General News
CLG: Coronation Street star Michelle Keegan is fronting the 'Ordinary People, Extraordinary Careers' campaign to raise awareness among young girls aged 14 - 16 of a career in the Fire & Rescue Service.
MoD: HRH The Duchess of Gloucester and Veterans Minister, Kevan Jones, have launched the Families Activity Breaks (FAB) scheme at the Ministry of Defence, together with sponsors, families and activity break volunteers. The FAB scheme aims to send 100 bereaved Armed Forces families on activity holidays across the UK this summer, in collaboration with the Youth Hostel Association of England and Wales.
FAB provides activity holidays for families with children aged up to 19 years old, who have suffered the loss of a loved one serving in the Armed Forces. They offer an adventure for all the family and a welcome break to meet & socialise with others who have experienced a similar loss.
The cost charged to each family is £50. This includes food, accommodation and all organised activities. Additionally, a bursary is available to help fund travel costs. The cost for families is kept to a minimum in order to avoid preventing any family from attending on financial grounds.
PCS: PCS members working for Fujitsu have voted in favour of an offer to end a dispute over jobs, pay and pensions. PCS members had threatened to take industrial action unless their demands were met which would have caused disruption to large scale government IT services in HMRC, ONS and DVLA.
Under the agreement no PCS member will be made compulsorily redundant. The agreement also gives further assurances on pension provision, together with a new collective bargaining agreement that extends to all PCS members. On pay, the union has managed to secure a pay award for over 80% of its members for 2009, despite Fujitsu’s intention to freeze pay.
IfL: The Institute for Learning (IfL) has welcomed recommendations by the Children, Schools and Families select committee that teachers & trainers with Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status, conferred by IfL, should immediately be able to work as qualified teachers in schools if they are teaching post-16, or even post-14, pupils.
In its ‘Training of Teachers’ report, the select committee acknowledges that the inability of further education teachers to be employed as qualified teachers in the schools sector is ‘an unintended consequence of legislation’.
Press release ~ The House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee report: Training of Teachers ~ Ofsted's report: The initial training of further education teachers ~ IFL: Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status
FSA: Cadbury Chunks Bournville, which can be used for cooking & baking in the home, contains milk, which is not an intended ingredient. This makes the product a possible health risk for anyone who is allergic to or intolerant of milk. The Food Standards Agency has issued an Allergy Alert advising anyone with an allergy to or intolerance of milk to not eat this product.
Press release ~ Cross-contamination with milk of Cadbury Chunks Bournville ~ Allergy UK ~ Anaphylaxis Campaign ~ Premier Foods ~ Food allergy and intolerance
PCS: The National Gallery could be closed on Tuesday 16 February (lunchtime) with up to 100 warders & security staff set to walk out for 2 hours between 12 noon & 2pm in a row over low pay. The 2 hour strike is the first in a series of walkouts planned by PCS members who are angry over the imposition of a pay award which will leave most warders earning as little as £7 per hour.
82% of those who took part in a recent strike ballot are backing Tuesday’s walkout, which followed gallery boss’s imposition of a pay award just days before Christmas. The award means that staff who protect artworks by Canaletto, Monet, Turner and Van Gogh, will earn a basic salary which is 60p less than Boris Johnson’s recommended London living wage of £7.60 per hour.
HCA: Local authorities, ALMOs and RSLs who wish to provide social rented sites for Gypsies & Travellers, New Age Travellers and Travelling Show People can now bid for a share of £32m funding from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
Details of the programme and bidding timetable, plus instructions for completing bids and next steps in the process are set out in new guidance.
ACE: Theatres across England and stars of stage & screen are backing Arts Council England’s A Night Less Ordinary scheme as it celebrates its first anniversary. The pilot scheme was launched on 10 February 2009 with the aim of giving away just over 600,000 free tickets to under 26 year olds at more than 200 venues across the country by the end of March 2011.
DH: A new group has been set up to oversee the implementation of the Steele Review recommendations to improve dental services for patients. The Review provided recommendations on improving oral health, increasing access and ensuring high quality dental care for patients in its final report, published in June 2009.
The implementation board is now inviting dentists and Primary Care Trusts to trial innovative ways of delivering services to improve treatment for patients by creating a system focussed on outcomes.
