4047posts
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WRES: a uniquely personal perspective
The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) is among 18 local authorities (LA’s) signed up to the social care workplace race equality standard (WRES) initiative. The WRES has identified flawed and excluding systems where change is required. Read this personal view on what this endeavour could mean for respecting, celebrating and empowering our racially diverse care sector.
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Bigger, better, more joined-up conservation on farms
If you want to encourage more of the right wild plants and insects on a group of farms, what parts of your farm should you target to get the best results? This is the question conservation scientist Dr Robert Hawkes explored with colleagues from the University of East Anglia, the Breckland Farmers Wildlife Network and Defra.
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How We Value: Independent Gas Transporters and Independent Network Operators
Jamie Gilbert is part of a small, dedicated team within the VOA’s National Valuation Unit, which is responsible for the valuation of the somewhat specialist class of properties including power generation and utilities. He specialises in smaller scale “independent” networks …
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The Global Food Safety Incidents and Emergency Response Conference 2021
Reflections on the Global Food Safety Incidents and Emergency Response (GFSIER) Conference 2021 and its significance for international collaboration, by Head of Incidents and Resilience, Philip Randles.
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The MMO and climate change
Climate change is bad news for everyone, from the prospect of fewer and smaller fish in the sea to the communities that will be affected by coastal erosion and flooding. I don’t think there has ever been such awareness of …
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How education plays a key role at COP26 and in the fight against climate change
Next month the COP26 climate change conference will be hosted in Glasgow, with leaders from across the globe, joining to discuss ways to combat the effects of climate change. The UK government will be taking a leading role in this …
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Digital applications – making the future a reality
Deputy Director for Digital Services Eddie Davies explains digital applications will make registering land and property quicker and easier by making error checking and processing times faster.
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Celebrating 5 years of Unity at DVLA
This year is the fifth anniversary of Unity, one of DVLA’s Staff Network Groups. Co-chairs Rebecca and Robia share some of their highlights from the past 5 years.
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Leadership: Extraordinary is the new ordinary
Spike in gas prices, fuel queues plus a global climate crisis is all in a day’s work for BEIS. It’s why Sarah Munby puts agility and teamwork at the heart of modern leadership. I’m a year and a bit into …
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Environment Bill strengthened to protect nature and tackle waste
Today we are looking at media coverage of our new amendments to help improve and strengthen the Environment Bill.
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Achieving Net Zero: Keeping people and nature in mind
This month we’ll see world leaders come together in Glasgow for COP26 and I hope they are able to agree bold carbon targets to limit future climate change. The evidence is clear: the climate is already changing, and it is …
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Innovating public services at scale
Rachel Hope and Andrew Knight from the UK's Department for Education write about how public services for teachers have been transformed and how governments can scale innovative ways of working.
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We’ve created a new guide for content design recruitment
GDS is a great place to be a content designer. We’ve written a recruitment guide to help you make your application.
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Our graduate programme: Ashley’s experience
Our Tax Specialist Programme (TSP) is an intensive, three-year scheme for high-potential graduates looking to tackle the most challenging aspects of tax work in HMRC. The programme enables all graduates, even those with non-tax related backgrounds to develop a good …
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Duty Deferment Accounts (DDA) for delayed declarations imported into Great Britain (GB) by Intermediaries/Agents
An update blog for Agents/Intermediaries on how to attain a Duty Deferment Account (DDA). Duty Deferment is the main payment method for customs and excise duty. It can also be used to pay import VAT. Having a duty deferment account lets you defer payments for customs duty, excise duty and import VAT and make monthly payments to HMRC through Direct Debit, instead of paying for individual consignments immediately at import, or when released from a duty suspensive procedure such as customs warehousing or excise warehousing.
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5 reasons to love our colleges
This week is Love Our Colleges week, the annual celebration of all of the great things going on in colleges across the country. This year’s theme is Get In, Go Further – showcasing the innovation and incredible opportunities being …
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Social care reform is a shared endeavour
Involving people with lived experience will be an essential element of social care reform, as will the wise counsel of the many organisations supporting them. Jackie O'Sullivan, Mencap’s Executive Director of Communications, Advocacy and Activism, reflects on a positive meeting with Department of Health and Social Care colleagues, as sector engagement gets fully underway.
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Celebrating construction and facilities management award successes
This month, DIO and our industry partners are celebrating several successes in prestigious award schemes across the British construction and facilities management sectors. At the 2021 Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM) Impact Awards, our partners Mitie and Sodexo were recognised for their delivery …
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How I became a Delivery Manager with MoJ Digital
As a civil servant of nearly 20 years, I thought all of Government was the same. However, just over 4 years ago I discovered a place where things are done a little differently. I work for the Ministry of Justice …
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Crowdsourcing brings gender neutrality to a legacy manual.
A team of more than 40 ‘crowdsourced’ patent examiners took on the task of upgrading all 1,028 pages of the IPO’s 35-year-old Manual of Patent Practice, aiming to refresh its dated language and make it inclusive. Senior Patent Examiner Phil Lawrence tells us more.
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Schools Sustainability Day, 2nd November 2021
Arati Patel-Mistry, Stakeholder and Engagement Manager in the Schools Commercial Team, talks about what schools can look forward to at the upcoming Schools Sustainability Day.
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Incident on the River Mimram
On Monday 18 October, the Environment Agency investigated an incident on the River Mimram when it was reported that a stretch of water had turned purple following heavy rain. They found some small patches of purple colour noticeable in places, …
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How to break through in the Civil Service: our top tips
Colleagues from the Department for International Trade’s Digital, Data and Technology team share their tips for career progression and promotion Are you stuck in a career cul-de-sac? If so, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Our Diversity and Inclusion group recently …
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Secondary school pupils should take at home Covid tests twice a week – here’s why.
Regular testing is quick, easy, and free, and is key to catching the virus early and stopping it from spreading in our schools and communities. That’s why secondary school students and staff without Covid symptoms should be taking lateral flow tests …
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Supporting vulnerable users during COVID-19 and beyond
Coming to court can be a daunting experience for anyone, but it can be an even bigger challenge for the most vulnerable in our society, especially during the exceptional circumstances we’ve experienced through COVID-19. Our Vulnerability Action Plan details the measures we’ve taken during COVID-19 and what we’ll be doing in the future.
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Developing a data strategy and delivering it
DWP Digital has launched a new Chief Data Office, to move towards using data more strategically and improve the customer experience for millions of people who access DWP services each year.
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Single sign-on: What we learned during our identity alpha
Find out what the team building government’s new single sign-on solution learnt about prototyping, inclusion, apps and more during its digital identity alpha.
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An ambitious new strategy for chalk streams
Environment Minister Rebecca Pow, Environment Agency Chair Emma Howard Boyd and Natural England Chair Tony Juniper visited the River Mimran in Hertfordshire on Friday 15 October for the launch of the Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy. They met with members of …
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Your questions about the Future Farming Resilience Fund
Last week I wrote a blog post encouraging farmers and land managers to take advantage of the free business support and advice on offer through the Future Farming Resilience Fund. Some people have been in touch to ask various questions about the fund. I wanted everyone to see the responses, so I thought I’d address them in this blog post.
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How we’re improving payment account validation
Validating payment accounts is just one simple thing we can do to increase confidence that a payment will be successful. Like all good product journeys, Angela's team set out to find out what the problems were with the existing solutions, and if there were opportunities to make things more effective.
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The Geospatial Scholarship Fund – A call to action for the geospatial industry
As we focus on education this year for Black History Month 2021- Proud To Be, we are delighted to place a spotlight on geosciences and the importance of diversity in a subject that informs decisions that affect all our lives. …
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Lessons from MoJ’s first ever Innovation Challenge
In May, we invited tech companies and start-ups to bring innovative thinking and technological solutions to key reoffending challenges. In this post, Daniel Daly reflects on some key takeaways from running a Government Innovation Challenge.
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Future proof policy: A guide to using foresight in policy making
This blog introduces a short practitioners’ guide to how foresight approaches can improve outcomes in policy making. It is the output of Peter McGowran's 3-month UKRI Policy Internship with the Government Office for Science Futures team, in connection with his …
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World Menopause Day 2021
Angela MacDonald explains that for many women who struggle with health issues approaching, during and after the menopause, it’s good to talk. Yesterday, Monday 18 October 2021, was World Menopause Day (WMD), a day to raise awareness and keep the …
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FACTSHEET: Prevent and Channel - 2021
Due to recent media interest in Prevent, the following information has been published to provide factual background on the programme.
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Job Vacancy: Head of Animal Welfare and Delivery Assurance
Find out more about a new and exciting role in the FSA as a Head of Animal Welfare and Delivery Assurance.
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Why is an environmental data dashboard like a wheeled suitcase?
Anyone working in environmental science knows that understanding how the environment is faring, and how this has changed over time, is hugely complicated. Everything is interconnected; a change in one part of an ecosystem can have knock-on impacts elsewhere. Defining …
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How our training offer is supporting local government with day-to-day working
It’s been seven months since we launched an online library of training courses to support our local government colleagues to develop their digital skills while working remotely. In that time, we’ve had 218 applications from people working in more than …
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Addiction Awareness Mental Health and Well-being
Join us to hear an insight on how to spot signs and symptoms of addiction and where to get help and support
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Maintaining quality of food imports on this World Food Day
Tony Hunt, imports delivery lead in the Digital Data and Technology Services Major Projects team, has been looking at how food comes into the UK this World Food Day.