Tag: communications

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is launching a new competition aimed at the private sector and academia, to seek innovative solutions and approaches to accessing, disabling and/or irreversibly destroying chemical and biological weapons munitions, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and bulk agents on the battlefield.

The competition is aimed an non-traditional defence and security innovators. DASA will be particularly interested to hear from those in allied technology areas such as the oil and gas, mining sectors as well as those which have experience in handling hazardous materials.

With an initial £500,000 to fund multiple proof-of-concept proposals at low Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), it is anticipated that an additional funding of £1.5 million may be available depending on the outcome of the initial funding phase.

It is joint funded by the UK Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defense, and will operate under an existing memorandum of understanding between both nations.

The competition was formally launched at an event in London on 26 September 2018.

Registration for this event has now closed, however, if you wish to attend please email accelerator@dstl.gov.uk and we will endeavor to add you to the delegates list for the day. Places are limited and we reserve the right to limit attendance if needed. If you are accepted to attend the event, you will be sent full details and an agenda.

Competition Summary Document

Details about the competition can be found here

Any queries regarding this competition, should be sent to accelerator@dstl.gov.uk.

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.

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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.