WIREDGOV NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
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| The ‘proof will be in the legislation’ |
| This independent review considers the implications of new forms of work on worker rights & responsibilities, as well as on employer freedoms & obligations. It sets out 7 principles to address the challenges facing the UK labour market. |
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BEIS: Good work - the Taylor review of modern working practices BEIS: Government employment practices reviewer outlines “7 principles for good quality work for all” IEA: Taylor Review recommendations may hurt both workers & consumers CBI: Sharing Economy UK responds to the Taylor Review DWP: Employment has reached a new record high Adam Smith Institute welcomes the Taylor Review on the Gig Economy |
| Should be no part of a democracy |
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The PM has asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to conduct a review into the issue of intimidation experienced by Parliamentary candidates. CO: Review into abuse & intimidation in elections |
| ‘Stay at home mothers’ is increasingly not an option for many |
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Over the last 20 years, growth in the earnings of working fathers has been extremely slow, at 0.3% a year on average, while mothers’ earnings have grown by more than 2% a year. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for families where only the father is working to keep up with other families. This matters: around a quarter of children live in a one-earner couple family – around the same proportion as 20 years ago. |
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IFS: Families dependent on fathers' earnings alone have average incomes no higher than 15 years ago JRF: Single breadwinner families facing higher risk of poverty JRF: Slide in real wages means just managing families face little respite IPPR: Government must stop ignoring hidden crisis of rural homeless |
| SME Supplier Locator update... |
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UK Government and public sector spend with SME’s is continually on the increase and by 2020, it is the stated intent of Cabinet Office that £1 of every £3 spent on government contracts goes to SME’s. The past 5 years have seen government make a priority of getting money through its supply chain into the hands of SMEs, by both setting targets and introducing new procurement mechanisms. Against this backdrop, the WiredGov Supplier Locator service has been developed specifically to embrace the SME Agenda and provide the ideal platform for SME’s to promote their services, solutions, accreditation and success stories directly to our ever increasing audience across all government and public sector verticals and Tier 1 suppliers. |
| Now this is how Foreign Aid ought to be spent! |
| The UK will save the life of 1 woman every 90 minutes through its global leadership in supporting modern, voluntary family planning, International Development Secretary Priti Patel announced at a major international summit. |
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DIFD: UK to save a woman’s life every 90 minutes by increasing family planning support FCO: Satellite Event-Pakistan: Family Planning Summit at London 2017 FCO: UK announces £90m funding for family planning in Ethiopia UK co-hosts international Family Planning Summit US “global gag” anti-abortion rule a major setback for women’s health, say MEPs Patel: women are key to building post-conflict stability Scale & depth of development challenge in Nigeria remain significant |
| Presumably Public Health spending is being ‘robbed’ to help fill the social care ‘black hole’ |
| Central government cuts have forced councils to reduce planned spending on vital public health services such as sexual health clinics and reducing harm from smoking, alcohol & drugs by £85m, according to new analysis by The King’s Fund. |
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NO: Quality matters commitment to improve adult social care launched NO: Ombudsman investigations are “making a difference” and changing services for the better Kings Fund: Big cuts planned to public health budgets LGA response to King's Fund research NHS Confed response to King's Fund analysis on public health spending NHS Confed response to CQC Quality Matters report CQC & partners launch the ‘Quality matters’ commitment to improve adult social care |
| Ensure it gets put to a good use! |
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Money from fines given to mobile operators for poor customer service or coverage should be handed over to local areas to boost connectivity, council leaders say. The telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, has levied fines of £ms on mobile operators over the past 3 years for breaches of its rules such as incorrectly billing customers and the poor handling of complaints. The Government’s new Digital Economy Act, which is currently coming into force, will also give Ofcom new powers to fine operators up to 10% of their gross revenue if they breach licencing obligations to improve mobile coverage. Currently, cash from fines levied on mobile operators goes straight to the Treasury - with no guarantee it will be spent on improving the country’s digital connectivity. The Local Government Association, which represents more than 370 councils in England & Wales, is calling for this money to be handed over to local areas to support efforts to help residents & businesses access increasingly vital digital infrastructure. |
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LGA: Hand over mobile operators' fines for councils to spend on boosting digital connectivity LGA responds to Which? report about broadband speeds across the UK Wales Office Minister leads summit to tackle mobile phone 'not spots' techUK welcomes Interim Report: UK Strategy and Plan for 5G & Digitisation Citizens Advice calls for strong protections for people hit by mobile ‘not spots’ Ofcom launches crowdsourced project for better mobile phone services Plans to make digital communications work for everyone Get the local low-down on mobile and broadband …just put in a postcode |
| Ideas can be very valuable |
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GDS have recently passed a ‘live’ service assessment for their new digital application service for registered designs. Whilst IPO already has a number of core transactional online services, the ‘Apply to register a design’ service is the latest digital service developed to meet user needs. You can register the look of a product you’ve designed to stop people copying or stealing it. The look of your design includes the appearance, physical shape, configuration and decoration. |
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GDS: Designed for users & their designs - the latest service from IPO FCA proposes reforms to the availability of information in the UK equity IPO process IPO: UK signals green light to Unified Patent Court Agreement FCA unveils successful sandbox firms on the second anniversary of Project Innovate IPO: Intellectual Property Minister encourages further IP collaboration between UK and China |
| This will be an ‘eternal war’ |
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Plans to strengthen NHS & social care organisations against cyber attacks and protect patient data. The government has announced that investment in data & cyber security will be boosted above £50m - and include a new £21m capital fund for major trauma centres - as part of its response to reviews & consultation feedback on these issues. |
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DH: Government responds on cyber security and data National Data Guardian (NDG) statement on government response to the NDG Review |
| Consider all the aspects to ‘stay legal’ |
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The ICO has ruled that Virgin Trains East Coast did not break data protection law when it published CCTV footage of Jeremy Corbyn looking for a seat on a service from London. But the company did breach the law when it published images of other passengers on the same service. The ICO found that Virgin should have taken better care to obscure the faces of other people on the train. Publication of their images was unfair and a breach of the first principle of the Data Protection Act. |
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| From ‘simple’ ideas come….. |
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A unique training scheme for clinicians whose innovative ideas could lead to big patient benefits has been opened up to healthcare scientists & dentists. Over the last year 103 junior doctors have developed their ideas and their business skills through the Clinical Entrepreneur programme. Now applications are opening up to healthcare scientists and dentists. The programme offers a range of support & education, including mentoring by leading medical technology innovators, to give the budding entrepreneurs the business skills and industry knowhow they need to make their ideas a reality. The training programme for healthcare scientists & dentists will begin in autumn 2017. |
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NHS England: Entrepreneur scheme for innovative doctors extended to healthcare scientists & dentists |
| Let the ‘unsung’ heroes become ‘sung’ |
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Nominations are now open for The Sun Military Awards 2017. Members of the Armed Forces and the general public have until 3 Sept 2017 to put forward individuals & units for an award. . The star-studded evening will be an opportunity for the public to recognise some of the excellent work & outstanding achievements of our Service personnel over the last year both overseas on operations & across the UK. |
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| The ‘lungs’ of our ‘urban society’ |
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A Government initiative to make it easier for people to locate & access greenspaces has launched with the release of a new database & interactive digital map identifying accessible recreational and leisure greenspace in Great Britain. Delivered by Ordnance Survey (OS), the free map contains data from OS & other sources, and can be used immediately, for FREE, through the popular leisure mapping app & online service, OS Maps. This comprehensive map of Great Britain’s greenspaces is also available as an open dataset, called OS Open Greenspace, for communities, businesses & developers to create products & services that will encourage healthier and greener lifestyles. |
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Ordnance Survey releases open dataset and free map of Britain’s Greenspaces |
| It means they can charge more for their services |
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The Ministry of Justice is inviting nominations for appointment as Queen’s Counsel (QC) ‘honoris causa’ (honorary silk). Nomination forms must be completed & returned to MoJ by 1 September 2017. MoJ: Honorary Queen’s Counsel nominations: deadline 1 September 2017 |
| The (mostly male) bankers didn’t cover themselves in glory in 2008 |
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Over two-thirds of finance firms believe that signing up to the Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter will lead to permanent & sustainable change in gender diversity at senior levels across the industry. According to new research, conducted by think tank New Financial, 62% of firms have taken specific action to support female career progression since signing up to the Charter – an initiative which aims to build the pipeline of female talent for leadership positions. Initiatives, such as succession planning, examining hiring practices and unconscious bias training, are helping to make the culture at these firms more female-friendly, and in the long run, should help firms attract & retain the best talent. |
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HM Treasury: Finance sector banks on women for top roles |
| Will the British habit of ‘discussing the weather’ set Alexa ‘off’ |
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You can now get the Met Office local forecast from their new award winning Flash Briefing skill for Amazon Alexa. Met Office: Get your local Met Office forecast from Amazon Alexa |
| Why should the UK ‘progress’ this while SNP keep talking about IndyRef? |
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Delays to the Edinburgh and South East City Region Deal could cost the Scottish economy £ms of investment, Economy Secretary Keith Brown has warned. Mr Brown has received no response to recent letters to the UK Government requesting clarity around the deal. A recent meeting with his UK Government counterpart Greg Clark was also cancelled at short notice. Without urgent action, negotiations could run on into the second half of the year & beyond while city deals in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness are already in place, guaranteeing a boost for those local economies. |
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| These little ‘piggies’ could make you very ill |
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Consumption of raw or undercooked pork meat & liver is the most common cause of hepatitis E infection in the EU, said EFSA. More than 21,000 cases of hepatitis E infections have been reported in humans over the last 10 years, with an overall 10-fold increase in this period. Experts from EFSA’s Panel on Biological Hazards recommend that Member States increase awareness of public health risks associated with raw and undercooked pork meat and advise consumers to cook pork meat thoroughly. They also recommend the development of suitable methods for detecting hepatitis E in food. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has also published a report on hepatitis E in humans which assesses testing, diagnosis & monitoring methods and reviews available epidemiological data. |
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EU News: Hepatitis E: raw pork is main cause of infection in EU |
| Encouraging our ‘future’ |
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Primary school pupils across Wales are being challenged to win state of the art IT equipment for their schools by designing a computer game. The DVLA Code Challenge is aimed at all primary school children aged 7-11 in Wales. Teams of up to 5 from schools and community-based code clubs are being invited to showcase their programming skills by designing a computer game from scratch. It can be based around one of 4 different themes set by the event’s sponsors. The challenge will enable pupils to develop their problem solving, communication and teamwork skills. It will improve their knowledge of computer programming in a fun and innovative way. It is being run in association with DVLA, Code Club, the STEM Ambassador hub Wales, Incredible Oceans, Brake, Road Safety Wales, the Fire & Rescue Service, the 4 Police Forces in Wales and the British Army Reservists. It is one of a number of volunteer initiatives run by DVLA to engage young people in technology. Every primary school, library code club or community centre code club group that registers an interest, attends the event or watches the event via the live web link will be included in a fantastic prize draw. The closing date for entries is Friday 6 October 2017. |
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| Apportioning ‘blame’ in a more balanced way |
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EU urged to be more ‘constructive’ with regards to status of children. The Children’s Commissioner for England has written to the EU’s Brexit Chief Negotiator, Michael Barnier, urging the EU to take a more constructive approach to the residency status of hundreds of thousands of children born to EU nationals but living in England, and the thousands of UK born children living in other EU countries. “The EU said they wanted to make residence rights of EU nationals the first thing to be agreed during the negotiations. Yet their proposal makes residence rights dependent on ECJ jurisdiction, something which won’t be agreed until the end of the negotiations. “If the EU genuinely want to resolve the question of residence rights of EU nationals, they need to separate out the two issues to enable a negotiation in good faith which can give certainty to the hundreds of thousands of children and their families left in limbo. Two more years of uncertainty feels like a long time to a child.” |
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Children’s Commissioner calls on EU not to use children as ‘bargaining chips’ during Brexit talks |
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