The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has invited Dame Fiona Caldicott to be the first holder of the statutory office of National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care.
Anna Lowe is a digital strategist and trained arts educator with extensive experience in devising and delivering arts programmes and digital products for museum audiences. Anna is CoFounder and Director of Partnerships at Smartify, a multi award-winning app which helps people make meaningful connections with art. Described by the New Scientist as ‘the Shazam and Spotify of art’, Smartify uses image recognition technology to instantly identify artworks by scanning them on your smartphone and returns curated information in text, audio, video and AR. Prior to this Anna was an arts officer for the London Borough of Camden where she delivered community-driven arts programmes, and also worked for the UK’s Creative Industries Federation.
During her time in Argentina, Anna was producer of the free late night event series Bellos Jueves at the National Museum of Fine Art (MNBA). As a regular speaker and facilitator Anna’s goal is to encourage young people to develop a creative voice and empower the next generation of creative tech entrepreneurs. Anna has been listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30. She holds a BA in History from the University of York and an MA in the Cultural and Creative Industries from King’s College London.
This roles is not remunerated. This appointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Government’s Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Anna has made no such declaration.
The Secretary of State has reappointed Sir Hayden Phillips as Chair of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art for a for a term of three years commencing on 17 March 2019. He has also reappointed Christopher Rowell and Peter Barber as Committee members, each for a term of four years commencing respectively on 10 April 2019 and 1 August.
Sir Hayden’s principal career, from 1967, was in public service: in the Home Office, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and the European Commission. From 1992 until 2004, he was the Permanent Secretary of two departments, first as the founding Permanent Secretary of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (until 1998) and then of what has now become the Ministry of Justice.
He is the Independent Reviewer of the Rulings of the ASA Council, Chairman of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, a Lay Canon of Salisbury Cathedral, where he is also Chairman of the Fabric Advisory Committee, and Chairman of the Wellington Collection at Apsley House.
Phillips is a Director of St Just Farms Ltd and chairs the Appointments Panel of the Independent Press Standards Organisation. He has also been Chairman of the National Theatre, Marlborough College, an adviser to HRH The Prince of Wales and a non-executive director of various companies in the City and elsewhere. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire until February 2018 and is the author of two reports – on the Reform of the Honours system (2004) and on the Funding of Political Parties (2007).
Christopher Rowell is the National Trust’s Curator of Furniture, responsible for advising on the collections in National Trust houses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He is Chairman of the Council of the Furniture History Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
Rowell is a member of the Academic Committee at Waddesdon Manor and of the External Collections Committee at Eton College. He has published widely on historic interiors, patronage, collecting, furniture and woodwork.
Peter Barber OBE, FSA, FRHistS, FRNS, worked at the British Library for 40 years, initially in the Department of Manuscripts and later in the Map Library where he served as Head of Maps and Topography between 2001 and 2015. He organised several exhibitions and wrote the accompanying catalogues, notably Diplomacy: The World of the Honest Spy (1979), and, with Tom Harper, Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art (2010).
He has been a consultant to and appeared on several television series and has written specialist articles and chapters on the history of cartography and been author or editor of popular books on the subject, such as The Map Book (2005) and London: A History in Maps (2012).
Outside his professional work he has a research interest in, and has published on, medallic historyband Italian-Swiss emigration into the United Kingdom. He is President of the International Map Collectors’ Society and of the Hornsey Historical Society, a Trustee of the Hereford Mappamundi, and the Memorial Scrolls Trust and a Council member of the London Topographical Society, Imago Mundi Ltd., The Friends of Kenwood, the Unione Ticinese and The JB Harley Fellowship Trust.
These roles are not remunerated. These reappointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Government’s Governance Code requires that any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years is declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation or candidature for election. Sir Hayden Phillips, Christopher Rowell and Peter Barbour have made no such declarations.
Public Health England (PHE) has today, Monday 11 March 2019, published a review of evidence on how to improve air quality in the United Kingdom.
The review informs local and national government on actions to improve outdoor air quality and health.
Air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to health in the UK, with between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year attributed to long-term exposure. There is strong evidence that air pollution causes the development of coronary heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and lung cancer, and exacerbates asthma.
Professor Paul Cosford, Director of Health Protection and Medical Director at PHE, said:
Now is our opportunity to create a clean air generation of children, by implementing interventions in a coordinated way. By making new developments clean by design we can create a better environment for everyone, especially our children.
Key interventions local authorities can take include:
This work could involve designing wider streets, or considering using hedges to screen against pollutants when planning new infrastructure.
Professor Cosford said:
We recommend that at a local level, any new policy or programme of work which affects air pollution should aim to deliver an overall benefit to the public’s health.
So transport and urban planners will need to work together, with others involved in air pollution to ensure that new initiatives have a positive impact.
Decision makers should carefully design policies, to make sure that the poorest in society are protected against the financial implications of new schemes.
National government policy can support local actions by creating the right incentives. These include policies which promote vehicles with low exhaust emissions or allow controls on industrial emissions in populated areas to take account of health impacts.
Public Health England was commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to review the evidence for effective air quality interventions, and provide practical recommendations for actions to improve air quality.
PHE’s review built on the Air quality plan for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in UK (2017) from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Transport (DfT).
The review also built on Air pollution: outdoor air quality and health (2017), published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which focussed on transport related interventions – to include other pollutants and reviews of interventions in industry, agriculture, transport and planning and behavioural change.
PHE’s review supported the development of Defra’s final Clean Air Strategy published in January 2019.
Photo by Tobias Toft. Used under Flickr Creative Commons.
Armed Forces Minister Mark Lancaster has confirmed that a new specialist Gurkha battalion is being formed.