HM Land Registry arrangements for Royal Mail strikes

News story

The Communication Workers Union has formally notified Royal Mail they plan to call on their members to take national strike action on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November 2022.

Royal Mail has confirmed strike action on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November 2022.

Please note, for applications where a requisition has been sent the deadline to reply will be extended if it falls on a strike day. Caseworkers will check for a reply after midday on the next strike-free day.

We are aware that the postal strikes may delay how quickly we can process applications, as there will not be a postal delivery or collection on strike days. In addition, there may also be higher than normal volumes of work being received on the days either side of the strike.

For support with any HM Land Registry services you can contact us online using our contact form.

You can find out more information about the strikes.

Published 22 November 2022

GAD’s work with HM Land Registry

News story

GAD provided actuarial advice to HM Land Registry as it looks to estimate the cost of fraud and errors. We used claim information to estimate an Indemnity Fund.

Stacks of files each containing reams of paper.

The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) has supported HM Land Registry as it seeks to estimate the cost of fraud and errors.

We estimated the cost of future claim payments to indemnify third parties who have suffered losses in their land registration documents.

Best estimate

HM Land Registry registers the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. It is legally liable to pay for instances of error or fraud when land registration documents are registered.

GAD provides actuarial advice, estimating how much will need to be paid out in respect of these liabilities. Our role in valuing this Indemnity Fund helps to ensure transparency of taxpayer costs as our work informs the disclosures in HM Land Registry’s latest annual report and accounts.

Indemnity Fund

GAD’s work includes sharing results of scenario and sensitivity tests that reflect the unpredictable nature of future claim numbers and costs.

HM Land Registry regularly provides GAD with data about all its claims, whether settled or not.

GAD uses this information to model how claim numbers and costs will develop in the future to estimate an Indemnity Fund to meet the cost of claims. This includes assumptions on:

This Indemnity Fund is the amount that HM Land Registry estimates it will need to settle claims in the future.

Estimating costs

There are 2 parts to this estimate, the outstanding claims reserve and the incurred but not reported reserve (IBNR).

The outstanding claims reserve is for claims that have been reported to Land Registry but haven’t yet been paid in full. The IBNR reserve is for claims where the fraud or error has occurred but hasn’t yet been reported to the Land Registry.

Accurate results

GAD actuary Nam Le said: “The discipline of a structured model assisted the GAD team in setting the reserves. It meant that we were able to provide the best estimate of what these figures may be.”

Published 22 November 2022

Annual Report and Accounts

News story

GAD has published its Annual Report and Accounts for the 2021 to 2022 financial year. The report sets out the main projects and successes of the year.

Woman with long black hair writing in a notebook

The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) has published its Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) for the 2021 to 2022 financial year.

The ARA illustrates the work carried out across the department. It sets out key achievements over the financial year that align to GAD 2025 strategy.

Record year

Introducing the ARA, the Government Actuary Martin Clarke said: “The examples highlighted in this report for the 2021-22 ably illustrate how actuaries, analysts and business professionals at the Government Actuary’s Department provide valuable professional insights based on thorough analysis of complex data in what has again been a record year for both the scale and diversity of work we have undertaken.”

Key figures

Over the 2021 to 2022 financial year, GAD:

generated more than £24 million in actuarial income as we are self-funded
reviewed the records for more than 16 million members of 20 public sector pension schemes
supported 16 of 23 ministerial departments (along with other public bodies)
was awarded an average star rating of 4.8 stars out of 5 by clients
held events which were attended by around 950 people
increased our learning and development investment in our employees by 33% (compared to the previous year)

The ARA provides detailed information about the main projects and successes of the year. GAD achieved all its parliamentary estimate targets and continued to improve the efficiency of its regular work. As an example, we rationalised the way we distribute our workforce by using analysts alongside actuaries.

Wide range of activities

There was increased demand for our services across a growing number of government departments and agencies.

Examples included GAD supporting:

the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on third party liability insurance provisions for nuclear operators
a project to estimate the impacts of droughts in sub-Saharan Africa
pension policy for both public and private sector pension arrangements.

Our public service pensions specialists supported our clients through the outcome of the McCloud judgment and the 2020 scheme valuations. We further supported the government on COVID-19 related responses. These included working on the assessment of clinical risk factors for severe cases and developing an event cancellation scheme.

Published 22 November 2022

UKHSA finds vaccination offers strong protection against monkeypox

This is the strongest UK evidence yet for the effectiveness of the vaccine.

As part of the analysis, monkeypox cases in England and vaccination uptake data between 4 July to 3 November 2022 were reviewed to estimate vaccine effectiveness within the eligible gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men (GBMSM) cohort, with vaccine coverage among cases compared to the wider eligible population.

Out of 363 monkeypox cases in this period, 8 had been vaccinated at least 14 days before and 32 had been vaccinated between 0 to 13 days before. The rest (323) were not vaccinated during this outbreak. This gives an estimate of vaccine effectiveness for a single dose of 78% 14 or more days after vaccination.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) will continue to investigate the duration of protection from a single dose and the combined protection of 2 doses.

Jamie Lopez-Bernal, Consultant Epidemiologist at UKHSA, said:

While monkeypox cases are low it remains vital to stay alert to the risks. Thank you to everybody who has come forward for their vaccine already – it is helping to keep numbers low, but we can’t get complacent.

We now know that a single vaccine dose provides strong protection against monkeypox, which shows just how important vaccination is to protect yourself and others. A second dose is expected to offer even greater and longer lasting protection.

Please come forward for your vaccine as soon as possible – don’t put it off. Remember that it takes 2 weeks for the vaccine to have maximum effect so the sooner you get vaccinated, the better.

NHS National Director of Vaccinations and Screening Steve Russell said:

Thanks to hard-working staff, more than 55,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine have been delivered so far, and we now know just how effective the vaccine is, offering 78% protection against the virus from just one dose.

While the risk of monkeypox remains low, we urge anyone eligible to come forward to get their vaccination and with the NHS monkeypox site finder, it’s now easier than ever to book in for a first dose, giving yourself a high level of protection.

Published 22 November 2022
Last updated 22 November 2022 + show all updates

22 November 2022
First published.

Miniature water purification technology ensures safe water for the Armed Forces, at anytime, anyplace

Novus has developed a high speed, low energy, mobile and vehicle-mounted water purifier capable of producing safe, medical grade drinking water
Funded through the DASA Open Call, Novus’ innovation provides the Armed Forces a boost to Force Protection and self-sufficiency
Post-contract support from DASA’s Access to Mentoring and Finance (A2MF) Team is preparing Novus for future investment and market readiness

Clean drinking water is essential for Armed Forces personnel out in the field and is vital for the success of any military or humanitarian mission. However, the transportation, delivery and sourcing of water is a huge logistical burden.

In addition, natural sources of clean water are difficult to find, especially in austere environments, where rivers, wells and lakes often contain harmful contaminants that are difficult to remove with traditional water purifiers.

A lack of readily available clean water not only presents strategic and operational challenges for military personnel, it can also greatly reduce the effectiveness of missions due to illness and dehydration, while also adding avoidable strain on medical facilities and personnel.

Introducing Novus: Water purification specialists

Scotland-based Novus received DASA funding to develop their high speed, low energy water distillation unit that can purify water from practically any source, such as sea water, swamps, wells, floods, rivers, and even waste water.

Novus’ technology utilises innovative high temperature evaporation techniques to evaporate water vapour leaving containments behind, resulting in medical grade water, suitable for drinking, field surgery and wound cleansing.

The purification device is also small, at around the size of two jerry cans, has low power requirements and has no removable parts that need to be maintained or replaced, such as carbon filters or reverse osmosis membranes.

The technology will not only reduce the logistical challenges of transporting bottled water, it will also reduce the risk of waterborne disease affecting mission success and ensure constant clean water supply.

The technology can help Defence by:

enabling personnel to access clean, safe water out in the field, regardless of water source quality
improving force resilience by reducing the logistical burden of transporting and relying on bottled water convoys
enabling scalable water production, with one water purification unit able to create over 100 litres of clean water per day
promoting sustainability, by reducing the demand on local water sources and bottled water
reducing the carbon footprint associated with sourcing, transporting and disposing of bottled water, and traditional water purification filters

Making a big splash: from novel idea to live demonstration

Novus started developing the water distillation technology in 2018. They were at an early stage of development and had successfully tested the technology at The University of Edinburgh, but they had a long way to go towards a final product.

Novus began their journey with DASA after a meeting with Dr Debra Carr, Innovation Partner for Scotland, who encouraged them to submit their idea to the DASA’s Open Call for Innovation. Their proposal was successful and Novus received funding to miniaturise the technology for a military case use.

At the end of the project, Novus demonstrated the water purification technology as part of a DASA hosted Demonstration Day in 2021. The virtual event was attended by senior military personnel in the Army and Royal Marines, who witnessed the innovation in action and were impressed by its capabilities to fulfil the challenge of miniaturising water purification capability, to ensure the self-sufficiency of military operations and to meet humanitarian challenges. Additional feedback from the Demonstration Day revealed wider case uses for the technology, such as:

a vehicle mounted drinking water purifier to extend reconnaissance or mission reach
a sea landing and amphibious vehicle mounted drinking water purifier to minimise water transport
a portable, modular and scalable water purification unit for medical and drinking water at point of use for humanitarian missions
a Royal Navy back up water purification unit for Patrol and Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs)

The DASA Demonstration Day had a huge impact on Novus, highlighting end user interest and providing them with credibility to further develop the technology. It also provided a core direction in which they can steer development technology to meet a clear product design specification.

Duncan Peters, Founder of Novus said:

“The DASA team has been the most supportive I’ve worked with in my 12 year startup career. Their team is high energy, engaging, proactive, and always thinking with our best interest in mind. We’ve worked with them for over two years now, and most recently they have supported us by introducing Novus and our technology to high ranking, potential end users within multiple areas of the UK Armed Forces.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without DASA, and it has resulted in demonstrable support for our technology development. Their team has not only opened their network but also identified unknown funding options to help us bring our technology to market, and they are always looking internally for new ways to support us at every stage of its development. We’ve learned that the MoD really does want to fund new innovation, and working with DASA has been like having an additional member of the team, sitting remotely within the MoD framework.”

As a result of DASA’s support, the Demonstration Day and direct feedback from potential end users, Novus is focused on developing a solution that will aid long range reconnaissance teams to help extend mission capability and self-sufficiency. Novus worked with military stakeholders to take the product to its next phase, towards end user trials, where they successfully received a second round of funding from DASA, after they submitted their idea to the Open Call 2021/2022.

What’s next in the pipeline: Investment Showcase

Novus are using DASA funding to further develop the technology into a commercial solution by making the user experience more intuitive, to promote company growth and to develop more variants of the miniaturised water purifier. They are also expanding their engineering and manufacturing team in Scotland, and aiming to enhance their supply chain and business capabilities, to deliver on market interest.

Further post-contract support from DASA’s Access to Mentoring and Finance (A2MF) Team is preparing Novus for future investment and market readiness, and support navigating military procurement taking the product from project to commercial offering.

As part of this development, the A2MF team is preparing Novus for the DASA Investment Showcase later in November 2022, where innovators will pitch their businesses and novel ideas to investors.

Need help to commercialise your solution?

Read about how DASA’s Access to Mentoring and Finance Service can help you build the business behind your innovation.