WIREDGOV NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

People forget it was a ‘World War’, which was not just fought in Europe

Descendants of those who fought in the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign are being asked to take part in a London ceremony marking its 100th anniversary.  Led by the UK government in collaboration with the Australian & New Zealand High Commissions, the ceremony will take place on Saturday 25 April 2015 at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, London.

Descendants of those who fought will form a central part of the commemoration and can apply for tickets to watch the commemoration from a reserved area, or take part in a march past the Cenotaph as part of the ceremony.

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Skills Management: Digital Methods for Measuring Resource Skills Within Public Sector Organisations

Public Sector Organisations increasingly need a greater understanding of the capabilities within their workforce so that they can be sure of having the right resources to deliver strategic objectives.

The emergence of Talent Dashboards powered by a combination of analytics, artificial intelligence & big data is enabling a growing number of public bodies to:

  • Develop Competency Models
  • Collect Workforce Data (either from unstructured data such as CV's or staff profiles)
  • Assess Workforce Gaps
  • Plan Projects/Deploy Staff through talent matching
  • Implement Career Maps for staff progression
  • View at a glance a skills profile of the whole organisation

Simply click here to discover how

 
Just throwing money at the problem doesn’t work; co-ordinated action is what gets results

Plans to do more to get some of England’s hardest to help families back to work have been announced.  The communities and work & pensions secretaries are to more than double the number of specialist employment advisers in the government’s expanded Troubled Families programme.

The new £10m investment will build on the success of the current programme which has now seen over 8,000 members of troubled families hold down a job for 3 months or more, a 6-fold increase on the previous year.  In total over 85,000 families with an average of 9 serious problems have had their lives turned around, with children back in school, youth crime & anti-social behaviour significantly reduced and the £9bn annual cost to the taxpayer down too.

From April 2015 the programme will be expanded to work with a further 400,000 families and tackle a wider range of problems such as mental health, debt & domestic violence, as well as an additional focus on families with children under 5.

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‘Terrorism’ comes in many forms

New measures to help UK businesses face the cyber security challenge and help our cyber security companies tap into the US market have been announced recently, as the PM visited the United States with UK cyber security firms.

New government support to keep UK businesses stay safe in cyberspace includes:

  • a new cyber security envoy has been appointed to help British small businesses and first-time exporters promote their business interests across the US
  • an updated ‘10 Steps to Cyber Security’ guide which shows businesses how to combat cyber threats
  • new research published recently by (BIS which shows top UK companies are improving their responses to cyber threats.  The results of the annual ‘Cyber Governance Health Check’ for FTSE350 companies shows increased awareness and action, along with areas for improvement
  • publication of a new report from GCHQ detailing the common cyber-attacks used against industry by cyber criminals and how to stop them
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Good Heads are essential to create & maintain ‘good schools’

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan unveiled new professional standards for headteachers in England ahead of a speech she gave at the Education World Forum - the biggest global gathering of education ministers.

Raising teaching standards lies at the heart of the government’s plan for education - and world-class, excellent school leaders are vital to driving this ambition forward.  But while the education landscape has changed dramatically over the last 10 years, the standards we expect of our school leaders have not.

Skills, knowledge and behaviour headteachers should aspire to, include:

  • raising the bar for all pupils, overcoming disadvantage and instilling a strong sense of accountability in staff for the impact of their work on pupils’ success
  • boosting teacher quality through high-level training and sustained professional development
  • identifying talent and coaching current & aspiring leaders of the future

The Education Secretary has also welcomed a review by Sir Andrew Carter into initial teacher training.  The report highlights that the system in England is performing well, but that more needs to be done to ensure all trainees receive some core grounding in the basics of classroom management & subject knowledge.

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What would you like to see in Budget 2015?

The government is seeking your views on what you would like to see in Budget 2015, which will take place on Wednesday 18 March 2015.    Your views will be considered by HM Treasury as part of the policy-making process.

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Latest stakeholder to sign up to the WiredGov channel

AXELOS is a joint venture company created by the Cabinet Office on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) in the UK and Capita plc to run the Global Best Practice Portfolio, including the ITIL® and PRINCE2® professional standards.

It publishes a wide spectrum of independent expert guidance through its programme of in-depth white papers, case studies and blog content. Its most recent publications include white papers on cyber resilience, cloud computing and DevOps, which address some of the challenges in running organizations today.

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Safer Jobs: New Year, New Job, New Scams

According to the Institute of Leadership & Management more than 1 in 3 workers plan to change their job this year.  Furthermore, 67% of job seekers start their job search online.  In 2014 SAFERjobs, a non-profit joint law enforcement & industry organisation campaigning against UK job scams, received more than double the website traffic & triple the fraud reports relating to job scams. This year they expect to be even busier.

SAFER-jobs, working with Action Fraud and the Met Police, aim to warn those applying for jobs online of the risks involved.  Fraudsters prey on both those actively seeking jobs & those approached via social media for their next career move.  This means it isn’t just job seekers who could be the next victim of a job scam!

Job application fraud has many guises and it’s difficult for people who are actively hunting for a job online to recognise when a job isn’t actually real and instead a means for criminals to defraud unsuspecting victims of their money.  Scams range from £50 for a police check to uncapped amounts in the thousands for employment services.

Companies & organisations are victims too, as increasingly fraudsters impersonate real organisations to fool people into handing over money or personal information.  SAFERjobs also advises companies, especially in the recruitment sector, on how to be more aware and informed of such criminal activity.

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 More contributions to the UK constitutional debate

More news, opinions, documents, claims & counter-claims;

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Please choose from the links below to view individual sections of interest:

Congratulations to our new editorial board! We have appointed some incredible leaders, from the civil service to health and criminal justice, to help shape our content in 2015.

This week we have also launched a new section about inclusive growth - how governments can work with the private sector, charities, citizens and more, to ensure global prosperity benefits everyone. Check out our new content here, and watch out for our coverage of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

Inclusive Growth
Our economic system enriches the most powerful at the expense of the 99%

Our economic system enriches the most powerful at the expense of the 99%
Winnie Byanyima, executive director at Oxfam International: 'We must fix our global economy now'

The legalization of marijuana: a good example of flexible policymaking

The legalization of marijuana: a good example of flexible policymaking
John Hudak, fellow of the Brookings Institute: 'It's part of a brave new world of flexible policy and consultation'

Ethnic inequality is widespread and a drag on the global economy

Ethnic inequality is widespread and a drag on the global economy
Omar Khan, director of Runnymede: 'Discrimination faced by minority groups will not go away by itself'

From Davos:
• ‘It is profitable to let the world go to hell’
• More than talking heads: why Davos matters
• 'The shackles of wealth and entitlement that trap Davos leaders'
News in Brief

• World leaders meet in Davos for the World Economic Forum annual meeting
• New civil service chief executive explained his role, but our contributing editor believes old Whitehall still rules
• Lib Dem MP David Laws argued civil servants should not attend coalition talks held after the general election
• Councils get emergency £25m for social care to tackle hospital blockages