The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) is marking its centenary in 2019. The department was formed under the Treasury in 1919 following a report (‘the Haldane Report’) from the Ministry of Reconstruction.

New department

The Haldane Report, published by the old Machinery of Government Committee, recommended a major reorganisation of government. As part of this, Haldane recognised the need for a single department of government actuaries. It drew on the fact that during the war, the government had received actuarial advice on war pensions and shipping.

In recommending the creation of a Government Actuary’s Department, the Haldane Report stated: “Work of this character may best be performed at a common centre (which) concentrates in itself an amount of knowledge, beyond the grasp of actuaries exclusively employed in a single Department.”

Marking GAD100

Throughout 2019, GAD’s actuaries, analysts and support staff will be celebrating ‘GAD100’. We will mark our successes, highlight our role in government and reinforce our contributions to the wider actuarial profession. Reflecting on the GAD100 programme, the Government Actuary Martin Clarke said: “This is a fantastic milestone for us as a department and I feel privileged to be the ninth Government Actuary since GAD’s creation.

“We’ll be looking at how our skills and services have developed over the past 100 years. When GAD was created the focus was primarily on analysis related to the state pension. Now, our services support government decision-making in much wider areas including actuarial advice on insurance and health related matters, as well as financial and demographic modelling.

“GAD100 is the ideal opportunity to celebrate the central role we play in using our skill to help our clients deliver their policies.”

The government has today (5 February) issued updated guidance on food and drink labelling in the event of a no deal Brexit.

Delivering a deal with the EU remains the government’s top priority. This has not changed. However a responsible government must prepare for every eventuality, including a no deal scenario.

While food businesses will have a 21 month transition period for the most significant changes to food labels, in the event of no deal Brexit there are some technical changes to labels that will be required from day one. For products placed on the UK market after 29 March 2019, these changes include:

• The EU emblem must not be used on goods produced in the UK unless a company has been authorised by the EU to do so;
• The EU organic logo must not be used on any UK organic products, unless the UK and EU reach an equivalency arrangement – where both still recognise each other’s standards – before exit day; and
• It will be inaccurate to label UK food as origin ‘EU’. Additional information such as signage in shops and online information will help clarify to the consumer the origin of the food.

Food and drink products that have already been placed on the UK market on or before 29 March 2019 can continue to be sold through until the stocks are exhausted.

For goods placed on the UK market after 29 March 2019 where, as a result of EU Exit, the information is technically incorrect (for example UK products labelled as origin ‘EU’), the UK government will encourage enforcement officers to take a pragmatic approach to enforcement, which fully protects the interests of consumers while ensuring industry are able to manage the scale of labelling changes required.

The EU and other non-EU countries may require wholly accurate labelling for access to their markets. In these instances, we would recommend labels are replaced or over-stickered as required to ensure they are fully accurate.

A 21 month transition period has been agreed to give businesses more time to make other labelling changes such as ensuring there is a UK address for the responsible Food Business Operator or importer on the label.

There will be a three year transition period for the new UK Geographical Indication Schemes logo. The new UK logo will be available from 29 March 2019 so producers have the option to make GI labelling changes before the end of the adoption period if they wish.

All changes will be subject to parliamentary process.

Thank you for inviting me to this year’s Safer Internet Day event. I’m thrilled to be here at the BT Centre, and I would like to congratulate the UK Safer Internet Centre on coordinating a highly successful campaign which sees hundreds of organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people. This event is celebrated in over 100 countries and is one of the many Safer Internet Day activities happening all over the UK.

I’m very encouraged to see so many young people here todayin this auditorium. It is crucial that we in government, as we make policy, learn from young people about their experiences online. Digital technology and social media enable young people to access educational resources, make social connections, build relationships and demonstrate creativity.

As the use of technology has grown, it has impacted every area of our lives. Planning a journey, checking your bank balance, organising campaigns, sharing photos, listening to music – all daily tasks that so many of us now complete online. And I know that many of the students here today are passionate about how technology benefits their everyday lives. I share that passion.

But we also know that a lot of young people are worried about what they see or experience online.

I’m looking forward to speaking with students from Dundonald Primary School, Kaizen Primary School, Viridis Schools Federation, Dr Challoner’s High School, Mayfield School, Sarah Bonnell School and Brooke School. I’m particularly interested in hearing about their experiences online and seeing what they have prepared for this year’s Safer Internet Day.

I’m aware that many of you are Digital Leaders in your schools and I’d like to thank you for the contribution you make to Safer Internet Day, and extend my congratulations for all the hard work you have carried out at your schools to helpensure that your peers getare well informed about how to stay safe online. The exhibitions you have been preparing are focussing on consent online. The theme of this year’s Safer Internet Day.

Consent has been much in the news of late. A New York Times investigation has just found that the information being collected about us through apps on our smartphones is far more extensive than most of us imagine or are aware we have consented to.

Last year the government made sweeping changes to the Data Protection regime and gave citizens new powers over their data. Consent, the theme of Internet Safety Day, must now be freely given, clear, unambiguous and fair. That’s really important.

This legislation is not before time. Last week it was reported that Facebook have been paying users as young as 13 to download a Facebook Research app in contravention of Apple’s strict privacy rules. This app allowed Facebook to look at users browsing history and other network data by requiring users to install a “root certificate” – this certification enabled Facebook to decrypt those users browsing history including messages they sent, what apps they used and for how long, to amass a very rich data set in order to sell ever more targeted advertising.

Apple responded by pulling the offending App and standing up for our privacy rights; they are among many voices in the States calling for similar privacy laws to the GDPR, that we have in Europe, to be enacted in the United States.

Online safety is a top priority for the Government and we want to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. We will soon be publishing an Online Harms White Paper which will set out clear expectations for companies to help keep their users, particularly children, safe online.

Internet companies have always enjoyed legal protection from liability for user generated content. This laissez faire environment has led some companies to pursue growth and profitability with little regard for the security and interests of their users. There is far too much bullying, abuse, misinformation and manipulation online as well as serious and organised crime online.

For too long the response from many of the large platforms has fallen short. There have been no fewer than fifteen voluntary codes of practiceconduct agreed with platforms since 2008. Where we are now is an absolute indictment of a system that has relied far too little on the rolerule of law.

The White Paper, which DCMS are producing with the Home Office, will be followed by a consultation over the summer and will set out new legislative measures laws to ensure that the platforms remove illegal content, and prioritise the protection of users, especially children, young people and vulnerable adults.

It will also include ambitious measures to support continued education and awareness for all users and to promote the development and adoption of new safety technologies. We want to get to a place where we can enjoy the huge benefits of new technology has to offer, without our children, and other vulnerable individuals, being put at risk of serious harm.

So eEngagement with industry, charities, peers and academia sits at the heart of our approach. And back in November 2017, with thanks to the UK Safer Internet Centre, we were able to talk and listen directly to many young people, some of whom I believe are back here again todayin this room. The conversations we had are helping us to develop world leading laws as well as other measures to make sure that the UK is the safest place in the world to be online.

In developing the White Paper we have continued to engage with a wide range of organisations. And I am grateful to those organisations, including Childnet and the Internet Watch Foundation that are part of the executive board of the UK Council for Internet Safety, which I co-chair with Ministers from the Department for Education and the Home Office. The Council does hugely important work, bringings together expertise from a range of organisations in the tech industry, civil society and public sector to collaborate and coordinate a UK-wide approach to improving internet safety. It’s great to see that a similarly collaborative approach lies at the heart of Safer Internet Day.

Let me repeat my thanks to The UK Safer Internet Centre for inviting me along today. I look forward to hearing more of your ideas about what more needs to done to help keep everyone safe online, and today is a timely reminder of the work ahead.

The government is determined to act so that we can all enjoy the huge benefits of new technology, without our children, and other vulnerable individuals, being put at risk of serious harm.

The Charity Commission, the regulator of charities in England and Wales, has issued the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) with an Official Warning, after finding that its trustees breached charity law in relation to a publication about a key government policy.

Update to published press release: In June 2019, the Charity Commission withdrew the Official Warning made against the IEA.

The breaches relate to a report (‘PLAN A+ Creating a prosperous post-Brexit U.K) published by the charity in September 2018, and an associated launch event. The charity has already removed the report from its website.

The warning sets out the ways in which the report and its launch contravened the legal and regulatory requirements that apply to charities with educational purposes such as IEA and amounted to misconduct and mismanagement on the part of the trustees.

Specifically, the Commission finds that the report and its launch sought explicitly to change government policy on an issue unrelated to the charity’s purposes – furthering education –which constitutes a breach of the Commission’s guidance on political activity and campaigning.

The regulator also finds that the report was not sufficiently balanced and neutral, as required by law from charities with educational purposes. Furthering education does not need to be value free or completely neutral, but research reports must present balanced information allowing the reader to make up his or her mind. In this case, the Commission found that the report was not sufficiently balanced and neutral, and nor did the charity provide an equally prominent publication or event presenting a different view, which could have provided balance in the round.

The warning also criticises the charity’s launch event for including as speakers only individuals who held a particular set of views, thus risking the public perception that the IEA is politically biased and has a political viewpoint on a key government policy.

As well as calling for the charity to remove and cease promoting the report, which it has done, the Official Warning specifies that IEA’s trustees should provide the regulator with written assurances that it will not engage in campaigning or political activity that contravenes legal or regulatory requirements.

The charity is also called upon to implement a process to ensure that the charity’s publications and other activities further its educational purposes and are in line with the Commission’s guidance on campaigning and political activity.

David Holdsworth, Deputy CEO and Registrar at the Charity Commission, said:

Charitable think tanks are charities and need to behave as such, including by complying at all times with charity law. Like all charities, they share a responsibility for protecting the reputation of charity as whole.

While the law recognises the role charitable think tanks can play in promoting understanding and learning and inspiring debate, it also sets important limits, designed to protect what is unique and precious about charity.

Most charitable think tanks understand the rules that are associated with charitable status, and are careful to ensure their work complies with our guidance and inspires public trust.

I hope that our Official Warning now encourages the trustees of the IEA to recognise and understand that they must run the organisation as a charity, and comply with charity law.

The IEA remains subject to an ongoing regulatory compliance case examining concerns about the trustees’ management and oversight of the charity’s activities.

The regulator’s published guidance on its power to issue an Official Warning notes that trustees’ failure to rectify breaches specified in a warning would be grounds for it to take more serious regulatory action, for example using its powers to suspend trustees or appoint an interim manager.

Ends

The Queen has approved that the Reverend Canon James Harley Milne, MTh, Minor Canon and Sacrist at St Paul’s Cathedral in the diocese of London, be appointed to a Residentiary Canonry of St Paul’s Cathedral in succession to the Reverend Canon Michael Hans Joachim Hempel, MA.

Published 5 February 2019