Annual Reports
ACE: More people than ever are participating in the arts, culture & heritage in England, according to the Taking Part survey, which looked at arts & heritage participation between January and December 2011.
EA: The Environment Agency recently published its weekly drought update. The wettest April on record and continuing rainfall in May have significantly increased river & reservoir levels, reducing pressure on the environment and public water supplies in some parts of England.
The organisation said that South West England, the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire are no longer in drought due to the recent rainfall. It is unlikely that water companies will now impose hosepipe bans in these areas over the summer. Parts of East Anglia and South East England remain in drought, with water company restrictions in place on public water use.
NAO: Amyas Morse, Comptroller and Auditor General, has once again been unable to give a full sign off to the Client Funds Account of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.
PC&PE: The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has recently called upon the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to provide adequate leadership for heritage science. In its report Science and Heritage: a follow-up the Committee cites research that heritage tourism contributes £7.4bn a year to the UK economy and supports 195,000 full time equivalent jobs.
The Committee argues that sustaining that contribution requires the UK to have the heritage science capacity to maintain the UK’s movable & immovable heritage such as museum, library, archive & gallery collections and historic buildings. Maintaining that capacity requires greater leadership by DCMS.
CIPD: The immediate jobs outlook has turned positive for the first time in more than a year, driven largely by a decrease in redundancy intentions. This is the main finding of the latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)’s quarterly Labour Market Outlook survey.
However, the institute warns that optimism should be tempered by employers’ continued caution about the medium term, which taken together with recent weak economic data, suggests a high risk that many employers may find it necessary to reassess staffing levels before the year is out.
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