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Commenting on the latest unemployment figures released today (16 June), Dave Prentis, UNISON’s General Secretary, said: -With unemployment on the up again it makes no sense to throw thousands more people on to the dole queues.
-Behind every statistic is a personal tragedy – cuts to public spending will have a huge impact on the local economy and will devastate communities and families.
-We face a lost generation of disaffected young people, struggling to get their first foot into work.
-Cutting hard and fast will risk a double dip recession. We need to protect public services and create opportunities for young people and the long-term unemployed.”
Chief Superintendent Lynn Hart has received a MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to policing.
Chief Superintendent Lynn Hart, Bournemouth and Poole Divisional Commander, said: “I’m honoured and humbled to be receiving this award as I go into my 36th year of service with Dorset Police.
“I couldn’t have achieved the award without the support of my family, colleagues – police officers, police staff and volunteers – and partner agencies. I am accepting the award on behalf of all of them.”
Chief Constable Martin Baker said: -This is a richly deserved recognition of Lynn’s achievements over a long and distinguished career in policing.
-She has risen to one of the most senior levels in the police service through her total commitment to the communities she serves and to the people that she leads and I am delighted both for her and the Force.”
Chief Superintendent Lynn Hart, 52, joined Dorset Police as a cadet in 1975 at the age of 17, and became a police officer in Bournemouth soon after.
While rising through the ranks of Dorset Police, Chief Superintendent Hart also worked in Poole, Christchurch and at Force Headquarters in Winfrith.
In 2001, she was promoted to superintendent in command of the former Eastern Division, and then to chief superintendent in early 2008 when she took on the challenge of merging the old Eastern and Western divisions to create the Dorset County Division.
Later in 2008, Chief Superintendent Hart moved to the conurbation to take command of the Bournemouth and Poole Division; the post that she remains in today.
Chief Superintendent Lynn Hart has lived in Dorset for her entire life, and currently lives in the Bournemouth area of the county.
Police have seized over 150 bottles and cans of booze from underage drinkers in a series of anti-social behaviour initiatives.
But instead of pouring the alcohol down the drain, the haul, which includes 74 bottles of lager, 63 cans of lager, two litres of vodka and 29 litres of cider has been donated by Rochdale South Neighbourhood Policing Team to care home residents at Springhill Hospice for their enjoyment.
The seizures have been by Rochdale South Neighbourhood Policing Team during Operation Quasar, an ongoing weekend anti-social behavior initiative for Rochdale Division. It sees mobile and foot patrols increased in hot spot areas such as Milkstone and Deeplish, Kirkholt, Castleton and Kingsway.
During the initiative police work in troubled spots with agencies such as the local authority, youth services and licensing officers and have used handheld cameras and mobile video units. Any youths found hanging around are stopped and accounted for and offered leaflets providing a list of activities they can take part in across the area.
Youths continuing to be a nuisance have letters issued to their parents and those ignoring the two warnings are then encouraged to sign into the acceptable behaviour scheme (ABS)*.
Police also work with licensed premises and shops in a bid to curb underage sales.
Sergeant Shoheb Chowdhury for Rochdale South Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “A staggering amount of alcohol was seized during the operation and a large amount had to be poured away. What has to be remembered is that with alcohol comes nuisance and anti-social behaviour.
-In the past there have been some serious incidents of anti-social behaviour and criminal damage which has been caused by youngsters getting drunk on the street. The success of this operation in recent times has resulted in a drop of youth related incidents, which is pleasing to see.
-Residents living in the area have been telling us about how pleased they are about the operation and the results. This is great news for the team and shows that the work we have put into the operation has paid off.”
Christine Webb, chief executive for Springhill Hospice at Broad Lane, Rochdale, said: -Once again the Rochdale South Neighbourhood Policing Team has supplied Springhill Hospice with a range of alcohol for use by our patients.
-We have two very well stocked drinks trolleys and our patients in the in-patient unit and in the day hospice are offered a drink prior to each meal by one of the volunteering team. The drinks that have been donated save a huge amount of money for us and of course our patients really enjoy the social benefits of having a drink.
-We are extremely grateful to Sergeant Chowdhury and his team for bringing the drinks to the hospice, they will be greatly appreciated by our patients.”
The world of hacking has evolved into two major varieties: industrialized attacks and advanced persistent threats (APT). There has been a lot of discussion around the validity of APT recently , some have even connected APT with panties. But APT is a real threat. So, what’s the difference between APT and industrialized hacking, and how should you respond?
Industrialized Hacking
Just as the Industrial Revolution advanced methods and accelerated assembly from single to mass production in the 19th century, today’s cybercrime industry has similarly transformed and automated itself to improve efficiency, scalability, and profitability.
What are the key characteristics of an industrialized attack?
It’s ROI focused. All parties involved work to increase the bottom-line. Similar to the way a business works to maximize gain with as little investment as possible.
It’s not personal. Automated attacks do not target specific individuals. Rather, they target the masses, both enterprises and users, using general selection criteria. For example, a botnet that drives mass SQL injection attacks or brute force password attacks will not discriminate between large or small organizations.
It’s multilayer. Each party involved in the hacking process has a unique role and uses a different financial model.
It’s automated. Botnets, armies of unknowingly enlisted computers controlled by hackers, scan and probe the web seeking to exploit vulnerabilities and extract valuable data, conduct brute force password attacks, disseminate spam, distribute malware, and manipulate search engine results.
Common attack types include:
1. Data theft or SQL injections. Data theft is most commonly administered through SQL injection. Between January and June of 2009, IBM reported nearly 250,000 daily SQL injection attacks on websites around the world. Imperva researchers reported the use and deployment of SQL injections as the top chat topic on hacker forums. For example, the 2009 assault against Heartland Payment Systems, which resulted in 130 million dollars of lost records, was attributed to SQL injection.
2. Business logic attacks. Recently, web application hackers have begun to develop attacks that target vulnerabilities in the business logic, rather than in the application code. Business logic attacks often remain undetected. In fact, most business logic vulnerabilities are hard to anticipate and detect using automated test tools, such as static code analyzers, and vulnerability scanners. Often, attack traffic resembles normal application traffic. Attacks are usually not apparent from code and are too diverse to be expressed through generic vulnerability scanner tests. A recent hack against Durex India highlights how this type of attack works.
3. Denial of service attacks. This type of attack is usually executed as part of a blackmail scheme that forces application owners to pay a ransom to free their application from the invasion of useless traffic. For instance, attackers will threaten to shut-down online gambling sites for a particular ransom.
Advanced Persistent Threats
Advanced persistent threats (APT) are driven, usually, by government agencies, or their terrorist counterparts. Rarely are APTs led by political or commercial organizations. However, in some cases, marginal threats do arise from obsessed individuals and legitimate commercial organizations. What are the key characteristics of APT hacking?
It’s very personal. The attacking party carefully selects targets based on political, commercial, and security interests. Social engineering is often employed by an APT.
It’s persistent. If the target shows resistance, the attacker will not leave, but rather change strategy and deploy a new type of attack against the same target. The attacker may also decide to shift from an external threat to an internal threat.
Control focused. APTs are focused on gaining control of crucial infrastructure, such as power grids and communication systems. APTs also target data comprised of intellectual property and sensitive national security information. Personal data, however, is of no interest. Surprisingly, APT hackers are not as concerned with costs or revenue. Thus large budgets may be thrown against individual targets with no -financial justification. How can you quantify state security?
It’s automated but on a small scale. Automation is used to enhance the power of an attack against a single target, not to launch broader, multi-target attacks.
It’s one layer. One party owns and controls all hacking roles and responsibilities. In fact, the most serious government organizations operate their own botnets (or at least take control of parts of botnets).
Advanced Persistent Threats vs Industrialization: How Can Security Professionals Respond?
The industrialized hacker wants money but also wants to keep costs down, it’s simply the -Tony Soprano, business model. If you have a web presence, you are a potential target for industrialized attacks, even if you are a small organization. You need to use timely updates on attack sources to quickly identify attackers. Since you are bound to be attacked, emphasis must be placed on easy management and operations, with protection against known vulnerabilities and common attack types, such as SQL Injection, XSS, and CSRF.
Advanced persistent threats, on the other hand, are much more sophisticated and require a -James Bond, approach to impede the Dr. No’s. Consider yourself a target if you hold sensitive information beneficial to governments. Key characteristics include:
.mil and .gov sites
DoD contractors
Infrastructure companies, including power and water
Individual CEOs or leaders of powerful enterprise or government agencies, or their staff
Personal information of possible targets, such as the Chinese freedom of speech activists in the recent Google case
If you have identified an APT, then you need to collect and review audit information with regards to accessing sensitive assets.
In both cases, you should protect both your site and customers by using a rapid procedure of scanning for security vulnerabilities. Additionally, deploying a web application firewall will provide you with a first and last line of defense. Considering, however, the more -James Bond – nature of APTs, you may also need a powerful, fully customizable solution that integrates with vulnerability assessment technologies.
About Imperva
Imperva, the Data Security leader, enables a complete security lifecycle for business databases and the applications that use them. Over 4,500 of the world’s leading enterprises, government organizations, and managed service providers rely on Imperva to prevent sensitive data theft, protect against data breaches, secure applications, and ensure data confidentiality. The award-winning Imperva SecureSphere is the only solution that delivers full activity monitoring from the database to the accountable application user and is recognized for its overall ease of management and deployment. For more information, visit www.imperva.com and follow us on Twitter @Imperva.
Rob Murdoch, Chair of the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) welcomed the further clarity given today by the Government on how existing welfare to work schemes will be replaced by the single Work Programme.
Mr Murdoch said -this is a significant step, and will help employment services providers to help many more thousands of long term unemployed people get off benefits and into work. ERSA members echo the Secretary of State’s commitment – we too are here to help people improve their lives.
-ERSA has been working closely with the Government on devising the new single scheme to ensure that it delivers what Iain Duncan Smith has set out, a back to work programme that -offers targeted, personalised help for those who need it most, sooner rather than later”.
-Introducing the Work Programme next year allows adequate time to put the new scheme in place and manage the transition. ERSA will continue to engage positively with Government to ensure that this transition is managed smoothly and to achieve the greatest possible value from a single scheme.
-We believe that working together we can ensure that the procurement exercise for the `Work Programme’ reflects the significant contribution and experience that our members have in delivering welfare to work schemes.
-We encourage the Government to create maximum flexibility, by allowing other Whitehall departments and local authorities to pool their budgets with DWP spending and deliver services through the single Work Programme.
-In honouring the 12 month notice period that ERSA negotiated as part of Flexible New Deal, we welcome the Government’s recognition that, should contracts be terminated, a full year’s notice is necessary to ensure a smooth transition and stability within the sector, in the best interests of jobseekers and long term value to the taxpayer.
Scientists from the University of Bath have reported a dramatic fall in the number of grey whale sightings in British Columbia and are investigating the reasons for the disappearance of one of their main sources of prey.
The researchers, supported by international environmental charity Earthwatch, are studying grey whales in their summer feeding grounds off the west coast of Vancouver Island and the central coast of British Columbia to design better ways to protect them and determine whether populations are being affected by climate change.
In 2004, the scientists spotted almost 100 whales on the southern central coast. This number fell dramatically to a low of just three in 2009.
The story is similar off the west coast of Vancouver Island, where the numbers of whales have shown an oscillating, but decreasing trend in the last six years.
So far this year there have been few sightings of whales. Earthwatch scientist Dr William Megill, a lecturer in the Ocean Technologies Laboratory at the University of Bath, says his colleagues in Mexico, where the whales breed, are continuing to see large numbers of thin and hungry whales.
Indications are that the whales’ requirements are exceeding the available prey resources in their feeding grounds off Alaska, British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.
Three years ago Dr Megill warned that grey whales arriving malnourished in their breeding grounds off the Mexican coast may have represented an early indication of environmental changes in the Pacific.
In 2009, Dr Megill and his team found that the tiny crustaceans they feed on, known as ‘mysids’, had disappeared from Clayoquot Sound, forcing the whales to feed offshore, sifting through sand and mud for other prey such as amphipods (small shrimp) and worms.
Although it is obvious the whales have consumed the mysids, why the mysids are not returning is a more serious question.
Dr Megill said: -Our survey of the northern west coast failed to identify any other summer grey whale hotspots, so it sounds like the ‘mysid crisis’ may be more serious than we first thought.
-Only a small number of greys stayed for the summer, and it was quickly evident why the usually highly abundant mysid crop failed this year, and so the whales were forced to look elsewhere, or to switch prey.
-We completed a survey of the whole of the northern west coast of Vancouver Island and the southern Central Coast, and didn’t find any pockets of whales, so we conclude that they must have continued up into northern British Columbia at least, or more likely into Alaskan waters.
-Our colleagues in Mexico are seeing increasing numbers of ‘skinny’ whales, and there were several strandings this spring in Washington and British Columbia. It’s fairly obvious that these animals are pushing their food resource to the limit, and some aren’t going to make it.
-They’re pretty resilient, but if food stocks don’t recover, or the whales can’t find sufficient other resources, then we’re going to start losing whales. I don’t think we’re in any danger of losing the grey whale, but it is nonetheless an issue of some significant concern.
The team is monitoring the situation and this year their research is focussing on looking for whales in unusual places. They are also diversifying their prey studies to include other species the whales may be eating, and continuing to study the mysids in the laboratory to analyse the conditions in which they thrive.
Dr Megill added: -The big message is that we still need to understand what’s driving the ecosystem. If it’s just the whales overharvesting, then fine, nature will handle it.
-But if it’s more complicated than that, and there’s some kind of anthropogenic driver involved, whether it’s climate change, ocean acidification, habitat degradation, or something else, then it’s our responsibility to work out what’s going on, and see about setting things straight.
-The likelihood is that the ‘setting things straight’ will go way beyond grey whales and mysids, and our story will be one more call for mankind to get a grip on his consumption in order to deal with the global consequences.
(Seen on Government & Public Sector Journal)
Rolling Meadows, Ill., US (9th June 2010), ISACA International Vice President Rolf von Roessing, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, has applauded the actions of Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner in publishing a draft code of practice that requires incidents involving the theft or loss of personal data relating to more than 100 people to be notified to its office.
“The Irish commissioner has reportedly published the draft code in response to the recent recommendations of the data protection review group established by Dermot Ahern, the Irish Minister for Justice,” said von Roessing.
“As well as proposing that organisations be mandated to report data losses and thefts involving more than 100 people, the draft code also proposes mandatory notifications of all types where sensitive personal or personal financial data is involved,” he added.
According to von Roessing, the proposed code of conduct formalises the situation regarding data losses or thefts in the Republic of Irelandand, as such, will act as a reference model for other European countries.
The proposal effectively draws a line on the responsibility of managers of organisations which are handling data involving people’s personal records, and that includes human resource records.
This means, says ISACA’s international vice president, that most larger businesses in Ireland will have to report data thefts of most types as they occur, should the code of conduct be ratified as an Act.
Identity theft, says von Roessing, has now become a serious cybercrime problem, with criminal gangs selling personal data between themselves like never before.
“When the UK’s ICO announced in January of this year that he was increasing the penalties for data beaches and losses to 500,000 pounds, we welcomed those changes, noting that it is a major worry for responsible citizens to find that their private data – or even worse, that of their family – has been released into the public domain,” he said.
Security issues such as identity theft, job application refusals and all manner of public embarrassment can result from the disclosure of private data, he went on to say, adding that what can be shrugged off by one person can result in major concerns for another.
“It has been more than 25 years since the original UK Data Protection Act came into force, and since then, computers and the Internet have changed our lives largely for the better,” von Roessing said.
“The same is true for Ireland and most other countries and this is why we welcome this proposal by the Irish Data Commissioner´s Office, as it formalises what has been best practice in many organisations to date,” he added.
Dr John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) predicts that the coalition government’s deficit reduction measures will stall any recovery in the UK jobs market later this year, result in a post-recession peak in unemployment close to 3 million, and slow any subsequent return to low unemployment.
Dr Philpott said:
-Although tough fiscal medicine is unavoidable and may boost the UK’s long-run economic growth and job prospects, reliance on cuts in public spending rather than tax increases as the primary means of cutting the deficit makes the short-term outlook especially bleak for those individuals and communities already suffering the greatest hardship in society.
The likely scale of public sector jobs losses and the impact on unemployment
-It is evident that the coalition government’s approach to deficit reduction owes much to that successfully pursued by Canada’s Liberal government in the 1990s. This resulted in the loss of 265,000 jobs from then 3 million strong Canadian public sector workforce and an eventual fall in the share of public sector employment in total employment from 26% to 19%. On an equivalent scale, this translates into around 500,000 UK public sector job cuts, in line with the CIPD’s own pre-general election baseline estimate for the period 2010-2015. However, the latter estimate was based on a roughly 60:40 split between cuts in public spending and tax hikes as means of deficit reduction. If as seems likely the coalition government adopts a split closer to 80:20, UK public sector jobs losses of around 725,000 are expected.
-Job losses on this scale do not inevitably lead to higher unemployment. The reason that the fall in the share of Canadian public sector employment in the 1990s is so large is because private sector employment increased to fill the gap, at the same time enabling unemployment to fall. Indeed, in a growing economy the UK managed a similar outcome in the 1990s, with net private sector job creation more than offsetting a net loss of 800,000 public sector jobs and reducing the share of public sector employment in total employment from 23% to 19%.
-Unfortunately, however, the favourable macroeconomic conditions that eased the pain of public sector downsizing in the 1990s do not exist as we enter the current age of austerity. This time around deficit reduction will slow an already anaemic recovery and in the short-run be bad for jobs in both the private and public sectors, stalling any hopes of a sustained improvement in job prospects this year and causing the labour market to relapse next year.
-Prior to the implementation of deficit reduction measures recently announced for the current fiscal year, it is possible that UK unemployment would have peaked at just over 2.65 million in 2010. This is less than the 2.8 million forecast by the CIPD six months ago – while our earlier forecast for a continued fall in employment proved correct, the rise in unemployment was moderated by a substantial rise in student numbers and the impact of measures to combat youth unemployment introduced by the last government.
-The revised CIPD forecast – which is subject to further review at the time of the Emergency Budget on June 22 – is that unemployment will rise to a peak of 2.95 million in the second half of 2012 and remain close to that level until 2015. There is little prospect of real wage growth on average throughout this period and ongoing real wage cuts in the public sector.
-Given what we know historically about the way in which the social burden of unemployment and stagnant average income growth is shared across individuals and communities, the prospects for those already suffering the most disadvantage seem particularly bleak. This will present a major challenge to a government that aims to reduce the deficit while also alleviating poverty, enhancing social mobility and mending a broken society.”
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the world’s greatest research libraries. The purpose of the British Library is to retain the nation’s knowledge and memory and as such, every item that is deposited in the British Library is accessible for readers on site. Currently, it holds over 150 million items in different formats including books, magazines, newspapers, maps, patents, stamp collections and recordings.
This institution is obliged by law to provide free onsite access to printed articles deposited in it and another of its key roles is to provide a Document Supply Service. This is a commercial service that provides access to users all over the world. With such a wealth of information housed within its walls and a worldwide customer base, the Library gets request for copies of documents, images, sound recordings and permission rights. The Library provides these items for account holders or customers who want to purchase a one-off item for research and consultation.
Moving away from traditional methods
The British Library receives over one and a half million requests a year for access to research articles and over 80% of those requests are for a surrogate copy of an item in the Library. In the past, librarians would photocopy the required item and mail it out to the customer. As such, the Document Supply Service was based on paper delivery. This posed two major problems; the time and cost incurred in shipping the copies to customers (often overseas) and the environmental problem of continual paper use.
Martyn Lunn, Business Development Manager at the British Library, who is the spine that holds the Document Supply Service together says; -Although this was our traditional method of document delivery, it was clear that it was not exactly cost or time effective. It was also having a negative environmental impact. Although we have a collection of items dating back to biblical times, we needed to step into the 21st century with a digital document system.”
DSS moves to scanning – Library to cut paper?
The British Library replaced all of their photocopying units with 110 Fujitsu fi-4640S image scanners. These scanners allow for image capture on a much broader scale and automatic adoption of the quality of the original document. The British Library has benefited from adopting a scanning policy as it has allowed them to digitise every copy of an original item and send it electronically to the customer. 70% of all output from the Library is now digital.
Lunn notes; -Fujitsu scanners have helped us move away from the time and cost consuming process of photocopying and sending physical documents, to sending digital renditions. Aside from the obvious environmental benefit, we have been able to shift from what was largely a paper based delivery system to a digital based system.”
The scanners were further modified to flatbed scanners by Relais International, a third party software provider, while maintaining the integrity of the scanners. This was additionally beneficial to the British Library as it allowed the librarians to scan books and other documents that cannot be scanned via automatic document feeder. Lunn adds; -This was a key part of the development process as it has allowed us to enjoy the full productivity that we can get from the Fujitsu scanners.”
Additional benefits – Digital library
The standard turnaround time for providing paper items to customers was five days but due to the new system facilitated by Fujitsu scanners, a quicker time of 24 hours has been enabled. The Library is now able to reach a much larger range of customers including over 10,000 international corporate organisations because of its quick turnaround.
The future is in scanning
The British Library is so impressed with Fujitsu scanners that it has installed an additional eight Fujitsu fi-6770 colour scanners and the library has now taken delivery of 40 additional fi-6750S scanners to enable colour scanning as an option for the future. Andy Appleyard, Head of Document Delivery & Customer Services at the British Library says; -The Fujitsu scanners have a great output rate. The fact that they work in the way that we need them to work is absolutely critical. We don’t know of any other machine that can produce the same output. The scanners are also very reliable – we initially had a maintenance contract with Fujitsu but we eventually cancelled it and only called them out on an ad hoc basis because the machines were never faulty and simply did not break.”
Andrew Cowling, Senior Marketing Services Executive at Fujitsu Europe notes; -I am incredibly pleased that Fujitsu scanners are helping a national institution such as the British Library be more productive and increase efficiency in their critical business processes.”
A leading campaigner, who has championed older people’s housing and support needs, is retiring after 35 years working in social policy and older people’s housing.
As a founder member of the national consortium of sheltered and retirement housing (ERoSH), Imogen Parry is retiring from her position as Director of Policy for ERoSH, as well as her wider work as a consultant.
Imogen’s career has included working as a senior lecturer in social policy, senior policy manager (older people) at Sanctuary Housing Association, and a freelance sheltered housing consultant and trainer.
Imogen, aged 60, joined other like-minded campaigners in 1998 to create ERoSH following the successful Emerging Role of the Warden project, which focused on the role of sheltered housing within effective community care.
Since ERoSH’s inception Imogen has used her passion for raising awareness of the potential benefits of sheltered housing amongst health and social care professionals to be an influential figure in the sheltered housing policy arena.
Chair of ERoSH, Jo McTavish, said: -Imogen’s contribution to ERoSH, as a founder member, trustee and Director of Policy has been immeasurable. Imogen has made an immense contribution to ERoSH and sheltered housing in general during her career.
-All the trustees at ERoSH would like to thank Imogen for her dedication and time over the years. Imogen and ERoSH have been intrinsically linked together and her role as Director of Policy has been influential in building the profile and success of the organisation.
Imogen, who was previously Chair of ERoSH, has been involved in the Ministerial Working Group for Sheltered Housing, and has spoken at dozens of conferences, written articles and co-authored two editions of the CIH ‘Sheltered and Retirement Housing – a good practice guide’ and written five other good practice guides relating to sheltered housing.
Imogen explained: -I am very sad to be leaving ERoSH which has given me an ideal outlet for my views about the undervalued and neglected role of sheltered housing buildings and staff, and the need for better partnership working with other agencies. But the timing of reaching 60 at the same time as having three new grandchildren has led me to make this decision to leave the sector. I will continue however to offer safeguarding adults training to housing staff, on a part-time basis.
Bruce Moore Chief Executive of Hanover Housing, which is a member of ERoSH, said: -Imogen will leave a huge gap. She has been such a passionate champion of the case for sheltered and retirement housing and in many respects has defined ERoSH.
Since Imogen helped form ERoSH some of her key achievements with the organisation have included:
Working extensively with ministers and civil servants on the sheltered housing agenda. Her political influence was evidenced by Imogen’s articles being quoted by MPs in the Adjournment Debate and Parliamentary Question.
Contributing to the pressure on government to set up a review of sheltered housing, which resulted in the Ministerial Working Group on Sheltered Housing being formed. Imogen represented ERoSH on the Ministerial Working Group during 2009.
Contributing to the public debate on sheltered and retirement housing in the media, which has raised the profile of ERoSH. Imogen has drafted position statements for ERoSH to clarify its views on resident staff, allocations, and needs led services etc, as well as representing ERoSH on BBC Breakfast and Panorama.
Consistently emphasised, through a range of platforms, the importance of joint working between sheltered housing and other agencies. Imogen has promoted best practice in the management of sheltered housing through joined up working with social and health care providers. She has worked to raise awareness of sheltered housing amongst health professionals through her work around malnutrition amongst older people.
Contributed to the training and development of sheltered housing staff, including in adult protection. Imogen has promoted awareness of sheltered housing staff amongst adult protection staff and other social care staff through work on safeguarding the role of sheltered housing staff.
A 34 year old man has been extradited to Canada after officers from Kent Police’s Public Protection Unit arrested him in Ashford earlier this year.
John Cox, 34, an IT specialist who attempted to use anti-tracking methods to thwart attempts by detectives, was back in the custody of Saanich (Canadian) Police today (Tuesday 8 June) after being on the run for three months.
Cox, a Canadian national, had fled Saanich, Canada where he was due to stand trial for nine child sex offences including grooming and possession of indecent images of children, two firearms offences and breach of recognizance.
Using different aliases of Sean Pulsen and Jean Guillaume and using IT software and encryption to disguise his online identity, Cox attempted to frustrate law enforcement attempts to track him down.
Kent Police’s Detective Inspector Matthew Long said: ‘Public protection is Kent Police’s priority. Officers worked swiftly in order to ensure this man did not pose any risk within our community. I am pleased he has now been extradited back to Canada where he will face the charges put to him.
‘We will not tolerate anyone who puts children at risk within our county and will work with other agencies in this country and abroad, to ensure crimes against children are stopped.’
Officers from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre tracked Cox’s movements to Kent and officers from Kent Police’s Public Protection Crime Unit (PPCU), based at police headquarters and South Kent specialist Public Protection Officers, carried out local enquiries in order to secure an international arrest warrant. Kent officers acted quickly and arrested Cox on 5 May. He was held in custody and transferred to the Metropolitan Police Extradition Unit who have secured Cox’s return back to Canada.
Detective Inspector Jon Holl from South Kent Public Protection Unit praised the effectiveness of working relationships between agencies and the quality of his staff saying: ‘This is a practical example of the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies from local to international level working together to protect children in Ashford and across the UK. I am immensely proud of my highly motivated and specialist team of investigators, often working invisibly to the general public to protect our children.’
Jim Gamble, Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation Online Protection (CEOP) Centre: ‘This potentially dangerous individual tried very hard to cover his tracks but he had underestimated the determination of CEOP and Kent Police officers to capture him. Hopefully Cox – and other suspected child sex offenders – will realise that the UK is not a safe place for them.’
A man has died and and eight year old boy has been injured after a collision involving a coach at this years Saddleworth Band Contest. The accident happened at around 10pm, a coach collided with the 57-year-old man and the boy.
The man died from his injuries in hospital in the early hours of Saturday 29 May 2010.
The boy was taken to hospital for treatment to bruising to his head and body. Police are investigating the incident.
Twenty-three arrests were made as part of a significant policing operation at Saddleworth Band Contest on Friday 28 May 2010. A total of 70 police officers and 32 police community support officers were in place for the operation, which had been in planning for a number of weeks to ensure the event was safe and enjoyable for everyone who attended.
The arrests covered a range of offences from drunk and disorderly, possession of drugs, affray and serious assault.
The majority of the arrests were in the Uppermill area of Saddleworth.
Chief Superintendent Tim Forber, Divisional Commander for Oldham said: “The Saddleworth Band Contest is a wonderful community event attended by thousands of visitors.
“I was extremely privileged to be able to visit most of the contests on Friday and experience the atmosphere myself. However, a small minority of people appeared to have come to the event intent of taking part in anti-social behaviour and causing trouble, which was fuelled by alcohol.
“The many officers on duty worked hard throughout the evening to ensure those who became involved in disorder were dealt with swiftly so the event remained an enjoyable one for the community.”
NEW YORK, 25th May 2010 – Varonis Systems Inc., the leading provider of comprehensive data governance software, today announced Version 5.5 of DatAdvantage® and DataPrivilege®, a further evolution of the Varonis Meta-data Framework, which enables customers to identify sensitive unstructured and semi-structured data on their file systems, SharePoint Sites and NAS devices.
Varonis’ software helps customers find areas with excessive permissions and abnormal access activity, understand who can access, who is accessing, who shouldn’t have access, and who owns the data, and remediate risk faster than traditional data protection products.
With unstructured and semi-structured data such as documents, images, spreadsheets, presentations, videos, audio files and email accounting for more than 80 percent of all data, organizations already have enormous investments in time, resources and processes across IT operations, IT security, IT storage departments and data owners to manually manage and protect unstructured data. These efforts repeatedly fall short because of the rate the data grows – 50 percent annually, the increasing access control complexity, and ever-changing access control needs.
-Today, a single terabyte of data will often contain 50,000 folders, of which 2500, or 5%, are uniquely permissioned, said Ohad Korkus, Executive Vice President of Engineering, CTO and Co-Founder. -Each of these 2500 folders represents an organizational decision -who should have access to this data? More containers mean more decisions, and more maintenance for IT and data owners. The only realistic path to manage and protect this data is to implement methodologies for securing and protecting data that utilize automation and actionable intelligence in a scalable and repeatable fashion, without requiring additional IT personnel or disturbing business processes.
As digital collaboration continues to accelerate in every healthy organization, unstructured data proliferates over multiple platforms, including Windows, SharePoint and UNIX/LINUX servers. Organizations require an intuitive, unified view of these data repositories to efficiently and effectively manage and protect them. Varonis has extended its framework to not only provide visibility to the data permissions and usage on these platforms, automate intelligence about excessive permissions, and allow testing/simulation of changes to these permissions, but to now also include full execution for those permissions changes to reduce risk without disrupting critical collaboration.
Collaborative teams and the data they create are extremely dynamic; the information that organizations consider sensitive is dynamic, as well. To help manage this volatility, Varonis has made rapid enhancements to its Data Classification Framework, including support for dynamically updated -dictionaries, allowing Varonis to examine the contents of files for any items contained in them, and highlighting matches in DatAdvantage for easy examination. These dictionaries can be updated automatically to keep up with organizational changes in projects, employees, clients, etc.
Varonis has also enhanced the capabilities and interface of DataPrivilege to streamline entitlement review and approval activities for data owners, and expand the scope of what can be managed and protected.
Specific features within Version 5.5 include:
Enhanced Commit Functionality, enabling DatAdvantage to commit permissions changes to SharePoint and UNIX/Linux monitored servers. LDAP, NIS, Local UNIX and SharePoint group memberships can be modified. Users and groups can be added or removed from SharePoint ACL’s, assigned permission levels, and permission levels can be edited. For the first time, a graphical user interface (GUI) is available to manage traditional UNIX ACL’s AND POSIX ACL’s on multiple UNIX/Linux platforms.
SAMBA Support for UNIX DatAdvantage supports monitoring UNIX SAMBA servers, allowing organizations running SAMBA file shares to benefit from Varonis functionality.
Per-Server and Per-Domain Access Controls, allowing IT to restrict a DatAdvantage user’s view on the server and domain level to reflect their management purview. Administrators will only be able to examine access controls and activity on servers for which they are assigned custodianship.
Dictionary Support for DatAdvantage Data Classification Framework (DCF), supporting dictionary-based matching and automatic updates to multiple dictionaries.
Simplified Entitlement Review Forms in DataPrivilege – Helps business users more easily learn to perform their own entitlement reviews by showing only critical data information, such as users with access, their level of access, and recommended response.
Support for all Permissions Masks – DataPrivilege now offers full automated management for any NTFS permissions mask in addition to the commonly used defaults of -modify, read, and full NTFS permissions masks.
DatAdvantage and DataPrivilege Versions 5.5 will be generally available on June 7, 2010. All customers currently under support will receive the new 5.5 features for free as part of their Varonis support package.
Additional Resources
www.varonis.com/products
Version 5.5 Datasheet
Mastering the Information Explosion by Ohad Korkus, Executive Vice President of Engineering, CTO and Co-Founder
About Varonis Systems
Varonis is the leader in unstructured and semi-structured data governance. Named a 2009 “Cool Vendor” in Risk Management and Compliance by Gartner, Voted one of the “Fast 50 Reader Favorites of 2008” on FastCompany.com. Varonis has more than 2000 installations worldwide. Based on patented technology and a highly accurate analytics engine, Varonis’ solutions give organizations total visibility and control over their data, ensuring that only the right users have access to the right data at all times. Varonis is headquartered in New York, N.Y., regional offices in Europe and Asia, with research and development offices in Hertzliya, Israel
Varonis, the Varonis logo, DatAdvantage and DataPrivilege are registered trademarks of Varonis Systems in the United States and/or other countries and Data Classification Framework is under a registration process in the United States and/or other countries. All other product and company names and marks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.
Responding to the Queen’s Speech announced today (Tuesday), TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: -The Speech contains important issues to welcome, restoring the state pension link with earnings, cracking down on high-risk activities in the City, and an extra push on green energy.
-Extending flexible working rights to all employees and further action to close the pay gap could also bring positive changes to UK workplaces.
-But plans to scrap important initiatives to get young people into work, abolish key public bodies and throw public sector workers on the dole will only worsen the fragile economic situation.
-The Government’s overwhelming focus on reducing the deficit, when ministers should be concentrating on restoring growth and halting rising unemployment, is a huge mistake.
The Guardian Public Services Awards, in partnership with Hays Specialist Recruitment, launch today. Now in their seventh year, the Awards are the leading celebration of excellence among organisations commissioning or providing services, showcasing innovation and best practice across Whitehall, local government, the NHS and beyond.
David Brindle, the Guardian’s Public Services Editor, said: “With a new government in place and spending cutbacks at the top of its agenda, never before has it been so important to celebrate and honour the extraordinary contribution that those who deliver our public services make day in, day out. Last year’s winning projects included an astonishingly popular free leisure services programme in Birmingham, an innovative housing scheme in Derby for women victims of domestic violence who also have mental health or addiction problems, and a hugely successful travel training initiative for young people in Gloucestershire with physical and learning disabilities.
“The public can get involved with the awards by encouraging friends and family working in the public services to enter the team categories. They can also nominate – and later vote – for a special award, Public Servant of the Year, on our website, www.guardian.co.uk/publicservicesawards.”
The awards fall into three main categories. Service Delivery comprises: Children & young people, Complex needs, Carers, families & communities, Care of older people, Housing & regeneration, and Transport & mobility. Innovation and Progress includes: Sustainability, Transformation, Customer service, Partnership working, Diversity & equality, and the new Skills development award. The Special Awards are: the Citizenship & volunteering award, the Guardian Public Servant of the Year award and the overall winner.
Last year’s overall winner was Birmingham City Council, in partnership with Heart of Birmingham PCT, who also won Diversity and Equality prize for their Gym For Free initiative, which enabled all residents in the Ladywood Constituency to use council sporting facilities for free.
Karen Jerwood, project manager of the scheme, said: “It was very exciting for us to win the Diversity & Equality Guardian Public Services Awards, and an honour to be the Overall Winner. The national recognition that the award gave us really helped at a time when we were planning to expand the scheme across the whole city.
-The whole experience, from nomination to ultimately receiving the award, has helped us to further refine our work. I would fully encourage all people managing worthwhile projects in the public services to consider putting forward a nomination.”
The bobby on the bike is making a comeback as police forces ditch their panda cars and get peddling. Constabularies nationwide are fighting crime and costs with cycles.
The police aren’t alone, increasingly emergency services are answering the call of the cycle. And they are buying them at Halfords.
Halfords the UK’s leading retailer of leisure and family bikes has seen a significant increase in the sale of cycles especially designed for the emergency services.
-Fighting crime means being mobile, and perhaps surprisingly it’s bikes not cars that are proving an increasingly effective weapon, says Clair Allen, who heads up the Halfords 999 bikes initiative. -In many instances bikes are the most cost-effective, efficient and environmentally friendly way of getting officers to the scene.
Most UK police forces now include cycle squads and, in addition to standard patrol work, officers are successfully targeting shoplifting, street crime and even drug trafficking.
North Yorkshire Police introduced a mountain bike team in 2001 and specially trained officers have used Halfords cycles to great effect.
PC Ed Rogerson of the Harrogate Safer Neighbourhood Team said: -The bikes certainly cut response times and I’m regularly first on the scene at incidents because I can use alleyways and back streets to respond quickly. You have the added bonus of stealth.
The Association of Chief Police Officers added: -ACPOS fully supports the use of police mountain bicycles which provide an additional patrolling option to supplement patrols on foot and using police vehicles. As well as the environmental benefits, officers can negotiate town and city centres quickly allowing a faster response to incidents than on foot.
Crime isn’t the only emergency being tackled from a saddle. Firemen in several London boroughs, West Midlands, Devon and Somerset and Greater Manchester are now cycling.
West Midlands Fire Service turned to Halfords when they formed a Community Cycle Team to tackle persistent arson attacks in hot-spots across the region. Within just three months the number of incidents in the trial areas dropped by more than 85 per cent, saving £195K.
The scheme was hailed as a ‘financially resounding success’, which also achieved a ‘massive reduction in carbon emissions’ and helped ‘win the confidence of young people within the target areas.’
Paramedics are also switching to cycles, the London Ambulance Service employs paramedics on cycles at all of Heathrow’s five terminals, dealing with an average of 400 emergency calls a month. Paramedics on bikes are to be used on site for London’s 2012 Olympics.
A new library at King Cross, Halifax, is rapidly heading towards completion by William Birch & Sons and its design has been shaped by the local community who will be using it.
Built with funding from the BIG Lottery Community Libraries Fund and Calderdale Council, the library, which replaces the old one at King Cross is being built on sustainable principles, and has been designed to maximise natural light, with extensive glass windows to two sides.
The new facility is intended to attract those who do not currently use libraries, as well as meeting the needs of existing users. Before it was designed, residents were asked what they wanted to see in the new library, and feedback included shelving that can be rolled away to offer space for other activities; a children’s area; exhibition and meeting spaces; advice sessions and reading groups; quiet areas; wi-fi access; and a cafe with newspapers.
Operations and customer services manager at Calderdale Council Carole Heaton said: -This library will be unique in that local residents have been consulted at every stage of its development. As a result, it directly reflects their wishes and needs. Library staff are very excited about the opening in summer 2010.
A key feature will be a garden area for reading, listening and reflection. A time capsule prepared by local primary schoolchildren has already been buried in the foundations of the new building.
Paul Goyea is construction director at William Birch & Sons. He commented that the company had in the past and also on current projects enjoyed the benefits, along with clients and their consultants, of knowing that the local community has had such a positive input into the building outcome: -In particular it engenders a sense of ownership and responsibility in local people to ensure the delivery of the building is a success and meets most of, if not all, the community’s needs, he said.
Sustainable Building
William Birch is committed to sustainable building methods, and is a member of the Considerate Constructors Scheme. The company won a Sustainability Award in 2006 and has just achieved a BREAAM rating of ‘excellent’ for its construction work at Harlow Carr’s new Learning Centre in Harrogate; the latter has recently been recognised by an industry national award.
Founded in 1874 and still family-owned, William Birch & Sons employs around 100 people with a turnover in the region of £23 million. The company is based in York, with additional offices in Leeds.
Britain’s largest land manager, the Forestry Commission, has awarded Fujitsu a new five-year contract to maintain all of its ICT hardware across the Commission in England, Scotland and Wales. Fujitsu originally won the six-year contract to run the Forestry Commission’s IT in 2003. The new contract was won in a competitive tender through the Catalist framework.
Fujitsu will be responsible for maintaining the Commission’s whole ICT investment including storage, servers, and its data centre in Edinburgh. Coupled with this, Fujitsu will be maintaining IT equipment for 2,700 users across 100 distributed offices and depots, including handheld devices, rugged laptops, desktops, printers and plotters.
This new contract broadens the scope of the original contract and requires Fujitsu both to meet improved services targets and to reduce the overall annual maintenance budget. As well as maintaining the hardware for the Commission, Fujitsu will be undertaking installation, testing, refresh, upgrade and disposal work on a call-off basis along with a number of technical consultancy services. The contract is worth £1m.
David Felstead, Forestry Commission CIO, said: “We are delighted to re-appoint Fujitsu as our hardware maintenance partners. This five year contract allows us to continue to provide an excellent service to our internal customers whist tackling costs as part of our need to reduce expenditure across the business. We are convinced this continuing partnership will allow us to achieve all of our improved service and commercial objectives.”
Commenting on the contract, Alastair Millar, service delivery manager at Fujitsu UK and Ireland said: “The Forestry Commission IT estate is a complex one, not only because of the nature of the conditions the Commission often works in, but also because of the breadth of work it is responsible for, whether that be research, commercial timber production, sustainability programmes and forestry policy as well as learning and recreation.
This breadth makes it a fascinating organisation to work with as every IT users’ needs are different and varied. We look forward to continuing the good work we have undertaken with the Forestry Commission since 2003 and helping support them in the outstanding work they are doing in sustaining the forestry resource for the future.”
The hardware estate comprises over 2,000 desktop devices and a further 1,000 PDA’s printers and other equipment.
Key facts about Forestry Commission:
– Cares for 827,000 hectares of sustainably managed woods and forests – that’s more than 1.4 billion trees
– Plants more than 17 million trees every year
– Employs more 3,000 people – most of them in rural areas
– Produces more than 5 million tonnes of timber every year. That is almost 44% of UK wood production or 300 forty-tonne truckloads of timber every day
– Welcomes more than 50 million visitors every year
– Provides 2,600 km of cycle trails
– Has 55 visitor centres, almost 500 car parks, and 155 easy access trails
– Provides 109 forest classrooms or educational facilities
– Maintains 24,000 km of forest roads – seven times the total amount of motorway in Britain. If it were possible to put them together, they would stretch more than halfway around the world
– Welcomes more than 100,000 per year to our concerts in the forest
– Maintains more than 2,300 bridges
– Helped expand Britain’s woodlands by an area more than three times the size of greater London in the last 20 years
DVD 2010, Defence Equipment & Support’s (DE&S) stakeholder event for the land and supply chain communities in the defence sector, will take place on June 23 and 24, at Millbrook, Bedfordshire.
A pivotal date in the defence diary, the event is centred on DE&S project teams who deliver vital equipment to the frontline and attracts members of the defence acquisition and military personnel communities as well as industry organisations for two days of informal discussion and briefings.
During the event, visitors can see firsthand new products and equipment displays from DE&S’s attending teams, which have increased to twenty in 2010. DVD’s main theme this year is Soldier Systems, focusing on personal kit and the future role of the infantry. In fact, this year’s event welcomes teams from the Individual Capability Group and Manoeuvre Support Team for the first time, to present and discuss equipment designed to improve the safety and capabilities of the dismounted soldier on operation.
DVD will also see demonstrations of vehicles, accommodation solutions and food, in addition to clothing, medical supplies and test equipment. Furthermore, Millbrook’s extensive 700 acre facility offers an ideal setting for participants to understand and experience the capabilities of equipment in an interactive environment.
Chief of Defence Materiel, General Sir Kevin O’Donoghue, said: -Defence’s main effort is the operation in Afghanistan and no parts of DE&S contribute more obviously to that campaign than the Land Equipment and Joint Support Chain represented at DVD.
-DVD is an essential part of our support to current operations as it brings the MoD customer and industry supplier together in a way that is just not possible in an office environment. The exchange of ideas which this event generates will enable us to continue providing the best possible equipment and support to our armed forces. DVD is a unique and important part of the defence calendar and I anticipate another valuable event this year.”
The event provides an informal opportunity for key stakeholders to meet each other, as well as discuss and attend forums about the latest technologies, support services and current priorities. Participating organisations at DVD also utilise the opportunity of direct communication with the armed forces community in order to gain feedback in the quest on new product development.
To find further information about DVD 2010, visit the official website at www.theevent.co.uk
The promotion of best practice, training and sustainability are key objectives for Stephen Hodgson in his new role as head of the UK’s building preservation industry, the Property Care Association (PCA).
Noted for its technical expertise, the PCA represents the UK’s damp control, timber preservation, structural waterproofing, structural repair and flood recovery sectors.
Based at Huntingdon, the PCA is also a major educational provider, delivering training that is varied in content for property professionals.
Formed from the British Wood Preserving and Damp-proofing Association (BWPDA), which was founded in 1929, the trade body became known as the Property Care Association in 2006, to reflect its expansion into markets – including structural waterproofing, structural repair and flood recovery.
A qualified surveyor, Stephen – who lives in Leeds – has had a career spanning 10 years in the BWPDA and the PCA, including roles as technical officer and deputy director, before being promoted to this new role.
Stephen said: -Good advice and quality work, delivered by people that can be trusted and who understand and care about buildings and clients, has been at the heart of the Association’s success for many years.
-A key part of my role will be to promote the PCA as a centre of excellence to anyone with a shared passion for the protection and improvement of our built environment.
-We are also proud of our extensive training programme – and we will work to consolidate our reputation for providing high quality, unbiased, accurate information and instruction.
-Sustainability is also a key driver for us. We want to highlight to consumers and specifiers the role we and our members play in protecting and preserving the nation’s built heritage.
-Sustainability is at the core of everything we do, so we must recognise and promote this to a wider audience. Professional, considered and targeted preservation techniques – such as timber repairs, the elimination of damp problems and structural stabilisation – often play a key role in the refurbishment and maintenance of our existing housing stock.
-This type of work preserves and protects what we already have, with a minimal impact on the environment and resources.”
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