General News
ScotGov: A free, confidential phone line for NHS staff who wish to raise any concerns about practices in NHS Scotland went live last week. The National Confidential Alert Line for NHS employees (0800 008 6112)will be piloted for one year, providing an additional level of support for staff.
The line will be delivered by Public Concern at Work, an independent organisation, to ensure confidentiality & impartiality. Any concerns that employees raise will be then passed on to the employer or the relevant regulatory organisation for investigation.
TfL: Taxi passengers are reminded that a below-inflation fare increase, of 1.7%, took effect on Saturday 6 April (equates to 21p on average fare).
ACE: The Designation scheme is now closed for applications whilst a review takes place that will be completed by Spring 2014. Launched in 1997, the Designation scheme identifies the pre-eminent collections of national & international importance held in England's non-national museums, libraries & archives, based on their quality and significance.
Monitor: Monitor announces that foundation trust applications by Dudley & Walsall Mental Health Partnership and Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trusts have been deferred for up to 6 & 12 months respectively. The regulator is concerned that the trusts have not yet demonstrated that they meet specific thresholds for authorisation.
NE: The Field Studies Council (FSC) and Natural England have announced a ‘citizen science’ programme to train volunteer wildlife recorders. Volunteers play a huge part in monitoring our wildlife but, despite many initiatives aimed at encouraging new recorders, the pool of active volunteers with specialist skills is thought to be decreasing.
With support from Defra’s Fund for Biodiversity in the Voluntary Sector, FSC and Natural England have created ‘Biodiversity Fellows’, a new programme to train & retain wildlife recorders as volunteer experts. The programme addresses the lack of existing courses for ‘difficult to identify species’ and the need for post-course support to ensure trained volunteers go on to become active recorders.
NE: Farmers in the South West are reminded not to miss out on the opportunity to apply for Catchment Sensitive Farming grants of up to £10,000 this year. Over the last 7 years, the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) project has been working with hundreds of land managers who farm in South West England.
CSF, which is a partnership project between Natural England and the Environment Agency, provides grants, free training & advice that supports farmers to adapt their farm management to help the environment and can also identify savings for farm businesses.
MoD: The MOD has announced that it will invest in better facilities for service men & women in Kent, as a result of freeing up surplus Defence land to create up to 1,200 new homes. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has worked with Shepway District Council, to prepare a ‘Masterplan’ that provides new housing over the next 20 years on the surplus brownfield land.
Alongside the homes will be new community sports facilities, incorporating a new Army Cadet centre. There will also be a large area of informal public open space and improved education facilities.
TfL: In order to help wheelchair & guide dog users, parents with buggies & passengers with luggage a further batch of wide aisle gates have been installed making a total of 348 gates at London Underground stations. Now 180 London Tube stations - two thirds of the entire London Underground network- have these gates installed, giving passengers more independence and quicker journeys. It means that passengers don't have to ask staff to unlock a gate for them.
HEFCE: The NUS has been awarded £5m by the Higher Education Funding Council Englandfor a Students’ Green Fund, the 4 key themes of which will be student participation, partnership, impact and legacy. The funding will help students to engage with their universities and colleges on sustainable development, and to ensure that sustainability remains a priority with institutions.
NUS will run a single-round bidding competition in summer 2013, to allocate the funding. The funded projects will then receive the funding over two full academic years (2013-14 and 2014-15).
MO: Since its launch in June 2011, the Weather Observations Website (WOW) has received more than 100m weather observations from weather enthusiasts all over the world. WOW was developed by the Met Office with support from the Royal Meteorological Society and the Department for Education.
The aim was to provide a hub for UK weather observations, which can help educate children about weather and encourage further growth in the UK's amateur weather observing community. Despite its UK focus, WOW has global coverage and has attracted visits from weather enthusiasts in more than 170 countries.
CLG: The Home Office and Department for Communities & Local Government will move into 1 shared central London headquarters building in mid-2014 (at 2 Marsham Street). The move will help reduce the cost of the civil estate by £24m annually.
UKOC: Social landlords are being urged to bid for funding to design innovative schemes to help their tenants to get online and improve their IT skills in a funding round that has been launched by OCF (the organisation behind the UK online centres network) along with the Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Communities and Local Government.
The Digital Deal is a cross-Government challenge to support claimants to use the internet, and to increase their confidence in managing benefit claims and searching for jobs online. Social landlords have until 3 June 2013 to submit a match-funded bid for a share of nearly £500k, which will support up to 10 projects. Successful providers will be informed at the end of July and programmes set to start from September.
LGA: Children in care would be found a home with adoptive parents more quickly under new plans outlined recently to reform the adoption system. Under the reforms, councils would work more closely together to help match suitable adopters with children in other parts of the country. Targeted support work would focus on speeding up the process of matching children who had spent the longest in care with adoptive parents.
The measures are being put forward as an alternative to Government proposals to remove councils from the process of recruiting adopters altogether.
