6177posts
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Restoration Grants awarded to restore thousands of hectares of peatland
Climate FundThe Nature For Climate Peatland Grant Scheme (NCPGS), administered by Natural England, has awarded Restoration Grant funding to five successful applicants. Over the next four years they will each receive a share of £16 million from the Nature for …
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Coloboma and me – managing a rare genetic condition in the workplace
This Jeans for Genes week, Registration Officer Heather Stringer shares her story on living and working with coloboma, a rare genetic condition.
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Managing dengue fever with space technology
D-MOSS uses satellite data to predict dengue outbreaks up to six months in advance.
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Considering wider impacts when scrutinising Impact Assessments
RPC member Professor Brian Morgan discusses the range of impacts that should be considered in regulatory impact assessment.
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Creating a digital approach to paper forms
In the age of digital first, the use of paper forms is a problem. These forms are often designed to be printed out and filled in by hand, not completed on a screen. When we make them available on GOV.UK …
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Flu jabs save lives too
When PHE's Dr. Éamonn O'Moore was seeing patients, he knew how crucial it was for all who work directly with vulnerable people to make sure they had a flu jab every year. He felt it was his professional responsibility to protect himself, his colleagues, and those in his care. A new winter vaccination campaign has launched to encourage all health and care staff to get their flu and covid-booster jabs sorted.
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Join our Wellbeing Event.
This virtual event will provide a mix of sessions focusing on mental health and wellbeing.
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The oak lace bug: A potential threat to oak trees
The oak lace bug is a tree pest that feeds on oak leaves. It’s not known to be in the UK, but it’s vital that we keep an eye out for it to protect our oak trees. Our Biosecurity Officer, Freddy Toft, explains more.
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"With your help, we are going to transform the lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged": an open letter to education and care professionals from new Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi
Nadhim Zahawi, the new Secretary of State for Education, has written to all those working in education and care to introduce himself and thank them for all their work To all those working in education and care, I am writing …
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Countryside Stewardship – An update
Countryside Stewardship (CS) provides financial incentives for farmers, woodland owners, foresters and land managers to look after and improve the environment. It’s one of the schemes that we administer in the RPA. There’s been quite a bit of activity recently …
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Leading the design community
"For a designer, this is a great place to work because you get to solve problems and stretch your skills”. Find out more about DDaT’s design community
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What Londoners can expect this winter
After the recent warmer weather and summer of more freedoms, it could be easy to think the pandemic is behind us. London currently has the lowest COVID-19 case rate of any region in England but people are coming back together …
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Online recruitment, working remotely and yet to meet our team-mates
Two of our data analysts, Josh George and Junayed Islam, who joined Defra at the height of the pandemic, reflect on their experiences of online recruitment, working remotely, and having still never met their colleagues in person.
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We want to hear from you on modernising LPAs
There is still time to share your views on proposals to modernise lasting powers of attorney (LPAs). The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) started a 12-week consultation in July and it’s easy to respond online or in writing. More than 140 …
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Living with loss: A little message goes a long way
When Keela Shackell-Smith was rocked by her mum’s death, she founded The Grief Cafe to bring bereaved staff together, and her subsequent blog struck a chord with you. Now she’s back, determined to help staff who lost loved ones during …
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Digital Forensics at HMRC
When you hear of HMRC you may immediately think about the ‘taxman’, Self Assessment and other Government Gateway services provided to the public, but we have over 20 different professions across the department. Deborah has been working as a Forensic …
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NHS diabetic eye screening services and the National Diabetes Audit join forces to evaluate diabetes care
All 57 diabetic eye screening providers successfully submitted data to this year’s National Diabetes Audit which now includes a complete picture of the diabetic eye screening care process nationally.
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Learn about Neurodiversity in the workplace
If you want to increase your awareness of neurodiverse conditions and gain practical knowledge and skills to apply in assisting colleagues in the workplace, then this is the session for you
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GSE Returners' Pack
The GSE profession team has launched a returners’ pack; a toolkit for recruiting managers to encourage them to consider diversifying their workforce through the development of local returners’ programmes. Returners are individuals who have been away from the workplace, typically …
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National Audit Office Report on Future Farming
Today the National Audit Office has published a report on Defra’s Future Farming and Countryside Programme.
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One South West Civil Service careers showcase
Tickets are still available for our event on Wednesday 29 September, find out more and book online...
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What the Health Profile for England shows us about the wider impacts of COVID-19 on health
Today we have published the Health Profile for England 2021 report. The Health Profile for England report provides the most comprehensive look at the state of the nation’s health. Like in previous year’s reports, this update looks at a range of population …
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Applying to register a children’s home: top tips
Yvette Stanley, our National Director for Regulation and Social Care, sets out some top tips for completing an application to register a children’s home.
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Why the UK NSC is needed now as much as 25 years ago
Reflections from Dr Robert Sherriff about the early days of the UK NSC and why it's just as important today as when it started in 1996.
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Working at GDS as a developer
Coding, collaboration and community - find out what it’s like to be a developer at GDS.
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Report published marking 25 years of UK National Screening Committee
Today, we publish a report summarising the work of the UK National Screening Committee over the past 25 years.
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A Question of Honours
The nation’s favourite celebrities may dominate the headlines when they’re awarded honours, but also included in every honours list are members of the public from a range of backgrounds. Civil servant Stephanie Karpetas shares the story of her own Palace …
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Our test and learn approach
Although we’ve written about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, we thought it might be useful to provide some rationale for our test and learn approach to designing and rolling out reform.
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Curious about what’s it like being an Inspector?
Curious about what’s it like being an Inspector? Two school HMI talk about their journey into the role and what the job involves.
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How to avoid a late filing penalty
If you submit your accounts late, the law imposes an automatic penalty. Here we discuss what late filing penalties are and how you can avoid them.
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Things we learned about co-design at this summer's agricultural shows
We recently published a blog post about the things we learned at this summer’s agricultural shows which took place up and down the country. At most of those shows, we ran co-design taster sessions for members of the farming community, so they could get a sense, first-hand, of how they could shape our policies. In this post, we're going to talk about some other things we learned that directly relate to co-design.
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Automation in land registration
HM Land Registry is exploring the next steps in introducing greater levels of automation.
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Government’s Vision: Building Back Better and Transforming Infrastructure Performance
Nick Smallwood, Chief Executive Officer of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, discusses what the newly published National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline and Transforming Infrastructure Performance: Roadmap to 2030 mean for the construction sector and the country's infrastructure.
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Valuable feedback from newborn blood spot failsafe solution (NBSFS) survey
The PHE newborn blood spot (NBS) screening team has analysed results from its evaluation survey of the newborn blood spot failsafe solution.
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FACTSHEET: UK support to resettle Afghan nationals - ARAP scheme
The UK Government programme to resettle Afghan nationals who have supported British efforts in Afghanistan The UK Government established a bespoke resettlement scheme this year for current and former Locally Employed Staff in Afghanistan. The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy …
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FACTSHEET: ACRS and other routes
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Meet our new Mental Health Social Work Lead
Lyn Romeo, Chief Social Worker for Adults, is delighted to confirm the appointment of Jason Brandon as the Mental Health Social Work Lead, following recruitment into a two year secondment. Jason will provide professional leadership support to her office to improve social work across mental health services, delivered in local authorities and NHS trusts.
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Seed bombing project in Kenya takes root
With my colleagues in the Overseas and Training (OS & TRG) team in Kenya, I’ve been working on a project to increase the number of trees on the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK). We’re doing this through seed bombing, …
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£24 million for fisheries science projects
In today’s blog we look at media coverage of the launch of the Science and Innovation pillar of the Government’s UK Seafood Fund.
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Biodiversity and the role of actuaries
In this blog we focus on how actuaries are examining issues and upcoming problems associated with biodiversity loss. GAD actuary Georgi Bedenham looks at the role of actuaries and how they can help.