Tag Archives: HM Government

Bernadette Kelly is the new Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport.

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Environment Agency officers checked more than 400 rod licences in an Easter weekend crackdown on illegal fishing.

Officers patrolling North East river banks checked 421 anglers, reporting 29 offences.

Of these, 21 were for rod licence offences, 7 were byelaw and close season offences and one offence under the Theft Act.

It’s currently the close season for coarse fishing, which means fishing for coarse fish on rivers and streams is not permitted. This is done to protect breeding fish, helping to safeguard stocks for the future.

Kevin Summerson, Fisheries Enforcement Technical Specialist at the Environment Agency, said:

It’s encouraging that the vast majority of anglers abide by the law, but there are still too many that we find during patrols that are fishing illegally.

We take illegal fishing very seriously – it’s not fair on other anglers and endangers the future of the sport.

Our work is intelligence led and we work closely with our partners at the police and Angling Trust to target known hot spots and where illegal fishing is reported to us.

We carry out enforcement work all year round and will be continuing throughout the coming weeks, including the upcoming Bank Holiday weekends.

We really want people to get outdoors and enjoy what is a fantastic sport, and the rod licence is great value for money for all the family.

I’d urge people to help us protect the health of our fisheries by reporting any suspected illegal activity to us.

All the money from rod licence sales goes back into maintaining the health of fisheries and waters, angling projects and much more.

Anyone caught fishing without a valid licence could be fined up to £2,500 and fishing during the close season attracts a fine of up to £50,000.

Coarse fishing is still allowed on most still waters and canals, depending on fishery owner agreement, though a valid fishing licence is still required. You can check which still waters and canals still have a close season in operation by checking the byelaws which apply in your area at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-fishing-byelaws

Anyone who wants to go fishing needs to buy a fishing licence. A full annual licence costs £30 (short term and some concessionary licences are also available) and are available online at www.gov.uk/get-a-fishing-licence.

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Innovative businesses across the UK have received a £15 million boost through our emerging and enabling technologies competition. This is to identify and invest in new technologies with the potential to unlock billions of pounds of value to UK industry and disrupt existing markets.

Eighty high-growth potential projects have been successful in being awarded funding, some of which include:

• Holosphere Ltd will work with Jaguar Land Rover to create an augmented reality car configurator for use in its network of showrooms
• Archangel Aerospace will develop an ultra lightweight laser receiver terminal to bring vast amounts of data from satellites in a low orbit down to earth quickly and reliably. This will vastly improve the scope and quality of services provided by earth observation and scientific satellites
• ‘PlasticARMPit’ a joint project involving ARM, PragmatIC Printing, Unilever and the University of Manchester. This will develop a high-performance energy-efficient processing engine to deliver future flexible electronic devices
• Croda project, which aims to develop advanced antimicrobial coatings to control and prevent biofilm formation that costs the UK economy tens of billions per annum in damage. The project is led by the global market leader in speciality chemicals, Croda, in collaboration with Scanwel and the University of Liverpool, who provide advanced characterisation tools to help optimise the technology and enable its translation to a number of market sectors

Paul Mason, Emerging and Enabling Technologies Director at Innovate UK, said:

The quality and breadth of applications for this competition was excellent. It highlights the appetite and capacity of UK businesses to innovate, and to find new sources of revenue from new products, processes or services.

For a list of winning projects please see the funding competition winners 2017.

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A summary (PDF, 98.3KB, 7 pages) of the key results from the Veterinary Medicines Pharmacovigilance Annual Review 2015. The annual review summarises the 5674 UK adverse events in animals, humans and the environment after use of veterinary medicines an… read more

CCS today publishes a statement outlining how it will do more to help public sector bodies to deliver additional social benefits in line with legislation including the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012.

The legislation requires buyers to consider what additional social, environmental and economic benefits can be delivered through the contract.

Sam Rowbury, Director of Policy at CCS said:

“We recognise that for many of our customers across the public sector, maximising value means both saving money and securing social value for citizens.

“We’re making sure that our customers can use our deals to deliver the specific social value benefits they are looking for.

“Social value benefits could be anything from creating more apprenticeships for young people, to reducing carbon emissions or promoting equality and diversity.”

What we’re doing

CCS will work to increase social value by:

• making sure all relevant new deals offer social value opportunities and give customers the flexibility to specify and evaluate social value at call-off
• reviewing current deals to identify social value opportunities
• providing tools and guidance to help build social value into procurements and measure the social value element of bids received
• listening to customers, understanding their needs and learning from other organisations
• working with suppliers so they are ready to respond to the requirements of public bodies

The most popular 20 frameworks that CCS offers to its customers have already been assessed and are ready to help customers secure social benefits now. This includes the Energy Performance Contracting and Technology Products 2 frameworks.

In future, frameworks will be designed to give customers the flexibility they need to decide their own, specific social value benefits, in keeping with their own social value objectives.

Social value in the communications arena

Social & Local, a micro-enterprise agency with a unique social value model, has been awarded a place on the Communication Services framework (RM3796).

Providing specialist services in areas such as hard to reach audiences, challenging social issues and rapidly changing landscapes, Social & Local is on Lot 1 of the framework for Speciality Consultancy Services.

Stephanie Drakes, CEO, said:

“We were founded as a Community Interest Company (CiC), and re-invest half our profit after tax to enable others to make real socially valuable campaigns, creative businesses and communications projects that promote sustainability, freedom, employment, health and well-being. Many of these projects would otherwise not see the light of day without our funding.”

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