Following an open competition John Manzoni, the Chief Executive of the Civil Service and Permanent Secretary, has today announced that Thalia Baldwin will be appointed as the new Director of the Geospatial Commission from 1 August 2019. Thalia is currently Deputy Director for Policy at the Geospatial Commission. She was previously Head of Digital Policy at HM Treasury, where she was responsible for the approach to public spending on digital technology and infrastructure.

Sir Andrew Dilnot, Chair of the Geospatial Commission, said

I am delighted to welcome Thalia to this role. The intelligent use of data presents a huge opportunity to enrich our society, strengthen our economy and tackle the issues of the future. The potential of new technology in the geospatial domain is huge, and questions about how best to facilitate the use of data are important and fascinating. I look forward to working with Thalia to address these questions.

John Manzoni paid tribute to the outgoing Director of the Geospatial Commission, William Priest:

Under William’s leadership the Commission has established a strong team of functional expertise, delivered the first outputs to unlock an estimated £11bn of economic value and begun to assemble the evidence it needs to develop a long term geospatial strategy for the UK. I would like to thank William for the energetic and dynamic approach he has taken to setting up the Commission from scratch and forming the basis for a significant new national capability.

Under the direction of Katy Ware, the team will be part of the Directorate of Maritime Safety and Standards, accessing surveyor expertise, policy, technical knowhow and influencing policy that’s world beating. Katy Ware, who is also the UK’s Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization has an impressive track record and reputation across the industry. And while she recognises there’s a great opportunity awaiting the UKSR, there’s one thing she makes clear very quickly.

‘While I and the team fully intend to look at pragmatic standard setting working with industry, everyone needs to be clear that safety will not be compromised for commercial expediency,’ she insists. ‘We have a world class reputation to uphold and improve even further. Anyone boarding or working on board a UK flagged-ship needs to have confidence those standards have been applied to uphold safety.’ Katy Ware’s priority is working with the team at the UKSR to look at making sure the product is right for the customer.

She said:

We need to be absolutely customer-focussed. That might sound obvious but actually what that looks like in practice is how we work with our customers to make sure that the whole journey from the moment they join the flag works for them. We have a unique ability to feed back from our customers to our surveyors and policy officials and then beyond that to the International Maritime Organization. I’m under no illusion that this is a period of transition and we absolutely need to involve all our customers in that process. You can’t tell people what they want, you need to listen to them and see how you can work towards standing alongside them when and where they need it.

Put like that, it sounds a very daunting task. Has she taken on too much? ‘If I was on my own, then perhaps the answer to that question would be yes.,’ says Katy. ‘But the UK Ship Register is a terrific team of people all working to create the best experience for each and every customer. And when you put that team together – as we have done – with the wider operational team surveyors, technical experts, policy makers and so much more – I’m more than confident we can achieve this.

‘We have world class surveyors. We have the ability to make world class regulation. We have world-class oversight of our recognised organisations. The UK Flag is fifth for international Port State Control on the Paris MoU White List of top-performing flags.

We aren’t going to just copy someone else. We will work with our customers and our team to find our own place and make it a place of sustainable growth for the flag.’

Invitation letters for diabetic eye screening

These publications are template invitation letters for local NHS Diabetic Eye Screening (DES) programme providers.

Local programmes should:

• add information to these templates to include specific local processes and circumstances if required
• enclose the COVID-19 printable guidance with screening invitation letters

An easy read invitation letter template is available to send to people who need information in this format, including those with learning disabilities.

Results letters for diabetic eye screening

Local DES programmes must use the template result letters to communicate with patients.

The GP letter template is suitable for use with all possible screening results.

Non diabetic retinopathy (DR) lesions

Arrangements for referrals for non DR lesions vary between programmes.

It is not appropriate to produce standard letter wording for non DR results.

When writing to patients with non DR lesions, programmes should add appropriate local wording to the relevant result letter template.

The GP result letter template includes a section for non DR lesions.

Following the success of her first webinar for suppliers back in April, on Wednesday (3 July) Christine delivered a 30 minute summary of her main messages from the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) 2019 conference and took questions from participants.

A recording of the webinar is now available:

3 July 2019 Webinar: An update from Christine Tacon.

Register online to be notified of future webinars.

If you have any feedback on the webinar, please contact the GCA at enquiries@groceriescode.gov.uk.