Month: September 2018

Jack Ryding, who is 12 and lives near York, is an avid viewer of the BBC documentary A1: Britain’s Longest Road which features Highways England traffic officers helping people on the A1.

Traffic officers who patrol the A1 organised the visit to the regional headquarters in Wakefield for Jack and his friend Freddie Marshall (12) to let them see for themselves what really goes on behind the scenes.

Series 3 of the show – which is currently airing on BBC1 at 11am and attracts around 1.5 million viewers per episode – focuses on the people working round the clock on Britain’s longest and most iconic road.

Alongside traffic officers the series also features maintenance teams from across Highways England who keep the road running.

Jack said:

I really love watching the documentary and coming to the North East control centre and meeting the team involved has been a great experience.

I loved being in the traffic officer vehicle and sounding the bullhorn and meeting the staff in the control room to look at what really goes on behind the scenes.

Jack got to sit in the traffic officer vehicle, visit the control room and chat to the camera operators.

He also got a miniature traffic officer vehicle to take home as a souvenir of the day.

Highways England regional director Richard Marshall said:

The series has really captured the imagination of millions of BBC viewers of all ages, but at just 12 years old, Jack must be one of our youngest fans.

Like so many other viewers, I am delighted that Jack is enjoying the programmes and appreciating the fantastic work which Highways England traffic officers and the rest of the team play in keeping the A1 safe on a daily basis.

The series is airing each day on BBC1 at 11am and will be on until Friday 12 October.

General enquiries

Members of the public should contact the Highways England customer contact centre on 0300 123 5000.

Media enquiries

Journalists should contact the Highways England press office on 0844 693 1448 and use the menu to speak to the most appropriate press officer.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms Gisela Stuart as the new Chair of Wilton Park. The appointment will be effective from 1 October 2018. Ms Stuart replaces the outgoing Chair Iain Ferguson. Ms Stuart served as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Edgbaston from 1997 until 2017. Amongst the public positions she holds are Chair of Change Britain, Director Henry Jackson Society and Member of the Global Strategy Forum Advisory Board.

Wilton Park is a not-for-profit executive agency of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Based in Wiston House, West Sussex, Wilton Park organises over 65 events a year on issues of international security, prosperity and justice. Wilton Park encourages and facilitates high level collaboration that shapes the agenda and pushes forward international policy, with the secluded residential setting enabling frank and open dialogue.

The Chair of Wilton Park serves for a term of five years, with the possibility of re-appointment for a second term.

In the dataset you can find the date of sale for each property, its full address and sale price, its category (residential or commercial) and type (detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat or maisonette and other), whether it is new build or not and whether it is freehold or leasehold.

The number of sales received for registration by property type and month

Of the 99,765 sales received for registration in August 2018:

• 76,239 were freehold, a 2% increase on August 2017
• 11,504 were newly built, a 60% increase on August 2017

There is a time difference between the sale of a property and its registration at HM Land Registry.

Of the 99,765 sales received for registration, 28,423 took place in August 2018 of which:

• 557 were of residential properties in England and Wales for £1 million and over
• 317 were of residential properties in Greater London for £1 million and over
• 6 were of residential properties in West Midlands for more than £1 million
• 4 were of residential properties in Greater Manchester for more than £1 million

The most expensive residential sale taking place in August 2018 was of a detached property in Camden, London for £11,450,000. The cheapest residential sale in August 2018 was a terraced property in Shildon, County Durham for £21,000.

The most expensive commercial sale taking place in August 2018 was in Tower Hamlets, London for £99,750,000. The cheapest commercial sale in August 2018 was in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire for £150.

Access the full dataset

Notes to editors

1. Price Paid Data is published at 11am on the 20th working day of each month. The next dataset will be published on Friday 26 October 2018.
2. Price Paid Data is property price data for all residential and commercial property sales in England and Wales that are lodged with HM Land Registry for registration in that month, subject to exclusions.
3. The amount of time between the sale of a property and the registration of this information with HM Land Registry varies. It typically ranges between two weeks and two months. Data for the two most recent months is therefore incomplete and does not give an indication of final monthly volumes. Occasionally the interval between sale and registration is longer than two months. The small number of sales affected cannot be updated for publication until the sales are lodged for registration.
4. Price Paid Data categories are either Category A (Standard entries), which includes single residential properties sold for full market value, or Category B (Additional entries), such as sales to a company, buy-to-lets where they can be identified by a mortgage and repossessions.
5. HM Land Registry has been collecting information on Category A sales from January 1995 and on Category B sales from October 2013.
6. Price Paid Data can be downloaded in text, CSV format and in a machine-readable format as linked data and is released under Open Government Licence (OGL). Under the OGL, HM Land Registry permits the use of Price Paid Data for commercial or non-commercial purposes. However, the OGL does not cover the use of third party rights, which HM Land Registry is not authorised to license.
7. The Price Paid Data report builder allows users to build bespoke reports using the data. Reports can be based on location, estate type, price paid or property type over a defined period of time.
8. HM Land Registry’s mission is to guarantee and protect property rights in England and Wales.
9. HM Land Registry is a government department created in 1862. It operates as an executive agency and a trading fund and its running costs are covered by the fees paid by the users of its services. Its ambition is to become the world’s leading land registry for speed, simplicity and an open approach to data.
10. HM Land Registry safeguards land and property ownership worth in excess of £4 trillion, including around £1 trillion of mortgages. The Land Register contains more than 25 million titles showing evidence of ownership for some 85% of the land mass of England and Wales.
11. For further information about HM Land Registry visit www.gov.uk/land-registry.
12. Follow us on Twitter @HMLandRegistry our blog and LinkedIn and Facebook.

Contact

The Charity Commission, the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales, has opened a statutory inquiry into The Dorset Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder Support Group (1067658). The inquiry was opened on 13 August 2018.

The charity’s objects include offering help, advice and support to parents and carers of children with AD/HD, to promote and raise the awareness of AD/HD among professionals and the community.

In September 2016, the charity was included in the Commission’s class statutory inquiry, which looked into charities that had defaulted on their annual reporting obligations two or more times in the last five years. The charity filed its outstanding financial information and was removed from the class statutory inquiry on 15 January 2018. The fact that the charity has yet again failed to meet its statutory requirement to file its financial accounting documents on time is a serious regulatory concern to the Commission and evidence of misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of charity.

As a result of the charity’s repeated failure to adhere to its statutory duty to file accounting information, the inquiry will look at:

• the extent to which the trustees are complying with their legal duties in respect of their administration, governance and management of the charity, and in particular;
  • the extent to which a properly appointed board of trustees is exercising proper and adequate oversight over the charity’s affairs,
  • financial management including the charity’s financial controls,
  • compliance with legal obligations for the preparation and filing of the charity’s accounts and other information or returns.
• the extent to which the trustees have complied with previously issued regulatory guidance.

It is the Commission’s policy, after it has concluded an inquiry, to publish a report detailing what issues the inquiry looked at, what actions were undertaken as part of the inquiry and what the outcomes were. Reports of previous inquiries by the Commission are available on GOV.UK.

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Notes to editors

1. The Charity Commission is the regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work see the about us page on GOV.UK.
2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.
3. Section 46 of the Charities Act 2011 gives the Commission the power to institute inquiries. The opening of an inquiry gives the commission access to a range of investigative, protective and remedial legal powers.

• Smart Data Review launched as research published today suggests customers who stay loyal to essential service providers are losing out on £4 billion a year
• the review will look at how we can use technology such as comparison tools and open banking to ensure markets work for consumers, as part of our modern Industrial Strategy

Consumer Minister Kelly Tolhurst has today (Friday 28 September) published details of a new review which will make it easier for consumers to get good deals on essential services like broadband and banking, and put an end to consumers paying unjustifiable ‘loyalty penalties’.

The Smart Data Review will look at speeding up the development of innovative new services such as automatic switching apps to make bills cheaper.

Government wants to ensure that all consumers can benefit from these types of innovative new services, not just those who are digitally savvy and regularly look to switch providers.

The Review will report to the newly established Consumer Forum, chaired by Consumer Minister Kelly Tolhurst, which brings together ministers and CEOs of sector regulators. The government will consult with stakeholders including developers, regulated companies, consumer organisations and charities throughout the review.

Consumer Minister Kelly Tolhurst said:

Britain has long been a world leader in ensuring that markets work in the interests of consumers, but many loyal customers are still paying more than they need to.

The Smart Data Review will enable the development of new technologies to make it easier to access the best deals, and follows tough action we have taken in the energy market through our price cap which will protect over 11 million households from poor value default tariffs this winter.

It is our modern Industrial Strategy in action, ensuring markets provide consumers with keen prices and quality products and services through cutting-edge innovation.

The government’s Modernising Consumer Markets Green Paper highlighted the challenges that consumers face in regulated markets such as financial services, energy and telecoms. For example, consumers can struggle to stay on top of their essential service contracts and find it difficult to identify the best deal, and those that do not switch sometimes pay considerably more.

Today Citizens Advice revealed that customers who stay loyal to their providers are losing out on over £4 billion a year. The Competition and Markets Authority, the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority, is investigating the concerns raised by Citizens Advice.

Citizens Advice research shows the loyalty penalty is disproportionately paid by vulnerable consumers, such as older people and people with mental health issues. These groups are particularly likely to struggle with switching.

In addition to the Smart Data Review, the government is working with regulators to ensure vulnerable consumers are protected by identifying and sharing best practice policies and approaches to vulnerable consumers from across all sectors of the economy.