News story: Appointment of Edward Timpson CBE as new CAFCASS Chair

Edward Timpson CBE has been appointed as the Chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) from 9 April 2018 to 8 April 2021

Edward was MP for Crewe and Nantwich between 2008 and 2017. Before entering Parliament Edward spent 10 years working as a Family Law Barrister specialising in children’s cases. Growing up, his family fostered 90 children over 30 years and he has 2 adopted brothers.

He was Minister of State for Children and Families from May 2015 to July 2016 and Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families at the Department for Education from July 2016 to June 2017.

CAFCASS was created under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. The body safeguards and promotes the welfare of children involved in family court proceedings

This appointment has been conducted in accordance with the Commissioner for Public Appointments’ Governance Code on Public Appointments.



News story: Your chance to question Ministry of Defence medals and records experts at Family History Shows

Updated: Updated Live post 1921 paragraph

The MOD Medals and Records Offices, part of DBS are to attend the Family History Show events at York on 23 June and Sandown on 22 September. The shows are attended by family historians, societies and genealogical organisations. The MOD stand, supported by TNT UK Ltd, will be staffed by a DBS team, with colleagues from the Air Historical Branch and TNT Navy Record Search Service.

They will offer:

Live post 1921 service record search facility

The MOD continues to hold all service records where the individual had a discharge date of post 1921, these total around 10 million records, with about 500,000 having seen service in World War 1. Subject to access to the database that supports the MOD’s main archive, an assisted search facility will be offered that will in many cases enable confirmation of whether or not the MOD holds a record for an individual. This information can then be used to apply for the record using the forms on Gov.uk. To assist the search, some or all of the following information is required: surname, initials, date of birth and service number.

RAF casualty packs from World War 2 are being transferred from the MOD to The National Archives. Using the MOD’s archive and cataloguing database, an assisted search facility will enable identification of the pack that may relate to an individual. This information can then be used to either access the pack at The National Archives, or, for those yet to be transferred, apply for details from the pack using the forms on Gov.uk. To assist the search, the following information is required: the name of the individual(s), date of incident and type of aircraft.

Interpretation of service records

If you already have a service record, but are unsure what it says or how to interpret it, then DBS experts will be on hand to assist you.

  • John Reynolds from the MOD’s record office, a keen army historian and serving reserves officer, John has conducted battlefield tours across the world
  • Stuart Hadaway from the Air Historical Branch, Stuart has previously worked at the RAF Museum, Hendon, and is the author of military books, including “Missing believed killed: casualty policy and the missing research and enquiry service 1939 – 1952”
  • Sue Pass, team leader of TNT’s navy search service who respond to more than 6,000 enquiries a year

The DBS team look forward to seeing you!



Linguistics at the Library – Episode 6

PhD placement students, Andrew Booth and Rowan Campbell write: Are there any words your family use that no one else has heard of? Can you guess what fruckle, woga, elpit and pivoed mean? This week, Andrew and Rowan look into this phenomenon, with lots of examples from visitors who donated…



A Meeting of Minds – Mental Health Past & Present

From the Curator of Museum Services at the University of Dundee :

A Meeting of Minds – Mental Health Past & Present
Tuesday 10th April at 5.30pm
Baxter 1.36, Tower Building, University of Dundee

How can looking at examples from the past help us to understand mental health issues today? 

Historians and health professionals meet to explore the lessons we can learn from looking at psychiatry’s history.

Free but places should be booked via Eventbrite here.


Higher taxes cut car sales as planned

The Treasury has hit diesel car sales hard as the government wished. They have managed to bring the whole new car market down for a year by pushing up taxes in the Spring 2017 budget and leaving open future tax attacks on diesels in particular. People fear further action by national and local government. It was a surprising policy choice given the considerable work past governments put in to getting more car engine manufacture in the UK.

There have been stenuous efforts to blame Brexit and ” confidence” but the numbers showed confidence and car purchases soared for nine months after the vote, and then plunged as the taxes came in and car loans were tightened by regulatory action. I blame the taxes.

I guess the Treasury is pleased with its work. It has achieved a big planned reduction in new diesels, despite new diesel cars meeting all the government’s own emission standards. It also has the side effect of bringing the UK growth rate down a little to get it closer to the official forecasts.

It probably means the government has collected less revenue overall, as the higher VED will be more than offset by the big fall in tax on new car sales. There is a 20 % tax on new cars, so each sale lost us a big hit on tax revenue.This then means the Treasury scramble around for something else it can impose a higher tax on, which could help slow another part of the economy they do not like. I will highlight some of their other successes in using higher taxes in posts to come.