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This eAlert includes the additional information published on the Woodland Carbon Guarantee, a reminder about the annual claims deadline, Urban Tree Challenge Fund round 2 information, a tree felling blog and a woodland creation case study.
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Latest information and actions from the Education and Skills Funding Agency for academies, schools, colleges, local authorities and further education providers
News story
Richard Dobbs and Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter have been appointed as non-executive board members of the UK Statistics Authority.
Richard Dobbs was a senior partner at the global consultancy McKinsey, where he was based in their London, Mumbai and Seoul offices. Since joining McKinsey in 1988, he has served clients around the world on strategy, organisation and corporate finance issues. He was a Director of the McKinsey Global Institute, leading research on technology, urbanisation, the rise of the emerging markets consumer class, global capital supply and demand, corporate profitability, obesity and the global labour market. He was also a Director of the McKinsey Centre for Government, where he led research and outreach on government productivity and performance, and a Convenor of McKinsey’s Global Corporate Finance Practice. Richard has taught Corporate Finance at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, where he leads work between the Centre and actors in fields such as health, media and government to improve the way quantitative evidence is used in society. His background is in medical statistics, particularly the use of Bayesian methods in clinical trials, health technology assessment and drug safety, a field in which he is one of the most cited and influential researchers. He was awarded an OBE for services to medical statistics in 2006. His interest in performance monitoring led to his being asked to lead the statistical team in the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry, and he also gave evidence to the Shipman Inquiry. Sir David was President of the Royal Statistical Society for 2017-18.
Richard and Sir David have been appointed under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, for a period of three years, from 27 May 2020 until 26 May 2023.
Published 27 May 2020
News story
GAD’s expertise helps senior clinicians in the NHS Pension Scheme adjust their pension saving to fit within their tax-free allowance.
GAD has worked with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to develop an approach to help senior clinicians in the NHS Pension Scheme adjust their pension saving to fit within their tax-free allowance.
This proposal involved offering greater pension flexibilities to manage benefits of their pension scheme membership and the tapered annual allowance taxation structure. These proposals were driven by government concerns that the taper was driving a behavioural response from NHS clinicians to reduce their work commitments.
DHSC consulted on a range of flexibilities, including giving the members option to accrue at a flexible accrual rate. This was in exchange for paying reduced employee contributions. These would enable senior clinicians to continue to work in the NHS while tailoring their pension scheme accrual to the level they wished to achieve, allowing for pension tax implications.
We supported the DHSC consultation by carrying out detailed analysis. We also provided worked examples to illustrate the consultation approach and the implications on members benefits and taxation.
The consultation findings fed into a review of the annual allowance taper led by HM Treasury, with changes to the taper announced at the Budget on 11 March 2020. DHSC will publish a formal response to the consultation in due course.
GAD worked with DHSC and HM Treasury following the announcement of changes to the annual allowance taper. We analysed the impact for NHS scheme members and briefed NHS employer and member representatives on the potential impacts.
This analysis included the use of the scheme pays mechanism to meet tax charges incurred. Illustrations showed the progression of scheme pays charges up to retirement, as a proportion of corresponding scheme benefits accrued.
Published 27 May 2020
News story
The Secretary of State today (27 May 2020) announced the re-appointment of Professor Nicholas Hopkins as Law Commissioner for property, family and trust law.
Professor Nicholas Hopkins has been reappointed as Law Commisioner for property, family and trust law for a 5 year term from 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2025.
Professor Hopkins is an academic of over 25 years standing, whose publishing portfolio includes co-authorship of 2 leading textbooks on land law for Oxford University Press. He is an honorary bencher of Middle Temple and an academic member of the Property Bar Association and the Property Litigation Association. He has led the Commission’s work across a range of property and family law projects including its work on Making a Will, Surrogacy, Weddings, leasehold enfranchisement, commonhold, and the Land Registration Act.
The Law Commission was created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 with the role of keeping under review the law of England and Wales with a view to its systematic development and reform. The Law Commission promotes the reform of the law to make it clearer, more modern and more accessible. The Commission’s projects bring real benefits to the public, businesses or other organisations affected by old, complex and out-of-date law.
Reappointments to the Law Commission are made by the Secretary of State for Justice and are regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. This re-appointment has been made in line with the Governance Code on Public Appointments.
Professor Nicholas Hopkins has not declared any political activity.