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By Dave Woodfine, Co-founder and Managing Director at Cyber Security Associates
Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum named cyber security failures as one of the biggest threats facing international governments and business, and the UK is no exception. The UK’s public sector is currently facing a rise in the number of cyber security incidents. The Ministry of Justice revealed that it faced a series of data breaches and ransomware attacks over the course of the 2020-21 financial year, and it will likely face many more in the near future.
How to protect yourself
To help business and government organisations keep themselves safe from the most common cyber-attacks, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) launched the Cyber Essentials certification scheme in 2014. This year, to help increase security across both the public and private sector, the NCSC has updated some of the scheme’s key requirements, which came into effect on the 24th January 2022.
Meeting these new requirements is necessary to pass the Cyber Essentials assessment, which is mandatory for certain Government departments and advised for most other sectors. Although these changes are positive and much needed as cyber threats become ever more sophisticated, they will require extra effort for public sector departments, and accredited third party suppliers, to comply. Companies will be given six months to complete the certifications and ensure their systems are secure, with 12 months’ grace on some requirements.
The certification’s cost
One of the main changes to Cyber Essentials is the new tiered pricing system. Up until this year, the assessment cost the same for companies or organisations of all sizes – just £300. Now, though, the prices vary depending on the amount of employees. After all, the bigger an organisation, the more changes need to be made, and assessments will take longer for them.
Talking about the change, Anne W, the NCSC’s Head of Commercial Assurance Services, said, “While Cyber Essentials is designed to help any organisation attain a minimum level of cyber security, the assessment process can be quite complex. We want to continue to ensure this important scheme remains accessible to every business, no matter their size.” Micro organisations, or those with nine or less employees, will still pay £300. Small organisations, with 10-49 employees, will have to pay £400. Medium-sized organisations, or those with 50-249 employees, pay £450. Finally, organisations with over 250 employees will now have to pay £500 for the assessment.
Changes for remote workers
Many of the updated requirements concern those working from home, reflecting the changes in the workplace landscape over the past couple of years. According to the scheme’s requirements, anyone working from home for any period of time is classed as a ‘home worker.’ Home workers’ devices, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones, will now fall under the scope of Cyber Essentials, and will need to be secure enough to pass the certification assessment. In fact, all devices used to access your data or services will be in scope, too. However, home workers’ routers won’t be in scope, so any firewalls must be present on their devices rather than the router. The one exception to this is if the business or organisation has provided the router – in this case, it will be in scope too..
Changes for cloud services
All cloud services are now fully integrated into the Cyber Essentials scheme, meaning that your organisation will be held responsible for making sure that controls are implemented to protect any data that’s being hosted on the cloud. Users will need to check the cloud services that they’re using and ensure that they meet the standards of the Cyber Essentials standards.
Multi-factor authentication, or MFA, must also be used by any accounts that can access the cloud services. MFA makes accounts more secure, as rather than just entering a password, the user has to provide more than one method of verification. Four methods are accepted by the updated requirements, including: a known or trusted account, a physically separate token, a managed enterprise device, and an app on a trusted device.
Other changes to note
There are also a number of smaller updates that need to be implemented. From now on, if they want to pass the assessment, departments will no longer be allowed to pick and choose which software updates they use. All high and critical updates or patches, to both software and devices, will need to be installed within 14 days, and automatic updates should also be enabled. All servers, which includes virtual servers, will now fall under the scope of Cyber Essentials, as will thin clients (or ‘dumb terminals’ capable of accessing a remote desktop). Separate accounts must also be used whenever accessing an administrative account.
While it might seem like a lot of work, all of these new requirements are necessary for those looking to pass the Cyber Essentials assessment and obtain the new certification. Only then will you be able to prove to other departments, organisations, and even companies that your information is secure, and that you’re protected against all of today’s most common online threats.
 New police officers, with Councillor Jas Athwal, Leader, London Borough of Redbridge (Photo: Andrew Baker) An East London borough has adopted a pioneering, community-based approach to prevent and manage crime. In a move which could be replicated across the country, the London Borough of Redbridge is the first local authority to give residents a real say in shaping services, policies and budgets aimed at improving community safety.
Following the biggest public consultation in its history, Redbridge Council last year identified the issues that most concern residents and established an independent Community Crime Commission of 16 local people with personal experience of the issues, to advise on ways to tackle them.
The initiative was welcomed by local residents as a means of giving them a voice on issues which can blight daily life in the borough. Commissioner Taiwo Ademola commented at the launch of the Commission: “This is an amazing opportunity to make real, tangible change, here in my local community.”
Public engagement was further deepened with the setting up of a 60-strong panel of local residents, the Community Voice, designed to be representative of Redbridge as a whole. Panel members were invited to comment on the key issues as the evidence-gathering process gained momentum.
The Commissioners’ investigations uncovered a series of systemic factors undermining efforts to create a safer community including agencies not working effectively together, artificial thresholds for support that mean young people don’t get help early enough to protect them from criminality, and low levels of confidence amongst residents that things can improve.
The Commissioners’ findings have now been published in a wide-ranging report which makes 48 recommendations on anti-social behaviour, burglary, domestic abuse, violence against women and girls, and drugs and street violence. As well as specific actions targeting each area, the Commission is calling for a new, system-wide approach based on a shared long-term vision. They want to see a multi-agency commitment to change, meaningful public accountability for progress and a significant improvement in the quality and consistency of communication between service providers and with residents.
The report emphasises the need to use existing resources more effectively, co-locating service providers and working closely with local people to design the services they need, making them easier to access and more responsive to residents’ needs.
 Redbridge Enforcement Hub (Photo: Justin Thomas) Along with its partners, including the Metropolitan Police, the Council has already responded to the report. In addition to restructuring and reprofiling resources to meet the recommendations, a budget of £1.2 million has so far been committed for 2022, with additional investment expected as initiatives are developed.
Several of the Commission’s recommendations focus on better neighbourhood policing, joined-up services, and working more closely with local communities to win back public confidence. As a result the Council is expanding its ‘enforcement hubs’. These fixed and mobile walk-in centres have been established in two areas in advance of roll out across the whole borough. They provide a dedicated space where people can get help and advice directly from the police and enforcement officers.
The Chair of the Community Crime Commission, Dr Javed Khan OBE, said: ‘Agencies must work more closely together, rapidly sharing information, and must be much better connected to the communities they support. Otherwise, people fall through the cracks. The enforcement hubs are a good example of this approach, as they bring services together and they take those services to where people are within the community, making it easier for residents to access them.’
Other recommendations from the Commission, on which the Council and its partners are already working, include:
- The deployment of 25 new police officers as part of the Town Centre Safety Team
- Support for young people before they fall into criminality, with activity in secondary schools to prevent gang membership and anti-social behaviour
- The establishment of a new youth hub and mentoring schemes for young people
- A change to police policy to ensure every victim of a burglary is offered a police visit
- Additional operational staff for the 24/7 CCTV centre
- Seamless support for victims of domestic abuse with the provision of a new ‘single front door’ and a single phone number
- Workshops for young people on safety
Dr Khan said: ‘Fresh, practical ideas for solving difficult problems come from the people who live with those problems every day. This process, of genuine community involvement in tackling crime, has been ground-breaking. We are pleased to see that the Council is already acting on our recommendations.’
The Leader of Redbridge Council, Jas Athwal, said: ‘This process represents a step-change in how local people can engage with public services. Their experiences of what we do and their ideas on how we can better work together will help to create a safer borough. We are now focusing on the issues we know concern them, including women’s safety, and access to the police and other services.’
Click to read the report: crimecommission.redbridge.gov.uk/
No child is to be left behind says edtech charity LGfL
As the Omicron variant surges and schools nationwide prepare for further disruption, potential closures, and a possible return to remote teaching and learning in 2022, edtech charity LGfL-The National Grid for Learning is once again stepping up support by offering thousands of Chromebooks, procured as part of its successful #BridgeTheDivide initiative, below-cost, to help schools ensure no child is left behind during this terrible pandemic. For what is believed to be a first for the UK education market, Chromebooks will be available from just £99.99. “How have we done this?,” said John Jackson, CEO, LGfL. “We’ve been using funds raised from other initiatives and ploughed them back into education.”
“You might think that below-cost devices would be as far as one charity could go, but we have once again gone one step further by providing buy-now pay-later options,” said John. “Schools purchasing devices can now choose to be invoiced in April 2022. Our thinking is this would help those in areas of deprivation to achieve the learner-to-device ratios they require, without the financial constraints of an upfront bill.”
 By increasing learner-to-device ratios, these Chromebooks offer significant benefits not just in relation to the continued learning through remote methods, but also for everyday opportunities to teach and learn in different and more effective ways. They build students’ digital literacy skills and independent learning and enable schools to adopt a hybrid approach to teaching and learning, as schools like Whitefield Primary School in Liverpool found.
“As the Headteacher, the impact of working with LGfL over the last two years has been very significant,” said Jill Wright, Whitefield Primary School. “We felt safe in the knowledge that we were getting best value and used the #BridgeTheDivide scheme to secure Chromebooks for all our children in years four, five and six. It also meant that we had access to a wide variety of online tools too, which had a very positive impact on the teaching and learning in school.
“When children were forced to work remotely we were also able to provide extra devices to families with multiple children, provide access to teaching and learning, prevent the children from feeling isolated, help them avoid discord with their siblings and support their parents. We could see who was logging on, ensure that they were safe, chat to them online, send their work back to them and maintain a good relationship with the children and their families.”
LGfL’s initiative is not just about providing the lowest cost devices for schools and students, but providing a holistic approach to tackling the digital inequalities exacerbated by this ongoing pandemic. Through its partnership with Google, LGfL has been able to provide free on-demand live support to give educators the opportunity to acquire the skills required to harness the full capabilities and effectiveness of cloud-based teaching and learning via Chromebooks.
Through its #BridgeTheDivide initiative LGfL has already delivered over 200,000 new and recycled devices to schools, at a fraction of the cost of the government’s scheme, saving schools an estimated £7M to date. Most importantly, it has enabled children to learn and progress in spite of the pandemic.
“There are 4.3 million children living in poverty in the UK – we simply cannot sit and watch the 18 month attainment gap between the haves and have nots widen further,” said John, who is urging Local Authorities in areas of high deprivation to fund laptops for children who do not have access to remote teaching and learning at home.
“It’s time that we all stand together to help schools during this continuing crisis and the devastation and growing social divide that it creates, to build brighter futures for ‘all’ our young people,” said John Jackson.
For more information please visit devices.lgfl.net
Please see case studies here:- casestudiesbtd.lgfl.net
By Sascha Giese, Head Geek™ at SolarWinds
 Like many countries around the world, the U.K. is familiar with following trends that originally emerged in the U.S. It’s a long-standing idea, amplified in recent years by increasing globalisation and the impact of digital transformation on society.
Take cybersecurity, for example, where the U.S. has been at the forefront of some of the highest-profile incidents and attacks on public sector infrastructure. In recent years, the U.K. has experienced similar issues, most recently seen at the Foreign Office which was targeted by a serious cybersecurity incident requiring urgent support costing nearly £500,000.
It’s important for the U.K. public sector to keep an eye on the nature of emerging threats seen by their counterparts in the U.S. Doing so can play an important role in informing strategy decisions, particularly when cybercriminals and nation-state adversaries are constantly changing their tactics and where the volume of attacks continues to cause major concern.
For example, recent research has revealed across the Atlantic, the nature of risk for the public sector is changing, with external cybersecurity threats becoming the greatest concern—moving ahead of internal threats for the first time in five years.
More specifically, the general hacking community (56%) is now viewed as the largest source of risk, followed closely by careless/untrained insiders (52%) and foreign governments (47%). It’s interesting to note cybersecurity threats from foreign governments (56%) are responsible for the greatest increase in concern for public sector respondents.
Given the complex nature of the public sector, the nature of risk is far from uniform. For instance, U.S. state and local governments (63%) are significantly more likely than other public sector groups to be concerned about the threat of the general hacking community. In contrast, Federal civilian agency respondents (58%) are more likely to indicate careless insiders as a threat compared to the defence community (41%).
Looking more broadly, it’s perhaps not surprising to see defence respondents (68%) are the most likely to note foreign governments as a cybersecurity threat, compared to civilian (53%), state and local government (46%), and education (25%) respondents.
Detecting and Resolving Cybersecurity Threats
When asked about specific types of security breaches, the public sector’s level of concern over ransomware (66%), malware (65%), and phishing (63%) has increased the most over the last year.
However, time to detection and resolution have not improved at the rate of increased IT security threats and breach concerns. In fact, about 60% of respondents noted both the time to detection and time to resolution remained the same or worsened between 2020 and 2021.
The reasons behind this are varied, but lack of training (40%), low budgets and resources (37%), and the expanded perimeter (32%) due to increased remote work continue to concern public sector security professionals. Respondents also pointed to insufficient data collection and monitoring as a key impediment to threat detection (31%).
State government respondents (50%) indicate more so than local governments (25%) budget constraints are an obstacle to maintaining or improving IT security. Education respondents are the most likely to struggle to identify the root cause of security issues, hampering their ability to both detect and remediate such threats.
Using Technology to Fight Cybercrime
Given these trends, how are U.S. public sector organisations focusing their efforts to meet the challenges they face? Research respondents believe improving investigative and remediation capabilities, as well as reducing barriers to sharing threat information between public and private sectors, are their top priorities for compliance with the 2021 Cybersecurity Executive Order issued by President Biden.
More specifically, over 75% of public sector respondents note their organisations rely on a formal or informal zero-trust approach. Most public sector respondents are familiar with the principle of least privilege (PoLP), and 70% of respondents are either already implementing PoLP or will implement it within the next 12 months.
Most public sector respondents realise the importance of IT security solutions and prioritise their investments highly in the next 12 months, with network security software (77%) being the top priority. IT modernisation investment priority leans toward replacing legacy applications (60%) and migrating systems to the cloud (60%).
Clearly, public sector organisations are under huge cybersecurity pressure in the U.S. and here at home. It’s also increasingly evident a coordinated response to these issues has risen up the list of priorities for authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. As the nature of risk continues to evolve, drawing on the experiences, insight, and trends seen in other countries will play a key role in helping the U.K. public sector to detect, prevent, and mitigate future cybersecurity threats.
 The commencement of new, twice-weekly rail freight service from Toton in Nottinghamshire to Valenciennes in Northern France for the global automotive manufacturer Toyota. New international rail freight services have commenced from Toton in Nottinghamshire to Valenciennes in Northern France for the global automotive manufacturer, Toyota.
This follows the construction of a new, £2.6 million automotive transfer facility at DB Cargo UK’s strategic site in the East Midlands and £3 million investment by Groupe CAT in its specialist wagon fleet.
Following a series of successful trial runs, fully loaded trains carrying approximately 260 vehicles are now operating twice a week between the two locations – a movement which used to take five days by road now takes just 24 hours by train and reduces carbon emissions by 2,300 tonnes every year!
On the outbound journey, the new generation of hybrid Corollas manufactured at Toyota’s Derby plant are being exported to France. Toyota Aygo, Yaris and the new Yaris+ vehicles are being imported on the return leg, to ensure full utilisation of the new services.
DB Cargo UK’s Chief Sales Officer Roger Neary said the commencement of the services was a significant milestone after months of collaboration and construction by all parties involved.
“Freight belongs on Rail and this is a really exciting collaboration between DB Cargo UK, Groupe CAT & Toyota. It’s a win-win-win for all those involved and will see us deliver an efficient and environmentally-friendly rail logistics solution for one of the world’s biggest automotive manufacturers,” he added.
“Not only that, it has also seen us breathe new life back into a previously disused area of our strategic Toton site.”
Steve Reynolds, Managing Director of Groupe CAT’s subsidiary STVA UK, said: “This project is the culmination of four years’ work from conception through to implementation. It is a very exciting project for Groupe CAT, requiring resources from road, rail and terminals both here in the UK and in Europe too. To facilitate the project, we have signed a long-term lease with DB Cargo UK for the Toton rail terminal and have invested more than £3 million to refurbish our wagons.”
DB Cargo UK is currently the country’s leading transporter of finished vehicles by rail, much of which is conducted working in partnership with wagon owner & logistics specialist Groupe CAT.
It’s £2.6 million investment has seen the construction of a new vehicle storage compound spanning some 4.25 acres, along with associated loading and unloading facilities.
The work was undertaken by Britcon (UK) Ltd and involved the import of some 11,000 tonnes of construction material.
Over 800 metres of new track has been laid alongside the extensive storage facility and 1100 metres of road has either been newly constructed or widened to accommodate the car transporters now taking the Toyota vehicles to and from site.
Some 900 metres of security fencing has been constructed, five miles of white lines painted on the tarmacadam surface and several miles worth of cabling laid to accommodate the necessary on-site CCTV and lighting.
Construction started in late September 2021 and was completed earlier this month.
Roger Neary said: “Each train will carry the equivalent load of around 29 road transporters. The rail solution will not only reduce congestion on the UK’s Road network but will also generate significantly less CO2 emissions than if they were taken by road.”
Steve Reynolds added: “We have taken the opportunity to redesign key aspects of the wagons to ensure they could deliver the next generation of cars and match Toyota’s quality expectations. Without this investment and innovation, it would not have been possible to deliver the targeted environmental and lead-time benefits. We should also recognise publicly the excellent support and contribution to this project from Eurotunnel, Border Force and the DFT, who have all really worked hard to make this project happen”.
 South Seeds raised beds, Glasgow – photo by Ryan Johnston Land Reuse Month throws spotlight on redeveloping vacant sites
A month-long campaign will drive forward the message that the public sector has a key role to play in transforming vacant and derelict land across Scotland.
Land Reuse Month, hosted by the Scottish Land Commission, will support local authorities in addressing the ‘how to’ of tackling the legacy of derelict land and preventing further sites and buildings from falling into long-term disrepair.
Scotland has almost 11,000 hectares of vacant and derelict urban land – an area roughly twice the size of the city of Dundee – and almost one-third of its 5.4 million population lives within 500 metres of a derelict site. These disused sites can cause significant harm to communities, ranging from negative impacts on mental and physical health to anti-social behaviour and safety concerns. The public sector can lead the way in identifying the potential of these sites to be transformed into assets that provide real benefit to local communities, including much-needed greenspace for health and wellbeing, growing spaces, community facilities, and housing and business use.
Local authority and other public sector employees are invited to take part in four online seminars attended by Scottish Government Ministers, civil servants, environmental groups, community ownership specialists, land and planning experts, housing advisors and academics.
The sessions will be held virtually on the first four Thursdays in March and will encourage delegates to understand the opportunities in transforming derelict land, to collaborate with communities and other cross-sector organisations involved, develop relevant strategies, and how to help stem the flow of abandoned and derelict land.
The first session on Thurs 3 March will be hosted by Chair of the Scottish Land Commission, Andrew Thin, with an address by Minister for Environment and Land Reform Màiri McAllan, while Tom Arthur, the Minister for Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, will open and chair the fourth seminar focusing on the role of land in delivering national and local ambitions – including community wealth building – on 24 March.
Minister for Environment and Land Reform Màiri McAllan said:
“Land Reuse Month will provide valuable support to local authorities to unlock the potential in areas of unused land, and I greatly encourage all those with an interest to sign up to the online seminars.
“The Scottish Government is determined to transform vacant and derelict land across the country to create new green infrastructure and provide environmental, social and economic opportunities for local communities.”
 Raised beds at Shettleston growing project 2 – photo by Ryan Johnston “Through our £50 million low carbon Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme, launched last year, we are already breathing new life into some of Scotland’s most long standing derelict sites.
“The programme is now underway and will help the delivery of regeneration and inclusive growth, and the promotion of wellbeing and community resilience.”
The campaign builds on the recommendations of the Vacant and Derelict Land Taskforce, jointly created by the Scottish Land Commission and SEPA, to transform Scotland’s approach to vacant and derelict land.
Andrew Thin said: “We don’t underestimate the scale of the task in bringing back into use the countless derelict sites which are a remnant of our industrial past, but they have the potential to be a huge national asset.
“By bringing together prominent stakeholders including local authorities, decision-makers, policy influencers, land and planning experts, and other enthusiastic parties during Land Reuse Month, we can drive real change to the way we approach land using it as an asset that can contribute to community wellbeing and net zero carbon objectives.
“We want participants to be inspired and to better understand the ingredients needed for successful land reuse. We are delighted at the calibre of speakers attending highlighting the importance of innovation and collaboration in tackling Scotland’s legacy of unloved spaces.”
The seminars will examine proactive estate management, managing fragmented land ownership, the role of land in community wealth building, leveraging finance and investment, explore best practice and inspiring examples from local authorities across Scotland, and raise awareness of the Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme.
The Economic Development Association Scotland (EDAS) will be partnering with the Commission to host week three, with the theme of ‘Activate your estate’ on Thurs 17 March.
Other Land Reuse Month participants include the Scottish Futures Trust, Green Action Trust, Development Trusts Association Scotland, and a wide selection of local authorities and NHS Trusts from across Scotland.
To register for any of the Land Reuse Month events please visit: www.landcommission.gov.scot/events
Launched in 2019, MAKE at Story Garden is a ground-breaking public studio for creative activity and collaboration in Somers Town and St Pancras in London’s Camden. A project evaluation published today by the Social Design Institute spanning the first 2 years of the project demonstrates how MAKE opened up lasting opportunities for residents to participate in arts and making activities – giving them agency in addressing local goals and challenges.
Using a value co-creation framework alongside standard monitoring data and KPIs to evaluate impact, the report describes a role for design in configuring people and resources for long-term impact. It presents new narratives on measuring the value of community-led and place-based initiatives and offers a framework for the sector to better capture and articulate impact.
A flagship project in UAL’s placemaking and community engagement activity, MAKE is a partnership project founded by UAL’s Central Saint Martins (CSM), Somers Town Community Association (STCA)/The Living Centre, Camden Council, and the developer Lendlease. It was managed by CSM from its launch to Summer 2021, when it transferred to full community management, led by STCA/The Living Centre.
 Using design approaches pioneered by the Public Collaboration Lab at CSM/UAL, MAKE prototyped a model of equitable cross sector collaboration. It built enduring relationships between individuals and organisations that have catalysed further projects and impacts. For example, initial workshops developed by the MAKE team and Lendlease’s Loneliness Lab, led to other projects focused on changes to public spaces around Camden; including the design and implementation of parklets and public art in the borough.
Monitoring data in the report shows how MAKE performed against pre-set objectives focused on shared endeavour, community resilience and wellbeing, despite operating a place-based project through Covid-19 lockdowns. Between July 2019 and January 2021, the space attracted nearly 1700 participants: Camden residents of diverse ethnicities, occupations and backgrounds, in many instances working alongside CSM students and graduates. MAKE users reported multiple benefits around wellbeing and enjoyment, positive mental health and relating to other people.
Identifying that change can happen beyond traditional measures and time-specific outcomes, the research framework describes the project as an ongoing platform which allows value to build over time. It reports that MAKE’s purpose – and source of value – consisted in building relations and ‘enabling conditions’ for future opportunities, some of which could not be predicted at the outset. As a result, value was co-created through the network of relationships and resources produced when people came together to use the space.
Showing the potential to recognise benefit beyond the scope of predicted KPIs, this work opens up new ways of capturing impact and value, defined in terms of long-term stakeholder capacity building, instead of short-term efficiencies. For policymakers, charities and organisations looking for ways of working more equitably with communities, it demonstrates a way of working that creates capacity for future endeavours and opportunities; and introduces a methodology that can articulate this contribution.
The MAKE (e)valuation report is co-authored by Patrycja Kaszynska, Senior Research Fellow, UAL Social Design Institute, and MAKE’s project leads: Adam Thorpe, Professor of Socially Responsive Design at Central Saint Martins, UAL and Samuel Mitchell, Strategic Partnerships Manager, Central Saint Martins Innovation and Business. It aligns for the first time Central Saint Martins’ design strengths in ‘infrastructuring’ through participatory arts and design and The Social Design Institute’s novel approaches to (e)valuation.
CSM and Camden Council share a longstanding collaborative relationship, with several design-based public initiatives in the past 10 years supported by the Public Collaboration Lab, a platform for teaching & learning, knowledge exchange and research focused on social, service and policy innovation. The Social Design Institute’s core interest areas include value and valuation through design; and policymaking, design and public policy.
Quotes to GPSJ:
James Purnell, UAL President and Vice-Chancellor:
“MAKE has demonstrated that through engaging and listening to your stakeholders and freely exchanging ideas and learnings, you can create something with an enduring legacy. Now run by the community it was designed to serve, we should see this as a model for how organisations can collaborate to create a positive impact. Through the innovative evaluative work, we also have a deeper understanding of the value of this project – one that has not always been captured through traditional evaluative tools. We hope this project and report can inspire many others.”
Councillor Danny Beales, Cabinet Member for Investing in Communities, Culture and an Inclusive Economy, Camden Council:
“This evaluation report from UAL highlights the power of community-driven projects to build relationships between individuals and institutions, improve wellbeing and empower residents. MAKE at Story Garden has provided a valuable collaborative space where residents can come together to address social challenges, develop new skills and access arts and culture. Based in the heart of the Knowledge Quarter, MAKE is a prime example of how institutions can create opportunities for local people and help to build a more inclusive economy.”
Phil Gould, Euston Project Director, Lendlease:
“This project has provided incredible opportunities for learning and exchange by all involved and a valuable lesson in the transformative power of creativity and making. The networks, projects, and partnerships that evolved from the workshops to tackle loneliness, for example, are a great testament to MAKE and the positive impact that can be made by delivering physical space that puts purpose and people first.”
Mrs Sarah Elie, MBE, Executive Director, Somers Town Community Association:
“Occasionally projects come along and you just know that there is more here than the fabric that creates the structures and the words that give it a face, because the structures and words are nothing without the residents that have taken it into their community and made it their space. MAKE is such a project and for that all the hard work was worth it.”
Dr Patrycja Kaszynska, Senior Research Fellow, Social Design Institute:
“This study explores the on-going process of value co-creation and how the people involved in this project interpret opportunities and both experience and influence change over time. The value of MAKE evolves through the life trajectories of those involved and the wider communal, organisational and institutional networks generated. This makes (e)valuating MAKE both exciting and challenging. What we can see is the need to innovate in evaluation approaches to go beyond outcomes and outputs-based models, to account for the fact that value is co-created beyond fixed boundaries.”
The report: click here to read the full report
The UK’s globally unique deployment of a medical imaging sharing system called the Sectra Image Exchange Portal has expanded to a record reach, easing the flow of important patient information beyond hospitals and supporting the pandemic response.
A UK-wide digital medical imaging sharing system, the largest of its kind anywhere in the world, has expanded to cover 500 institutions – enabling the secure sharing of essential medical imaging across the NHS and with other healthcare providers. NHS trusts say the system has proven vital during the COVID-19 pandemic as many patients have been seen in alternative locations, and it is also helping them to work with computer-aided diagnosis specialists, teleradiology providers and even forensic investigators.
The Sectra Image Exchange Portal, or IEP, first launched more than a decade ago as a means to allow NHS hospitals to share patient x-rays, ultrasounds, CTs, MRIs, PET scans and other important diagnostic images from one site to another, without having to rely on burning and sending compact discs to each other via couriers.
Now used to share around 47 million images each week across the UK, IEP has been key for patients who move across geographical boundaries, or are referred to specialist centres, and has been particularly valuable during the pandemic as patients have been seen at alternative hospitals and COVID secure sites.
Susan De Four, radiology systems administrator at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which was one of the first hospitals to start using IEP in 2009, said: “IEP has gone from being a local image sharing tool to becoming the predominant way we share images institution to institution, even changing how we share images with patients. It has replaced the need to share using optical media which has unavoidable security risks, with a secure system where an image can be captured at one hospital and become available within minutes to specialists and multi-disciplinary teams in another organisation. This is especially important for critically ill patients so that we can get them on the right pathway without delay.
“COVID has also seen additional capacity provided to the NHS – patients have been imaged by private hospitals or the military to minimise COVID-related delays and maintain COVID-secure pathways. Effectively managing the patient journey through imaging while using this additional capacity would have been almost impossible to manage without IEP, which has allowed us to swiftly obtain images back from those providers and make them available for our healthcare professionals to act on.
“The system continues to develop. Our orthopaedics and plastic surgery teams use companies connected to IEP that make prosthetics or customised tools for operations. It means we can easily share images with the right experts so the next steps of patient care can happen.”
Now the cloud based system has grown substantially beyond its original remit, with the NHS accounting for around 50 per cent of institutions. Other organisations that have joined the network include teleradiology providers, private hospitals, and organisations that focus on areas such as 3D reconstruction and AI supported diagnostics.
Hospitals have even been able to use the system, where appropriate, to securely share images that help inform forensic investigations.
The latest user, Innersight Labs, a surgical planning platform, specialises in creating 3D models that help NHS surgeons to prepare for theatre, reduce the risk of complications and even make decisions on whether patients should undergo procedures.
Dr Eoin Hyde, co-founder of Innersight Labs, said: “It’s all about the ease of bringing in CT and MRI images that we then use to create 3D virtual models for surgeons to inform important decisions for patients. I’ve yet to come across a hospital not using IEP, which is an important arrow in our quiver in connecting to the people we can help. Even if a hospital hasn’t worked with us before or we haven’t yet set up a direct integration, they still have a convenient, secure and safe way to share images and that reassures their information governance team. That makes it easier for us to work with hospitals and ultimately help them to improve patient care.”
Jane Rendall, managing director for Sectra in the UK and Ireland, the company that provides IEP, said: “IEP has been an important system in helping healthcare professionals to review medical images that might not be otherwise accessible from their own imaging system. Hospitals no longer need to rely on sending images via CDs, which might get lost or delay important decisions. But it has become much more than that, and even though more and more parts of the NHS are taking regional approaches to imaging technology, IEP has evolved considerably over the last decade to remain relevant and support patient care in new ways. I’m really excited to see how it will develop in the future.”
 The Bristow & Sutor Group has announced they will be the headline sponsor of the maiden CIVEA awards night and dinner, part of the forthcoming annual CIVEA Conference.
Reflection & Collection, the past, present and future of enforcement is set to be held in London at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms, Covent Garden on Thursday 21st April 2022. The annual enforcement networking event has expanded this year to include an awards ceremony for the first time, which will celebrate and recognise the ongoing efforts, commitment and success of leading industry organisations and personnel.
CIVEA is the principal trade association representing enforcement firms across England and Wales. Reflection & Collection will showcase the huge strides that have been taken in enforcement operations in recent times, building upon the regulatory reforms of 2014 and demonstrating the dynamic and proactive support provided to central and local government clients, including responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition to being headline sponsor at the awards dinner, Bristow & Sutor will be directly sponsoring the Tier 3 Innovation in Enforcement category. The company will be submitting entries themselves into other independently judged categories that will be up for grabs on awards night.
All CIVEA members, including Bristow & Sutor, are required to follow a strict code of conduct, which exceeds statutory requirements and the National Standards. Compliance with this code is regularly assessed by the independent auditing of members and Bristow & Sutor recently passed their audit, scoring a flawless 100% in the process.
Emma Watson, Head of External Communication at Bristow & Sutor, said: “We are delighted to be the headline sponsor of the first-ever awards evening and dinner at the upcoming CIVEA conference. Our business was incredibly proud to score 100% in our recent CIVEA audit and we are keen to build on this result by showcasing further examples of brilliance from the past year, both from ourselves and amongst our peers across the enforcement industry. The impact of CIVEA and other industry events like this cannot be overstated, as seen by the response to The Money Charity, who joined our stand at the recent IRRV Annual Conference and obtained 53 separate nominations to support local community projects. This highlights the incredible networking opportunities made possible when the industry comes together in this way. We look forward to encouraging and facilitating similar conversations at the CIVEA Annual Conference, as well as celebrating the incredible outcomes businesses have achieved over the past year in areas as diverse as technology, social value and communication during the awards.”
Russell Hamblin-Boone, CEO of CIVEA, told GPSJ: “The inaugural industry awards are an acknowledgement of the huge advances that reflect modern enforcement practice. Enforcement agents operate discreetly in partnership with government agencies and the awards are an opportunity to showcase the best of our industry. Bristow & Sutor has always been a progressive business and its support for the awards is an indication of its commitment to excellence in government debt recovery.”
Bristow & Sutor has over 44 years of experience in the collection of local council tax, non-domestic rates and unpaid Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs). The company is one of the UK’s leading players specialising in debt recovery and regularly encourages conversations between Debt Advice personnel and Local Authorities, utilising shared connections for the good of all involved.
 The Prime Minister has today continued the overhaul of his senior team as he improves the No 10 operation and delivers the change necessary to get on with the job. The new appointments will have the discipline and focus to drive the Prime Minister’s priorities and deliver for the country.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Steve Barclay MP will take on a significant new role, put in charge of integrating the new Office of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office, driving the government’s agenda more efficiently and ensuring it is better aligned with the Cabinet and backbenchers. He will become the Prime Minister’s new Chief of Staff, working directly with Cabinet colleagues to ensure the Prime Minister’s levelling up agenda is driven forward and delivered at maximum speed. This change will significantly strengthen Cabinet government, meaning there will be an enhanced role for both Ministers and Parliament.
Guto Harri, a respected journalist with a distinguished BBC career before taking on some of the most demanding roles in communications, is joining as Director of Communications. He was the Prime Minister’s Spokesman and Chief of Staff during his first term as London Mayor.
There will continue to be further appointments over the coming days with a particular focus on improving engagement and liaison with MPs.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
“This week I promised change, so that we can get on with the job the British public elected us to do. We need to continue our recovery from the pandemic, help hundreds of thousands more people into work, and deliver our ambitious agenda to level up the entire country, improving people’s opportunities regardless of where they’re from.
“The changes I’m announcing to my senior team today will improve how No 10 operates, strengthen the role of my Cabinet and backbench colleagues, and accelerate our defining mission to level up the country.”
Enterprise risk management software specialist, Sword GRC announces sponsorship of the 14th annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit taking place from 7-9 February in Arlington, VA
Global risk management software specialist Sword GRC is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the Nuclear Deterrence Summit, a two-day event to be hosted at Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport, Arlington, VA from February 7-9, 2022.
The Summit, organized by ExchangeMonitor Publications and Forums, brings together professionals from across nuclear deterrence to discuss the management of the nuclear complex, security, arms control negotiation and strategic policy. Sword GRC joins a prestigious sponsors line-up as a key player in the development of mitigative strategies to drive down risk and attain mission success through effective risk management.
“Sword GRC understands the scope of challenges faced by professionals working within nuclear modernization and is proud to work with pioneering organizations across defense and aerospace in support of their complex risk management objectives,” said David Emanuel, Sword GRC VP, North America Operations.
“Our software is considered the ‘de facto’ standard in risk management, trusted by both Government ecosystems and leading organizations to enable risk-based decision making and balance ‘risks v rewards’. We look forward to attending this year’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit, a great opportunity to meet with key stakeholders, explore deterrence issues and demonstrate how through a comprehensive view of risk, our GRC solutions can support goals attainment and competitive advantage across mission-critical project lifecycles.”
Learn more or register for the 2022 Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
- First step: Birmingham and Warsaw have adopted Airly air quality monitoring and controls
- Evidence: Cities that are monitoring and measuring air are the places where air quality improves the fastest, London shows largest improvement in Europe
- Innovation: Airly has created the world’s most detailed and comprehensive air quality solution for users around the world to deploy immediately.
The UK’s second largest city Birmingham and Poland’s capital Warsaw have taken decisive action to address the plight of air pollution by taking the first step to monitor air quality through Airly, the cleantech company who will install their sensors across their cities. In doing so, Warsaw becomes the city with the most air pollution monitors in Europe.
Birmingham and Warsaw join a host of other cities around the world including such as Hong Kong, Jakarta, Oslo, Granada who are partnering with Airly (and Airly Public, in case of Warsaw) to tackle the problem of air pollution. Airly offers a comprehensive SaaS solution for air quality monitoring and control. Made possible by a proprietary low-cost distributed sensor network which provides hyper-local, real-time air quality data. They offer decision-ready data on air quality. Enabling users to analyse trends and sources, develop targeted initiatives to combat pollution, and track improvements. Supporting users on their journey to eliminate pollution, improve air quality and protect public health.
 “Airly is the first step toward pollution-free cities and communities” commented Wiktor Warchałowski CEO of Airly. “These were competitive tenders and we are delighted to serve the municipalities and their communities to help address the world’s biggest killer – air pollution – which is reducing life expectancy by 3 years around the world”.
According to the EEA’s latest estimates, 307,000 people died prematurely due to exposure to fine particulate matter pollution in the EU in 2019. At least 58%, or 178,000, of these deaths could have been avoided if all EU Member States had reached the WHO’s new air quality guideline level of 5 µg / m3. As part of the European Green Deal, the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan sets a target to reduce the number of premature deaths due to exposure to fine particulate matter by more than 55% by 2030, as compared to 2005.
Councillor Waseem Zaffar MBE, Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment at Birmingham City Council has said: “There is clear evidence that air pollution can have long and short-term health implications. Our ambition is to create an environment where people can live and work to their full potential without the threat of this entirely preventable pollution.
“It is a promising next step for us today to be able to launch the Air Pollution Sensors project with Airly as this will help us create further awareness across our communities of how the air pollution situation is progressing. Now it is time for us all to think about changes we can make to create a difference, as individuals and as organisations.”
Wiktor Warchałowski CEO of Airly has added: “We’re incredibly proud to partner with Birmingham City Council to provide them with hyperlocal, real-time air quality sensors for schools. Our comprehensive air quality platform will enable them to make intelligent, data-driven decisions based on the insights gained from our platform. Airly will also provide support to the Council to help reduce emissions, raise awareness and protect public health wherever possible.”
Warsaw, the largest city in Poland, is installing a large network of air quality sensors, making it the European metropolis with the highest density of this device. The Airly monitors installed in the capital and all neighbouring municipalities thanks to a contract with Airly Public will monitor air quality at 165 locations in real time 24 hours a day. The devices will monitor the concentration of the most harmful dust – PM1, PM2.5, PM10 – and gases – NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) and O3 (ozone).
For more information visit www.airly.org
 Effective Energy Group’s Help4Homes scheme is aimed at providing the help that will make a real difference for homes in fuel poverty The Effective Energy Group has launched an innovative and holistic new scheme that provides energy saving advice, free heating, insulation and white goods and an income maximisation service for low-income and vulnerable households struggling to pay their energy bills.
Help4Homes covers all property types and tenures, and with a quarter of homes in England and Wales now affected by fuel poverty, the scope for the Ofgem approved scheme to provide help where it is most needed is enormous.
Neil Marshall, director of external affairs at Effective Energy Group, said: “Soaring energy prices have been making headlines for months on end; and rising in tandem with these ever-spiralling prices are the number of households that can be defined as being in fuel poverty – a figure that now tops six million.”
Unlike some other Government-led schemes, Help4Homes isn’t focused solely on energy reduction measures, but extends to cover a variety of different areas; key amongst them income maximisation, which can play a significant role in the difference between households remaining in fuel poverty and getting out of it.
Since going live at the end of 2021 with an initial £500k of funding, the response to Help4Homes has been so overwhelmingly positive that Effective Energy is now seeking new partners to invest in the scheme.
“Energy companies, local authorities and housing associations have funds to spend on helping low income and vulnerable households and Help4Homes has the scope to help more homes in more different ways than any other existing scheme,” added Neil.
“And because of our in-house expertise and that of our partners, IncomeMAX and CSupplies, those investing in it can do so in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner.”
IncomeMAX oversees the income maximisation element of Help4Homes, while CSupplies provides the white goods.
“Although anyone can invest in Help4Homes, it is the ideal vehicle for energy companies and local authorities,” continued Neil. “Energy companies can invest through the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) and Warm Homes Discount schemes, while local authorities can use various sources of funding, including the Local Authority Delivery Scheme (LADs), Home Upgrade Grant Scheme (HUG) and local budgets. And however they invest, they’ll do so knowing their money will make a huge difference to households that need it the most.”
For further information on Effective Energy and its Help4Homes scheme visit www.effective-energy.co.uk, e-mail neil.marshall@effective-energy.co.uk or call 01909 511260.
 Professor John Read, General Manager, Specialities Technology at Shell By: Professor John Read, General Manager, Specialities Technology at Shell
Shell is helping power the journey towards a circular paving industry with Shell Bitumen LT R, a new product for roads that uses plastics destined for landfill as part of the additives to make the bitumen.
As I sit down to write this, the world have departed COP26 in Glasgow, leaving their appointed diplomats and negotiators to begin critical multilateral discussions aimed at getting the world on track to net-zero emissions.
This is where the real work begins towards limiting global warming in line with the Paris Agreement and shaping a more sustainable world.
All forms of transportation account for about 24% of all CO2 emissions worldwide, with around 75% of this from road transportation1. The role of the paving industry is therefore critical to addressing global sustainability challenges by decarbonising road construction, while continuing to improve performance.
The future is about more than decarbonisation
We are excited to launch Shell Bitumen LT R, our new circular product for roads that has been specifically designed to play a part in addressing the issue of waste plastic. Shell Bitumen LT R is a low-temperature binder with an additive that is chemically converted from waste plastic and blended into the bitumen, saving an estimated 450kg of plastic waste and a tonne of CO2-equivalent emissions per kilometre of road paved2.
Converting non-recyclable plastic bottles destined for landfill to a bespoke bitumen additive improves circularity and also performance. When carefully incorporated LT R is easy to mix, evenly dispersed and stable, and retains the lower production and laying temperatures of the LT technology Shell Bitumen has pioneered for more than 25 years.
Why is this important? Innovations such as this will help our customers and clients to meet the UK government’s target to halve the amount of municipal waste going to landfill by 2035. Creating a new end-market for non-recyclable waste plastic also helps mitigate the climate impact of global plastics production.
Wear and tear on highways
The pressure on road paving is increasing for a variety of reasons including climate change and rising average ambient air temperatures. Roads are not designed to withstand this, leading to early-life surface rutting and deformation that has to be repaired more frequently, and that is not sustainable.
The new generation of fuel-efficient autonomous vehicles, whether they be hybrid or fully electric, represent another significant challenge when it comes to road maintenance. Autonomous vehicles will move very close together one after the other in a ‘canalised’ fashion, with very few rest periods.
While this may be good for both commuters and the environment, it will inevitably place additional strain on road networks because all of that stress is being exerted by vehicles on the pavement in exactly the same points on the road surface every time, which will lead to more early-life failures.
The transition from conventional dual-wheel axles on vehicles to super single tyres, while undeniably good in terms of reducing tyre wear, also results in higher levels of pavement damage. Similarly, leaks from poorly maintained air suspensions can lead to steel-on-steel contact instead of a cushioned load, meaning the actual peak loads being applied on the road surface are much higher.
We are also witnessing a tendency for haulage companies to carry more freight on a single vehicle. Again, this is good for the environment, but the increased weight can lead to more road damage.
Putting Shell Bitumen LT R to the test
We are putting Shell Bitumen LT R through its paces in Cumbria to demonstrate its real world environmental and operational benefits in one of the UK’s harshest driving environments. Started in May 2021, Shell partnered with Cumbria County Council and UK contractor Hanson to lay miles of urban and rural roads in a project funded by the ADEPT Live Labs programme.
“What is fundamental to this pilot… is the huge volume of waste plastics, which are stopped going into landfill, which is a major benefit to Cumbria and the UK,” commented Councillor Keith Little, who works on the county’s highways and transport portfolio.
You can view the progress here www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p_v2b4VGHU
The road paving industry has a key role to play in this sustainable future, and I am proud that we are continuing to lead the way in developing innovative, impactful solutions that empower our customers to make positive changes now.
Sources:
1 World Resources Institute
2 Shell Construction & Road
Skillsoft’s Lean Into Learning: 2021 Annual Learning Report provides data and guidance for addressing skills gaps, hybrid learning, and the war for talent
Skillsoft (NYSE: SKIL), a global leader in corporate digital learning, today released its Lean Into Learning: 2021 Annual Learning Report, exploring the top challenges and opportunities facing today’s workforce, as well as trends in learning and development and the role it plays in transforming organisations and employees. With businesses prioritising building future-fit, resilient teams, the report highlights a 55 percent year-over-year increase in the number of learners on the Skillsoft Percipio platform and a 45 percent increase in total hours of Percipio learning consumption in 2021.
Events of the past year have created numerous obstacles for organisations to navigate including the shift to remote and hybrid work, the rapid acceleration of digital transformation, and a widening technical skills gap. As companies seek to reinvent themselves, improve the overall health of their business, and motivate staff, they are placing an increased emphasis on employee development. In fact, a new survey conducted by Skillsoft and IDG found that 83 percent of decision makers are making training and development a critical priority.
“The nature of work – and consequently the nature of the workforce – has evolved at a rapid pace. Digital transformation, a global pandemic, and a changing workforce have caused companies to rethink how they conduct business and the talent required to innovate, meet customer needs, and exceed employees’ expectations,” said Jeffrey R. Tarr, Chief Executive Officer, Skillsoft. “Where there is change there is opportunity, and this disruption is driving workplace reinvention and a heightened need for learning. Competency is the new currency, and by creating cultures of learning and development where every team member has access to the tools needed to develop new skills and succeed, employees and businesses alike can achieve their full potential.”
 In 2021, Skillsoft observed strong growth in total hours of Percipio learning consumption across Compliance (120 percent increase), Technology & Developer (36 percent increase), and Leadership & Business (30 percent increase). Amidst a highly disruptive year for cyberattacks, Skillsoft also saw a 30 percent increase in consumption of Percipio security-related content. In analysing the 20 most popular topics across all disciplines, IT and technology-related subjects comprise 40 percent of the list, with security courses holding two of the top three spots. Additionally, nearly half of the list comprises power skills such as communication and understanding unconscious bias.
As employees continue to adapt to new workplace dynamics and take on added management and leadership responsibilities, in 2021, Skillsoft also saw strong interest in its Percipio Aspire Journeys, sequential learning pathways that build on current skills and provide guided roadmaps to success. The three most completed Percipio Aspire Journeys were “Virtual Work in the New Normal,” “Leadership Development Core Journey,” and “First Time Manager Journey.”
Furthermore, more than 12.7 million digital badges were earned and shared via social media upon completion of Percipio courses and Percipio Aspire Journeys in 2021, a 48 percent increase. Of the 20 most awarded badges, 85 percent were for security, cloud computing, and software development courses.
Download the full Lean Into Learning: 2021 Annual Learning Report here. For more information about how Skillsoft can help with your L&D needs, visit www.skillsoft.com.
The release of the UK government’s Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan: 2022-2024 is a great step forward in supporting and empowering the UK’s military veteran community, says Landmarc Support Services (Landmarc).
The Action Plan aims to provide a solid foundation on which the government can continue to build over the next two years and beyond. Reinforced by research and data to give an even greater understanding of the veteran community, five focal points for success are highlighted:
- Delivering a step-change in support
- Maximising veteran employability
- Addressing historic hurt or disadvantage
- Dealing with the legacy from historic operations
- Ensuring a high standard of support across the UK
 Landmarc MD Mark Neill Landmarc manages military training on the UK Defence Training Estate on behalf of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and was an early signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant; publicly declaring its commitment to those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces and achieving an Employer Recognition Scheme Gold Award in 2018.
A significant number of veterans already work for Landmarc at every level of the business, bringing invaluable knowledge learnt from the Armed Forces to the company’s national workforce.
As a longstanding employer of ex-service personnel, last spring Landmarc matched the government’s pledge to offer guaranteed recruitment interviews for military veterans[1] who have the right experience for the role. The initiative, known as the ‘Great Place to Work for Veterans’, makes it easier for veterans to secure employment within several government departments.
 Landmarc Support Services Mark Neill, Landmarc’s Managing Director and Army veteran says: “At Landmarc, over 25 per cent of our workforce is made up of veterans and reservists who all bring a specialist mix of niche skills and expertise gained from their time in the British Armed Forces, which is hugely valuable to our management of the UK Defence Training Estate.
“Our commitment to the government’s guaranteed interview scheme for veterans ensures that all ex-service personnel that have the appropriate skills and experience for the role are offered an interview, and we use our levy fund to offer apprenticeship opportunities to our employees to help formalise these valuable skills into civilian qualifications.
“We wholeheartedly support the government’s aim to make the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran by 2028. The focal points of success and areas of action within the Action Plan will help mitigate any disadvantage faced by our armed forces community due to the unique nature of military service.”
Click here to read the full Action Plan. For further information about Landmarc, please visit www.landmarcsolutions.com
[1] www.gov.uk/government/news/government-delivers-on-promise-to-veterans-announcing-guaranteed-interviews-for-government-jobs
 Shirley-Anne Somerville It remains the government’s ‘firm intention’ to hold National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher exams this Spring, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has restated.
Taking into consideration ongoing disruption within schools, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) has decided to invoke its Scenario 2 contingency and will provide revision support in early March to aid learners in preparing for their exams.
It complements the significant modifications SQA has already made to reduce the volume of assessment and ease the workload of learners, teachers and lecturers.
SQA has also, today, announced a series of measures that will support delivery of the qualifications this year and that acknowledge the disruption caused by the pandemic:
- exceptional circumstances back-up for learners who are unable to attend their exam or exams due to illness or bereavement
- grading exams this year will look to factor in the impact of the pandemic on learners
- once the results have been published, learners will have free direct access to appeal
Ms Somerville also confirmed that £4 million will be used to support schools and colleges provide targeted exam preparation sessions for learners who need it most over the Easter break.
In a statement delivered in the Scottish Parliament, the Education Secretary said:
“It remains my firm intention that exams will take place as planned – they will only be cancelled if public health advice says it isn’t safe.
“While the number of full and partial school closures has been small, it is clear that many secondary schools have experienced extreme disruption as a result of the Omicron variant – particularly in the first half of January – in relation to both student and teacher absences.
“This package of measures is designed to ensure our learners are fully supported in their learning and preparations for the exams this year.”
 Daniel Harrison, co-founder and head of technology at Voicescape Voicescape has launched a unique tenant engagement solution for social landlords and local authorities, representing a major step change in the intelligent automation of rent arrears management.
Caseload Manager (CM) has been developed by the specialist software business to enable social landlords to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of income recovery.
It combines Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Data Science and Behavioural Insight (Bi), to identify individual tenant behaviours and risks, automating each stage of the arrears management process. It then applies learning algorithms to accurately predict future customer behaviour, continuously improving operations over time.
Daniel Harrison, co-founder and head of technology at Voicescape, said: “Never before have customer engagement and operational efficiency been more important in helping social landlords to tackle growing income deficits. The sector is facing challenges that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, stretching financial and resource pressures further than ever, and placing demands on organisations to support tenants with the rising cost of living.
“With rents predicted to rise by as much as 4.1 per cent from April 2022, it’s a critical time for social landlords to be able to engage meaningfully with tenants to create successful outcomes for everyone. For the first time, social housing managers can realise the true value of the data they possess, big or small, allowing teams to manage rent arrears more effectively, at a lower cost, and with an improved tenant experience,” he added.
CM is designed to work with all major Housing Management Systems (HMSs) and in-house developed IT support systems, addressing the entirety of the arrears pool in one solution. It does not require additional modules should the landlord wish to tackle Former Tenant Arrears, for example.
Daniel added: “It doesn’t sit in isolation from the rest of the arrears ecosystem. It brings together critical and salient information in one place. By intelligently profiling risk and then taking active intervention, Caseload Manager reduces the generation of new caseload and resulting volume of active cases, saving hours of manual work.”
The CM solution has been developed in partnership with Thirteen, which provides housing services to more than 70,000 customers across Yorkshire, Teesside and the North East.
Chris Marshall, head of housing services at Thirteen, explained: “We’ve all seen the challenges of debt recovery through the pandemic and what we’re seeing now is the cost of living really starting to have an impact, particularly for low income customers that sit just above the housing benefit threshold. As an organisation our ambition is to use behavioural science to intervene at the right time, with the right message, as well as increasing our use of automation to free up our colleagues’ time to be able to spend with customers.
“Caseload Manager not only aligns with the values of our organisation to deliver automation driven by behavioural science, it’s helped us to deliver support to customers when they most need it, and uses all of the intelligence we have on our customers to help us be smarter in our interventions. It’s supported our co-ordinators to manage debt cases in one clear dashboard to streamline processes and reduce the volume of manual intervention required. We’ve already seen, in a relatively short space of time, the benefits of how the system continues to learn from the action that we take and the behaviour of our customers to refine those interventions.”
Using a unique combination of automation technology, behavioural insights and data science, Voicescape creates bespoke communication solutions that help public service organisations drive substantial operational efficiencies and service-level improvements.
 The MAST (Joint European Torus and Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak) experimental plasma machine at CCFE Hundreds of scientists and engineers working on the UK’s race to harness fusion energy are being protected from COVID-19 contamination by new super-tough anti-microbial coating Touchpoint Shield.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has commissioned bio-hazard cleaning and decontamination specialist SafeGroup to install Touchpoint Shield in washrooms and toilet areas.
Facilities managers at the authority’s research centre near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, were impressed with trials that proved the coating suppressed the build-up of SARS-Cov-2, the COVID-19 virus.
A team of SafeGroup technicians has now applied the fast-drying and nearly invisible Touchpoint Shield to showers, toilets and taps at multiple locations across the 200-acre fusion energy research site.
The coating has been installed in time for the UKAEA to provide enhanced surface protection against the new Omicron COVID-19 variant.
Keith Musgrave, the UKAEA’s Head of Buildings and Facilities Management, said: “SafeGroup has worked with us to undergo pilot testing of Touchpoint Shield over a six-week period at the height of the pandemic.
“The results were conclusive as to the coating’s effectiveness. Touchpoint Shield has now been applied to areas throughout the site.
“We will now add this process to our new builds and building refurbishment projects. The service from SafeGroup throughout the whole process has been efficient, collaborative and totally professional.”
Adam Clark, Building and Refurbishment Manager at the UKAEA, said: “Touchpoint Shield provides long-lasting anti-microbial protection on all surfaces while also making them so much easier to keep clean. Treated surfaces also look excellent.”
The UKAEA carries out fusion energy research on behalf of the UK Government.
 Aerial view of CCFE Its Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is a global leader in fusion energy research which aims to harness the power of the stars, including our Sun, to provide safe, sustainable, low-carbon energy.
Chris MacDonald, SafeGroup’s Business Strategy Director, who has been leading the Touchpoint Shield installation, said: “The spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variants shows we must take a long view to beat the pandemic and establish high performance hygiene protection.
 Touchpoint Shield being installed at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy “Our work at the CCFE demonstrates how Touchpoint Shield is quick and simple to install and instantly begins to provide long-term, active protection against SARS-Cov-2 and a range of other pathogens.
“Uniquely, it combines proven effectiveness against the COVID-19 virus in a long-lasting, low-maintenance coating that, because it is transparent, doesn’t change the look or feel of treated surfaces.
“Installing Touchpoint Shield is a proven way to also directly address the heightened concerns employees have about workplace hygiene, supporting enhanced assurance, trust and wellbeing.”
Like many organisations, the UKAEA has been looking for effective ways to improve protection for its teams during the COVID-19 pandemic and has made Touchpoint Shield a key element of its enhanced hygiene strategy.
CCFE’s work is highly collaborative, with scientists and engineers visiting from around the world to work on highly complex experiments. Putting in place improved hygiene protection measures to allow this to continue has been a top priority for the authority.
The active anti-microbial agent in Touchpoint Shield is silver ions, which have long been proven to destroy many viruses, bacteria, mould, fungi and many parasites.
Independent laboratory tests, commissioned by SafeGroup, have proven Touchpoint Shield is 99+% effective against SARS-CoV-2 and other bugs that cause serious workplace illness, including the flu virus and Norovirus.
The silver ions are added to liquid coating made from billions of nano-ceramic particles. It is these particles that make the coating ultra-smooth and tough, enhancing the look of treated surfaces and makes them easier to clean.
This is giving SafeGroup clients, including the UKAEA, the added advantage of making their cleaning regimes more productive, with no need for additional high frequency touchpoint cleaning.
For more information please visit: www.touchpointshield.co.uk
Email: touchpointshield@thesafegroup.co.uk
 By Barley Laing, the UK Managing Director at Melissa
The pandemic, along with improving technology driving digitalisation, has seen the public sector place many of their services online.
Unfortunately, fraud has always been a big issue in the public sector – something that’s been exacerbated by services quickly going online during the health crisis. The Cabinet Office estimates that fraud and error costs the public purse up to £51.8 billion every year, with the Bounce Back Loan Scheme set up during the pandemic alone expected to cost the taxpayer £27 billion in fraud or credit losses. This high level of fraud requires public bodies to know who they are engaging with. It’s confirmation of identity that will prevent valuable budgets from being disbursed incorrectly, money that can be more appropriately targeted at frontline services.
At the same time, people are used to engaging with businesses which provide fast and secure access to services online, particularly during the pandemic. Therefore, when they register online for a service offered by the public sector they expect it to be quick and seamless.
This poses the question: How can public bodies ensure accurate and fast identity verification – ideally in real time – at the point of access?
Biometric technology = accurate and fast remote identity verification
The public sector needs to take an effective remote and automated approach to identity verification, to ensure those who are entitled to access services can, while those who aren’t, can’t.
A good place to start is to use biometric technology to verify identity remotely. It’s the way forward for those serious about delivering a standout and effective ID verification process in the digital age. Biometric technology enables organisations to digitally identify someone using their physical human characteristics, such as fingerprints, facial features, and voice; or behavioural characteristics, such as how they interact with a touchscreen. These are all unique identifiers that cannot be replicated, avoiding the need for time-consuming security questions or the frustration of forgotten passwords.
Biometrics enables people to quickly and easily access their services or account, helping to deliver a positive experience. It’s this technology that’s already proving popular in seamlessly confirming the ID of prospective customers in other heavily regulated industries, such as banking. It is now attracting the attention of the public sector.
Biometrics that uses facial verification technology is the standout tool for those in the public sector. With this form of biometrics, once the applicant to a service or product has scanned and provided their primary ID document (such as a passport or driver’s licence with a photo), via a device of their choice, Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology can check its validity in real time. The applicant then simply takes a selfie, which the software scrutinises via an algorithm within the technology, comparing it with the master ID image. The algorithm can instantly distinguish differences between the selfie and the ID image, including head position, hairstyle, skin imperfections, facial hair, makeup and age.
Liveness checks are key
However, when sourcing facial verification technology it’s vital that those in the public sector select one that offers liveness checks, and requests a ‘challenge response’. By asking the individual to blink, which confirms eye movement and proof of life, it’s possible to establish that the person is real and not a static image. It provides additional confidence that the person being onboarded online is very definitely who they say they are. This is important at a time when there’s been an increase in ‘spoofing’ which involves criminals using creative methods like 2D images and video playback to try to trick facial recognition technology and ‘prove’ they are the person they are impersonating.
Good facial verification biometric software enhances the customer journey by ensuring that the lighting, sharpness, and quality of the images of the ‘live’ selfie and the ID document are sufficient to pass through the process quickly and efficiently. Additionally, using such software enables ID checks to be performed in just a few minutes, rather than waiting for a lengthy manual, and more costly, ‘back office’ check.
Biometric technology preferable to manual checks
Using automated biometric technology to remotely verify identity is significantly better than the physical, time consuming, and more costly checks that traditionally take place behind the scenes at public bodies, for a number of reasons. Firstly, staff are asked to check documents for authenticity, manually, despite not always having specific training in identifying forged or fraudulent documents. With thousands of ID document types worldwide employees can’t be expected to know them all, which can cause review-related delays. Also, everyone is vulnerable to human error, making manual reviews less effective or stringent than they should be. Finally, operating manually does not usually allow for a quick response to changes, whether legislative or regulatory. In light of this public bodies should ask if there is any justification for continuing spending money on manual ID checks with budgets under extreme pressure, when speed and accuracy are offered via automated remote ID verification services, such as biometrics?
Remote onboarding is becoming more important for those in the public sector in 2022 and beyond, as services increasingly go online. It’s time public bodies look to embrace the benefits automated remote identity verification can bring, particularly using biometric technology that powers facial verification.
For more information about Melissa and how our ID and document verification services can help you prevent fraud please visit: Melissa, email: barley.laing@melissa.com or call: 020 7718 0070.
Barley will present a seminar on: ‘How to verify identity remotely’ at the Counter Fraud in Public Sector Conference at the QEII Centre in London on 23rd February 2022.
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