News story: NDA announces new Chair of Sellafield Ltd Board

Lorraine has extensive experience in senior roles across a range of international companies and high-profile public sector organisations, including Thames Water, the Olympic Delivery Authority and London and Continental Railways Ltd. As Chair of Sellafield Ltd, Lorraine will report directly to David Peattie.

In her role as Chair of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Council, Lorraine Baldry has already gained valuable experience of working within the nuclear industry.

David Peattie said:

I am extremely pleased to welcome Lorraine as Chair of the Sellafield Ltd Board. Her contribution will be valuable to Sellafield Ltd, as it continues to make progress in cleaning up the hazards left from the earliest days of the UK’s nuclear industry.

Her unique blend of experience, from a diverse range of organisations in the private and public sector, will help Sellafield provide a continued focus on safety while making decommissioning progress and delivering value for the UK taxpayer.

Lorraine Baldry said:

I am privileged to be given this opportunity, as Chair of Sellafield Ltd, to help the organisation in its mission to clean up some of the most complex nuclear facilities in Europe.

The next few years will be an important time for Sellafield as we look towards the end of nuclear fuel reprocessing and making accelerated progress in decommissioning and hazard reduction.



News story: Sham supervision by EU lawyers in providing immigration advice

Mr Tariq Hussain, aged 34 years of Livesy Street, Rochdale, Lancashire, was, on 16 April 2018, fined £600 and ordered to pay £1999 compensation at Manchester Crown Court, having pleaded guilty to 3 charges of providing unregulated immigration advice.

Mr Hussain was the company director of Immigration Assistance Services Ltd, Milkstone Road, Rochdale where clients met him to discuss their immigration issues. Mr Hussain had misrepresented his company as being qualified to provide immigration advice and services by virtue of being supervised by a number of unqualified persons. Mr Hussain stated he had been provided supervision at any one time by three companies, including one based in Malta, another in Peterborough and a London firm headed by a lawyer based in Romania. The prosecution was brought by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner as the claimed supervision was a sham. Despite this being highlighted to Tariq Hussain, he, nonetheless, chose to continue to seek to provide immigration advice whilst exploiting ‘Surinder Singh’ applications to the Irish authorities.

In sentencing, HHJ Lawton, said, “You set up a company providing immigration advice and by your plea today acknowledge your neglect in the supervision claimed. You put an artificial gloss on your claim to supervision to enable your company to provide immigration advice. You have pleaded guilty and I bear in mind persons have lost money”

Speaking about the decision, the Deputy Immigration Services Commissioner, Ian Leigh, said, “We have clear standards outlining what we expect in terms of the fitness and competence of regulated advisers. Tariq Hussain chose to operate outside the law. I am delighted with the outcome of this case, and I hope this sends a clear message to other people considering providing immigration advice under sham supervision arrangements. Either act within the law or you will find yourself in court.”



Press release: Charity regulator calls for information to its inquiry into The Save the Children Fund

On 4 April 2018 the regulator opened a statutory inquiry into the charity over concerns about its handling, reporting and response to serious allegations of misconduct and harassment involving senior staff members in 2012 and 2015.

Among the issues under inquiry is the extent to which the trustees have ensured that any misconduct allegations, complaints or incidents received by the charity since 1 January 2016 have been appropriately handled.

The Commission would like to hear from anyone with information which is relevant to the inquiry including misconduct allegations, complaints or incidents involving the charity and has set up a dedicated email address for anyone wishing to contact or submit evidence to the inquiry. The email address is savethechildreninquiry@charitycommission.gsi.gov.uk.

The inquiry is confined to the issues of safeguarding in the context of misconduct and harassment of the charity’s staff; it is not examining safeguarding in the context of the charity’s programme delivery for beneficiaries.

It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK.

Ends

Notes to editors

  1. The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work, see the about us page on GOV.UK.
  2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.


News story: GCSE computer science assessment arrangements

Revised assessment arrangements for GCSE computer science will continue for the 2020 exam series, Ofqual announced today (Friday 20 April).

At the start of this year, and following consultation, we changed the assessment arrangements for GCSE computer science. We announced that, for students taking exams in 2018 or 2019, their grades would be based on their exam performance alone. We changed the arrangements because of evidence that the confidentiality of at least some of the tasks required by some of the exam boards had been compromised.

We are now advising teachers that the same arrangements will stand for students who start studying the subject this September and take their exams in 2020. They will be formally assessed only by exam. These students must still complete a task set by their respective exam board, but this will not be formally marked.

Students may be given a choice of which non-exam task to complete by their exam board. The tasks support the curriculum requirements for the course, notably the opportunity to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills involved in programming. Schools and colleges must, therefore, confirm to their exam board that they have set aside the required amount of time for students to complete a task and given them the opportunity to do so.

Teachers will be able to use the non-exam task to consolidate students’ understanding and programming skills in a practical context. While the exam boards might change the conditions under which the task is completed and/or give a greater prominence in their exam papers to questions drawing on students’ programming experience, students’ grades will be based on their exam performance alone.

Sally Collier, Chief Regulator, said: “We want to give teachers early notice of this decision so that that they can begin preparations ahead of the summer. We hope that this confirmation is helpful for schools and colleges in planning for the next academic year.”

In our decision on the assessment arrangements for 2018 and 2019 we explained we would consider options for the longer-term that would support the curriculum intentions and provide a valid means of assessment. As well as considering the feedback on longer term options we received in response to our consultation, we are gathering more input and evidence from stakeholders on this issue. We will also evaluate how the new arrangements work in practice and consider how the arrangement for GCSE computer science fits in with the UK Digital Strategy.

Later this year, we intend to invite computer science teachers to provide feedback on the new arrangements and to consult on any proposals for the longer term. This extended timetable will allow us to consider a full range of options.



News story: Oxehealth: developing a better way to care for dementia patients

The Oxehealth activity monitoring system is improving the care of at-risk patients by remotely monitoring their vital signs and activity.

Every 3 seconds, someone in the world is diagnosed with dementia. Furthermore, dementia has now overtaken heart disease as the leading cause of death in the UK.

Caring for patients with the condition can be challenging, with monitoring often limited to time-consuming physical checks by staff. Now, Oxford-based company, Oxehealth, has developed a way of improving the care of patients by combining computer algorithms with optical sensors. This enables staff to monitor activity like getting out of bed or leaving a room, as well as the patient’s vital signs, heart rate and breathing rate in real time and to medical-grade accuracy.

Oxehealth offers software as a service (SaaS) solutions to professional carers who have a duty of care to a vulnerable person in a room. This enables carers to receive alerts when the system detects care-relevant events. They can then access a live video feed and choose to intervene if they decide it’s needed.

A world-first for patient monitoring

Hugh Lloyd-Jukes, chief executive, commented:

Oxehealth has achieved a world first. We have never before had the capability to constantly monitor a patient’s heart rate, breathing rate, activity and other routine data in this way.

We will, in time, fuse this data together using artificial intelligence so there’s no reason why we can’t use the same technology in the future to detect worsening dementia, or even its onset. This could give us a world where we can detect conditions such as dementia much earlier.

Patients could stay in their own homes or wherever they’re most comfortable without the need to come to hospital. That will save everyone a huge amount of time, money and stress.

Oxehealth is testing the software to remotely monitor patients on the dementia ward at the Manor Hospital in Coventry. This pioneering work has been highlighted in a recent BBC documentary.

Technology to benefit hospitals and prisons

The same technology can also be used to improve the monitoring of people detained in secure mental health hospitals, prisons and police custody suites. These people are often at risk from self-harm, intoxication from drugs or alcohol, or underlying conditions, injuries and complications from medication.

It isn’t always possible to use contact devices with these high-risk subjects as they could use wired devices for self-harm or attacks on staff.

The Oxehealth solution, which was funded with help from an Innovate UK grant saw the company work with Broadmoor Hospital to refine the optical sensor system for use in secure mental health settings. It’s also being used in nursing homes and for remote care in patients’ own homes.

Oxehealth has been working to refine the optical sensor system for use in secure mental health settings.

A growth in sales and staff

The Oxehealth solutions that don’t need medical device certification became available to customers in 2017 and the company will launch a partner programme for resellers later this year. The vital sign functionality is subject to medical device certification and is not yet available to buy.

The response from investors has been impressive – in 2017, Oxehealth succeeded in raising £3.6 million. And, since starting work on this project, Oxehealth has more than doubled its staff to 25.

In August 2017, Oxehealth’s team won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Colin Campbell Mitchell Award for the ‘greatest contribution to the advancement of any field of engineering’.