledge exchange.
Among its key areas of research, MASTS will pool existing strengths to look at areas including biodiversity, marine predators, sustainable mariculture and fisheries. MASTS also includes Marine Scotland (Science), the Scottish Government's own science research & advisory service, and the Universities Marine Biological Station at Millport, which is part of the University of London.
The formation of MASTS will create 8 new professorships & 13 lectureships/readerships. A graduate academy will be at the core of MASTS offering advanced postgraduate training in marine sciences to attract & retain young scientists of true excellence, making marine science an attractive career option for talented people within & beyond Scotland and further increasing Scotland's competitive edge in the field.
Press release ~ Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council ~ Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS) ~ Marine Scotland ~ Universities Marine Biological Station at Millport ~ Scottish Oceans Institute - University of St Andrews ~ ScotGov - marine
Newswire – HCA: Training providers, academic institutions & professional bodies in the place-making sector are being invited to submit their products for recognition under a new scheme from the HCAAcademy. The Place-making Recognition Scheme will create a list of recognised learning programmes, resources & best practice case studies. This will help practitioners to identify programmes that will equip them with the skills & knowledge to lead projects, improve partnerships and create great places.
The scheme will open for submissions up to 4 times a year (next deadline 30 November 2009). An independent panel will assess all applications and all products will be expected to pass a series of quality assurance tests. Once approved, the recognition logo can be used on learning materials & resources as a stamp of approval.
