A new tool to help increase the native oyster population around the English coast has been launched, the Environment Agency announced today (World Oceans Day 8 June).

Native oyster populations have decreased by 95% in England since the mid-1800s, mainly due to over-fishing.

The aim is to reverse this decline because they bring multiple benefits, including cleansing seawater through filtration and increasing biodiversity and fish abundance.

Developed by academics from the University of Exeter and the University of Edinburgh for the Environment Agency, the new map data layer is on the ArcGIS (geographical information service) site and provides information on the location of historic native oyster records and distributions.

It will also sit on the Coastal Data Explorer, which is a public web mapping portal managed by the Catchment Based Approach initiative.

It can act as a tool to support local authorities, community partnerships and environmental organisations to make the case for native oyster restoration projects, one of the three estuarine and coastal habitats that are the focus of the Restoring Meadows, Marsh and Reef (ReMeMaRe) habitat restoration partnership project.

The layer works alongside the Environment Agency’s Native Oyster Restoration Potential maps that highlight areas where oyster restoration could be successful, and the UK & Ireland Native Oyster Network and Environment Agency’s European Native Oyster Habitat Restoration Handbook that provides guidelines on how to restore these valuable habitats.

The handbooks and maps aim to counter the huge loss in native oyster reefs over the last two centuries by encouraging and supporting new restoration projects.

The map layer was created using data from government, and scientific and maritime bodies, and historic media accounts that mention the use and presence of the native oyster, Ostrea edulis, across England.

Environment Agency Estuary and Coast Planning Manager Roger Proudfoot said:

The release of this information on where native oyster reefs were once present represents another milestone in our drive for more estuary and coast habitat restoration.

We have lost 95% of our native oysters mainly due to over-fishing. As well as being catastrophic for our marine ecosystem, we have also lost the multiple benefits that they once provided for us, including cleansing our waters through filtration and increasing biodiversity and fisheries.

We hope this new information on the historic locations of once thriving oyster reefs will lead to new opportunities for restoring what has been lost. We know that oyster restoration is possible, we just need more capacity to upscale the current efforts and we look forward to this new information inspiring more projects to restore this magnificent mollusc.

Dr Ruth Thurstan, Project Lead and Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter said:

Oysters once formed an understated but important part of British marine ecosystems and popular culture.

“In the 19th century we fished and consumed oysters by the millions, while their complex reef habitats were key to supporting other marine life that we valued and depended upon.

Much of this was lost as oyster habitats declined, and our marine ecosystems today are fundamentally different. This map of historical oyster fisheries is a step towards building the knowledge base required for successfully restoring this culturally and ecologically important species in our coastal waters.

Dr Philine Zu Ermgassen, Project Lead and Research Associate at the University of Edinburgh said:

The habitats formed by the native oyster have declined precipitously and are now rarely found. This largely happened outside of living memory.

Evidencing where fisheries were historically is the first step toward a greater understanding of the former extent and importance of oyster habitats. Knowing where oyster habitats were found is important both for public understanding and for local decision making. Both are critically important as habitat restoration efforts take off across England and the rest of Europe.

Further details of native oyster restoration efforts can be found through the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance https://noraeurope.eu.

Failing social housing landlords could face unlimited fines and Ofsted-style inspections, under the Social Housing Regulation Bill set to be introduced to Parliament today (8 June 2022).

The move will mean more people living in decent, well looked-after homes enjoying the quality of life they deserve.

The Regulator of Social Housing will have stronger powers to issue unlimited fines, enter properties with only 48 hours’ notice – down from 28 days – and make emergency repairs where there is a serious risk to tenants, with landlords footing the bill.

In a major reset of power between tenants and landlords, residents will be able to demand information and rate their landlord as part of new satisfaction measures. The Bill will form a key part of the government’s mission to level up across the country and deliver on the people’s priorities.

Tenants will have a direct line to government, with a new 250-person residents panel convening every 4 months to share their experiences with ministers, inform policy thinking and help drive change in the sector.

The Bill is the latest step in addressing the systemic issues identified following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, not just on the safety and quality of social housing, but about how tenants are treated by their landlords.

The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill being introduced today removes the serious detriment test – a legislative barrier that once axed will make it easier for the Regulator to tackle poor performing landlords.

The biggest social housing providers will face regular inspections and the Levelling Up Secretary will continue to name and shame worst offenders to make sure residents are living in good quality homes.

Earlier this month, the Levelling Up Secretary called out Britain’s biggest social landlord Clarion after the Housing Ombudsman found severe cases of maladministration.

The Bill will also mean landlords will need to have a named person who will be responsible for health and safety requirements. And tenants of housing associations will be able to request information from their landlord, similar to how the Freedom of Information Act works for council housing.

Today’s move shows the government is delivering on its levelling up missions, taking serious steps to halve the number of poor-quality rented homes by 2030.

The Bill will enable the Regulator of Social Housing to regulate consumer standards proactively, as committed to in the Social Housing White Paper. Abolishing the serious detriment test will allow the regulator to intervene on grounds of a breach or potential breach of consumer standards, whether or not tenants face ‘serious detriment’.

The Secretary of State will continue to name and shame landlords who have breached consumer standards or where the Housing Ombudsman has found maladministration against them.

Alongside Bill introduction, the government is seeking views on electrical safety standards for social housing via a consultation opening today, so that tenants can feel safe in their homes.

This marks the latest step in response to the Grenfell Tower fire, following on from the Building Safety Act and last year’s Fire Safety Act.

The government is committed to delivering a better deal for renters. The Renters Reform Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech will give tenants much needed security. More details will be published shortly in the Private Rented Sector White Paper.

• Health and Social Care Secretary welcomes report and accepts recommendations in full to ensure best possible leadership across the country
• Review sets out new plans to attract great leaders to the most challenged areas in the NHS

The Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid has welcomed the publication of an independent review of health and adult social care leadership, led by General Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard – and, in what will be the biggest shake-up in health and social care leadership in a generation, is accepting all seven transformative recommendations they have put forward.

Strengthening leadership and embedding the best examples of management is vital in ensuring every pound of investment is well spent, with the government investing a record amount in health and care services over the next three years to tackle the Covid backlog.

The review team met over a thousand passionate front-line staff, managers and leaders across health and social care to hear their views which informed their recommendations for improving the skills of all leaders and managers and putting the right culture, training and incentives in place.

While it recognised the current pressures faced by the workforce and identified many examples of inspirational leadership, it found overall there was a lack of consistency and coordination – in particular that there has developed over time an “institutional inadequacy” in the way that leadership and management is trained, developed and valued.

The report also sets out new plans to attract great leaders to the most challenged areas in the NHS, with a package of support and incentives to recruit the top talent into these positions. Through support networks, peer mentoring, training and development, this will ensure the government and the NHS can continue to tackle disparities across the country.

It also found evidence of poor behaviours and attitudes such as discrimination, bullying and blame cultures in certain parts of the health and social care system, with some staff in the NHS in particular not feeling comfortable to speak up. It identified a lack of equal opportunity for managers to access training and colleagues to progress in their careers, with those who have existing networks or contacts more likely to access these opportunities.

Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said:

The NHS faces huge challenges as we recover from the pandemic, from tackling the Covid backlogs to addressing the widespread health disparities that exist across the country.

The findings in this report are stark, it shows examples of great leadership but also where we need to urgently improve. We must only accept the highest standards in health and care – culture and leadership can be the difference between life and death.

I fully support these recommendations for the biggest shake-up of leadership in decades. We must now urgently take them forward, to ensure we have the kind of leadership patients and staff deserve, right across the country.

General Sir Gordon Messenger said:

I have always held our health and social care workforce in the highest regard, and my respect and admiration has only deepened through witnessing their selflessness, professionalism and resilience first-hand.

A well-led, motivated, valued, collaborative, inclusive, resilient workforce is the key to better patient and public health outcomes, and must be a priority.

The best organisations are those which invest in their people to unlock their potential, foster leadership and accountability at every level, with good leadership running through the entire workforce. This must be the goal and I believe our recommendations have the potential to transform health and social care leadership and management to that end.

Aimed at ensuring the right leadership is in place at all levels, the recommendations seek to ensure services can deliver the best possible care, tackle the Covid backlog and address the disparities the pandemic has exposed across the country.

These include an induction for new joiners to instil core values across health and social care, a mid-career programme for managers, stronger action on equality and diversity to ensure inclusive leadership at all levels, clear leadership and management standards for NHS managers with a standardised appraisal system, and greater incentives for top talent to move into leadership roles in areas facing the greatest challenges, to help combat disparities across the country.

NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard said:

As this report recognises, leaders across the health service do a fantastic job in often very challenging circumstances, from designing and delivering the world-leading Covid vaccination programme to delivering the elective recovery plan, and investing in developing our leaders must be a priority.

The NHS is a learning organisation – we welcome this report and are determined to do all we can to ensure our leaders get the support they need to help teams deliver the best care possible for patients.

The seven recommendations are:

1. Targeted interventions on collaborative leadership and a unified set of values across health and social care, including a new, national entry-level induction for all who join health and social care and a new, national mid-career programme for managers across health and social care.
2. Action to improve equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), including embedding inclusive leadership practice as the responsibility of all leaders, committing to promoting equal opportunity and fairness standards, more stringently enforcing existing measures to improve equal opportunities and fairness, and enhancing CQC’s role in ensuring improvement in EDI outcomes.
3. Consistent management standards delivered through accredited training, including a single set of unified, core leadership and management standards for NHS managers, and a curriculum of training and development to meet these standards, with completion of this training made a prerequisite to advance to more senior roles.
4. A simplified, standard appraisal system for the NHS, including a more effective and consistent appraisal system, to reduce variation in how performance is managed and focus on how people have behaved not just what they have achieved.
5. A new career and talent management function for managers, including the creation of a new function at regional level to address a lack of clarity and structure in NHS management careers, providing clear routes to progression and promotion, and ensuring a strong pipeline of future talent.
6. More effective recruitment and development of Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) – NEDs play a vital role in providing scrutiny and assurance, and an expanded, specialist Non-Executive Talent and Appointments team will encourage a diverse pipeline of talent.
7. Encouraging top talent into challenged parts of the system, including a better package of support and incentives in place to enable the best leaders and managers to take on some of the most difficult roles, whereby roles in challenged areas are seen as the best jobs rather than the most feared jobs.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust Chair Dame Linda Pollard said:

I have seen first-hand how hard NHS staff have worked over the last few years and how hard they continue to work as we tackle the Covid backlog.

I remain incredibly proud to be part of the NHS, proud of the incredible people I have worked with over the years and the values held by staff across the board.

Today’s report is about empowering you to be the best version of yourselves – to work to the best of your abilities, have the tools to develop your careers and support each other and to create an equal opportunities workplace of which we can all be proud.

Publication of the report will be followed by a delivery plan with clear timelines on implementing agreed recommendations.

The review of health and social care leadership in England was announced in October 2021 and is the most far-reaching review of health and social care leadership in 40 years.

The review team was made up of representatives from the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, Health Education England, NHSX and social care leaders, as well as clinicians, managers and academics.

The review engaged with more than 1000 stakeholders on over 400 different occasions including: patients and users of social care services, GPs, Allied Health Professionals, clinicians, managers, care workers, researchers, clinical fellows, chairs of previous reviews, NEDs, CEOs, Chairs and MPs.

Danny Mortimer, Chief Executive of NHS Employers and Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Confederation, said:

Our members very much appreciated the engaging, thoughtful and authentic way in which Sir Gordon and Dame Linda undertook their review.  They sought to understand the challenging reality rather than the misleading rhetoric about the roles that those in leadership positions in social care and health undertake.

Their recommendations are important and highlight the further work that is required to support leaders in social care and primary care.

We look forward to supporting the implementation of the report, and will be particularly concerned to ensure that the NHS is a fairer and more inclusive employer for people of all backgrounds and communities.

Saffron Cordery, Interim Chief Executive of NHS Providers, said:

Trust leaders will welcome this constructive report. Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard acknowledge the world-class leadership already in the NHS and have  listened carefully to what local leaders have told them, clearly understanding the many pressures that our large and complex health system is under.

Trusts are committed to working more closely and effectively together to develop and improve leadership, building on existing strong foundations, and local leaders must be fully engaged and involved in any changes to ensure a successful, high-achieving NHS.

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation said:

This important report demonstrates the vital role that NHS leadership and management plays in delivering high quality and efficient care. It rightly recognises the new operating environment which means we require system leadership built on collaboration – this can no longer just be about leaders working autonomously within their own organisations.

The report is also right to point out the gaps in support for NHS leaders and what more can be done to ensure we deliver a consistent approach to leadership development at all levels within the NHS. And, in particular, how we support chief executives who take on highly challenging roles. This approach needs to be based on a culture of learning and improvement in the NHS, with less emphasis on top-down performance management.

The report acknowledges that we have much more to do to create a more diverse leadership in the NHS. We can’t hide from the fact that all too often staff from ethnic minority backgrounds are still not being provided with the support they need to progress to leadership roles. We need to move beyond admiring the problem and make concrete progress in addressing it.

Chair,

France, Germany and the United Kingdom would like to thank Director General Grossi for his latest report contained in GOV/2022/24, and Deputy Director General Aparo for his Technical Briefing. We commend the Agency for its reporting of Iran’s commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, despite the limitations placed on its verification and monitoring activities in Iran.

We are deeply concerned about the continued nuclear advances that the Director General documents in his report. As a result of Iran’s nuclear activities in violation of the JCPoA for more than three years, its nuclear programme is now more advanced than at any point in the past. This is threatening international security and risks undermining the global nonproliferation regime.

The alarming accumulation of enriched material, in particular high enriched uranium enriched up to 60% and uranium enriched up to 20%, is a cause for great concern. It is further reducing the time Iran would take to break out towards a first nuclear weapon and it is fueling distrust as to Iran’s intentions. Part of this stockpile has been transformed into enriched targets and irradiated, further complicating a return to the JCPoA. None of these activities have credible civilian justification in Iran.

Iran’s nuclear advances are not only dangerous and illegal, they risk unravelling the deal that we have so carefully crafted together to restore the JCPoA. The continuation of Research and Development and extensive use of advanced centrifuges are permanently improving Iran’s enrichment capabilities. Iran is now enriching with over 2000 powerful advanced centrifuges, which can enrich many times faster than the model permitted under the JCPOA. The more Iran is advancing and accumulating knowledge with irreversible consequences, the more difficult it is to come back to the JCPoA.

This is also true of R&D activities regarding the production of uranium metal, which is a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon. It is essential that Iran does not resume these activities or commence any further work, in particular related to the conversion of UF6 to UF4, all of which have no civilian credible justification in Iran. Advances in this area would very quickly upset the balance of the deal we have finalized in Vienna.

The IAEA has been without crucial access to data on centrifuge and component manufacturing for a year and half now, since Iran stopped implementing JCPOA-related monitoring measures and suspended the application of the Additional Protocol. This means that neither the Agency, nor the international community, know how many centrifuges Iran has in its inventory, how many were built, and where they may be located, precisely at the point it is expanding its programme and its component manufacturing and centrifuge assembling capabilities. The Agency is very clear that its verification and monitoring activities in relation to the JCPoA have been seriously affected as a result of Iran’s decision to cease implementation of its commitments. This raises the question of whether the Agency will be able to restore the continuity of knowledge in the future given the time that has now elapsed since Iran started to take these steps.

Regarding verification, we recall that, again during this reporting period, Iran has also not implemented Modified Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements to Iran’s Safeguards Agreement. The IAEA is clear that the application of Modified Code 3.1 is a legal requirement of Iran’s safeguards agreement and Iran cannot modify or withdraw from it unilaterally. We strongly urge Iran to return to its legal obligation and to implementing the Code.

Chair,

The E3/EU+3 have been engaged in intensive negotiations with Iran since April 2021 aimed at restoring the JCPoA. The E3 have spared no effort and when we left Vienna three months ago, we had a viable deal on the table which would return Iran into compliance with its JCPoA commitments and the US to the deal. We regret that Iran has not yet seized the diplomatic opportunity to conclude the deal.

We have always been clear that our priority has been to restore the JCPoA. Similarly, we have made it clear that the deal could not remain on the table indefinitely, precisely because Iran continues to advance its nuclear capabilities, undermining the non-proliferation benefits of the deal and consequently the very possibility of reaching a deal. We strongly urge Iran to stop escalating its nuclear programme and to urgently conclude deal that is on the table. This will also allow the Agency to resume full verification and monitoring and start building back its continuity of knowledge over the programme, to provide assurances to the international community over its exclusively peaceful nature.

Chair,

We commend the IAEA for its objective and thorough reporting, and its rigorous and impartial implementation of the mandate conferred on it by the United Nations Security Council. We encourage the Director General to keep the Board informed regarding progress on monitoring and verification in Iran in all its aspects. We would welcome the Agency’s last quarterly report on monitoring and verification in Iran be made public.

Thank you.