Higher and Further Education Institutions should continue to operate as normal, while remaining alert to any students, staff or visitors exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

Anyone who may have flu should be advised to stay at home and call the National Pandemic flu service on 0800 1 513 100 or 0800 1 516 200 (textphone) or go to www.direct.gov.uk/pandemicflu.

All Higher and Further Education Institutions are advised urgently to review their business continuity plans to ensure they are prepared for use.

Some general guidance to help with planning and preparation is provided in the questions and answers below.

Questions and answers

• What advice should I give to staff and students?
• What should we consider in our business continuity plan?
• Who makes the decision about whether we should close or scale down our operations?
• How will we know when to take further action?
• What about students with special needs?
• What about international students?
• How should we engage with the students’ union?
• How should we prepare for the start of the new academic year in September?
• There has been some discussion in the press about schools being advised to close during a pandemic. Would Higher and Further Education Institutions be advised to close?
• What further guidance is available?
• Who should I contact if I have other questions?

What advice should I give to staff and students?

Keep staff, students and visitors informed and direct them towards general background information at www.direct.gov.uk/pandemicflu or by calling the National Flu Information line on 0800 1 513 513.

The risk of infection can be reduced significantly by ensuring good standards of personal hygiene, so remind staff, students and visitors of good hygiene practice advice at every opportunity, including:

• Washing hands frequently with soap and water to reduce the spread of virus from your hands to your face or to other people
• Covering your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing, using a tissue when possible
• Disposing of dirty tissues promptly and carefully
• Cleaning hard surfaces (such as door handles) frequently using a normal cleaning product

The Catch it, Bin It, Kill It campaign aims to encourage good hygiene. Find out more information about Catch it, Bin It, Kill It and download/order posters.
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What should we consider in our business continuity plan?

Plans should be based on the assumption that your establishment will remain open throughout the pandemic, although you may need to scale down certain operations. You should:

• Analyse the potential impact of staff or student absenteeism on day-to-day operations
• Determine priorities and consider whether there are services that could be scaled down and/or suspended should it prove necessary
• Agree how priority activities will be maintained through the pandemic
• Ensure all role holders within the plan have appointed deputies who understand their role and responsibilities in the event of them being required
• Make sure there are up to date contact lists of names, phone numbers and addresses for all staff and students.
• Consider your policies for staff absences eg to include staff taking time off to care for a sick member of their family
• Consider how you would manage any media interest, including preparing a number of standard responses and identifying spokespersons
• Ensure you know who to contact at your local Health Protection Agency
• Review your supply chain and ensure critical suppliers on whom the institution is reliant, eg fuel, cleaning contractors, caterers, have adequate plans in place to maintain provision of service.
• Check the coverage of your insurance policies
• Consider plans for providing continuity of education

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Who makes the decision about whether we should close or scale down our operations?

Higher and Further Education Institutions should continue to make their own decisions regarding scaling down operations, with expert advice from their local Health Protection Agency services.

Such decisions are matters for vice-chancellors, principals, governors and other senior managers. You should ensure that all concerned are clear about the decision-making responsibilities and the process for keeping the institution open, reducing operations, or for implementing its closure

Institutions should plan for a range of scenarios - staying open, reducing operations, and/or closing to students during a pandemic.
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How will we know when to take further action?

Ensure a process is in place to monitor the impact of the pandemic across your institution. Consider any organisational ‘trigger points’ for further action. These will include a possible shortage of lecturing, cleaning, maintenance and security staff

As with wider Business Continuity Planning, you should also think about severe disruption to the public transport network and power cuts or other utility failures, although there is currently no suggestion that these are expected.
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What about students with special needs?

Ensure that your plans take account of the needs of students with learning difficulties. Ensure they can identify symptoms and that they are clear on the precautions that can be taken. Information for residential special schools and colleges can be found in section 2D of the DCSF guidance [PDF].
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What about international students?

You should also ensure that your plans take account of the needs of international students - both those currently at your institution and those based overseas who may have concerns about travel to the UK - providing clear information and contact points as appropriate.

Guidance on international travel advice can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and World Health Organisation websites.
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How should we engage with the students’ union?

You should involve your students’ union at all stages of the planning process, especially given its potentially substantial role in induction activities, social programmes etc. It may also be helpful to make arrangements for the students’ union to report on potential swine flu cases because its officers and staff may become aware of them first.

Students should be encouraged to consider setting up ‘flu friend schemes’, so that those who have not been affected by the virus can support those that have. This may be of particular value for students living alone with no local or family support.
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How should we prepare for the start of the new academic year in September?

Further and Higher Education Institutions are advised to include guidance on swine flu in new students’ welcome packs. This should include standard hygiene advice and the number of the National Flu Information Line (0800 1 513 513) and the National Pandemic Flu Service number (0800 1 513 100) where appropriate.

It would be useful to include an A5 copy of the NHS ‘Catch It, Bin It, Kill It’ poster. Find out more information about Catch it, Bin It, Kill It and download/order posters.

It may be useful to supply this poster to returning students as well.

New residential students should be registered with a local GP, but remember: you do not need to be registered with a GP to get treatment/Tamiflu.
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There has been some discussion in the press about schools being advised to close during a pandemic. Would Higher and Further Education Institutions be advised to close?

Due to various factors, such as hygiene, children have previously played an important role in spreading virus, during seasonal influenza as well as during a previous pandemic. In contrast, the students, staff and users of Higher and Further Education Institutions are mostly adults, who are more likely to take precautions and adjust their behaviour during a pandemic.

There is no reason to think that closing Higher and Further Education Institutions would provide any benefit. This is under constant review, however, and there may be changes if circumstances and scientific evidence change.

Further Education colleges may need to consider different arrangements for their 14-16 learners, if their schools have closed.
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What further guidance is available?

Updated guidance to Higher and Further Education Institutions on planning for a pandemic and infection control is currently being updated, to be published at the start of the new academic year.

Guidance to Further Education colleges on planning for a pandemic and infection control was originally issued in 2006: Planning for a Human Influenza Pandemic: Guidance to Further Education Colleges [PDF]

Guidance on infection control was issued in 2007: Infection Control - How to Reduce the Spread of Pandemic Flu: Guidance for Further Education Colleges and Higher Education Institutions [PDF]

Details of the National Framework for pandemic flu can be found here: Pandemic flu: a national framework for responding to an influenza pandemic
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Who should I contact if I have other questions?

Officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will be able to help you.

Higher Education

Henry Eliot
020 3300 8086
henry.eliot@bis.gsi.gov.uk

Lizzy Ammon
020 3300 8387
elizabeth.ammon@bis.gsi.gov.uk

Further Education

Sharon Smith
0114 259 1219
sharon.smith@bis.gsi.gov.uk

Nick Rousseau
0114 259 4285
nick.rousseau@bis.gsi.gov.uk

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A new campaign - ‘Backing Young Britain’ – uniting business and government to create thousands of opportunities for young people is launched by Yvette Cooper, Lord Mandelson, Ed Balls and John Denham today.

Launching the campaign Ministers announced £40 million to fund a new mentoring network to help young people find their feet in a tough jobs market and provide more help from day one of unemployment through job clubs and 1-2-1 support. There will also be internships and work placements for graduates and non-graduates - including 10,000 places for 18-21 year olds who haven’t been to university.

Ministers called on businesses and other organisations to make a commitment to support young people in at least one of the following ways:

• work with a partnership to bid for one of the 100,000 jobs for young people from the Future Jobs Fund;
• offer a volunteering place or a volunteer mentor for school or university leavers;
• provide work experience places to help young people learn about work, make contacts and fill their CV;
• consider a young person for a job through a work trial
• offer an internship for a graduate;
• provide an apprenticeship for 19-24 year olds
• join a Local Employment Partnership to make sure job vacancies are advertised to local unemployed people.

Kicking the campaign off today at an event with businesses and young people in London, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Yvette Cooper announced that 117 bidders have been given the green light to create up to 47,000 innovative jobs for young people and the long term unemployed through the Government’s Future Jobs Fund. Jobs will include sports coaches, tourist ambassadors, education assistants, and roles in the green and social care sectors.

Launching the campaign at the Hoxton Apprentice in London, Yvette Cooper said:

“We will not stand by and let young people get left behind in this recession. We are investing around £1 billion in getting young people and the long term unemployed jobs and opportunities to make the most of their talents and skills so they don’t get thrown onto the scrap heap.

“Today 117 organisations have been successful in their bids to create up to 47,000 jobs for young people and the long term unemployed. These opportunities will enable them to gain skills and experience and give them a helping hand onto the career ladder.

“Now we need businesses, charities and public sector bodies to work with us to harness the talent of our young people, so that we can avoid losing a generation and build a stronger future for Britain.”

In addition, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson launched a website with the details of more than 2,500 internships available to graduates from businesses up and down the country. The internships available now are the first of over 6,000 already pledged by employers and will be included on the Graduate Talent Pool site over the coming weeks.

Lord Mandelson said:

“Our national campaign to help every young person to find a job, training or work skills and experience is not just a response to the recession but an investment in our future as we build a stronger Britain.”

Ministers are today out and about around the country visiting successful organisations to see first hand the kind of jobs that will be created by the Future Jobs Fund.

Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls said:

“We must not repeat the mistakes that were made in recessions of the past and abandon a whole generation of young people. The Government already has schemes up and running to help school leavers, graduates and young unemployed people and we’d like businesses and charities to join in by offering schemes such as volunteering places, work experience and apprenticeships.

“For our part, the September Guarantee will guarantee all 16 and 17 year olds a place in learning, whether that’s at school, college, in training or an apprenticeship. More than 1.5 million young people - the highest number ever – will be able to stay on in education or training this year.

“We’re also expanding apprenticeships and training places, as well as places in sixth forms and colleges for a range of courses like Diplomas and A levels, with an overall investment of £6.9billion in the education and training of 16-18 year olds across the country.”

Communities Secretary John Denham said:

“In the downturn it is essential that the government’s real help with jobs and social housing reaches into the heart of the hardest hit communities, to assure people that the government understands their needs and is responding to them.

“The future jobs fund gives local and national government and their partners a huge opportunity to discuss with local people in hard hit areas how new jobs can tackle local needs and provide new opportunities for young people.”

For more information on Backing Young Britain please visit
www.hmg.gov.uk/backingyoungbritain.

Employers can access Graduate Talent Pool at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.bis.gov.uk/graduatetalentpool

Graduates can find out more information about Graduate Talent Pool at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.direct.gov.uk/graduates

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There’s a terrible, lazy assumption made about modern Britain, and that is that we don’t make anything in this country anymore.

The reality is that British Manufacturing employs more people than the financial services sector. We are the sixth largest manufacturer in the world and manufacturing is one of our biggest exports.

So much for the myth therefore that manufacturing is dead in Britain.

And for that reason it’s critical for Britain’s fight back to growth and in the decades ahead, for us to back manufacturing. And to back manufacturing means backing advanced manufacturing.

Our future is in advanced manufacturing because that is where our competitive advantage lies.

There’s no denying British manufacturing has changed dramatically over the last 30 years – and it’s been difficult change, often involving painful and difficult adjustments for companies and their workforce. But what has emerged from that transformation is a world-leading 21st century manufacturing base in Britain.

We still have the residual image, or some people do, of 30 years ago: of smokestacks and factory gates. But manufacturing is not a muscle job anymore – unless you want to categorise the brain as a muscle. It is right smack at the centre of our knowledge economy – with high skilled jobs and representing 75% of British business R&D.

It is about niches and it’s about supply chains – high value supply chains, where we are more often building high-value components rather than finished consumer goods: what I’ve called ‘company clusters’ built around ecosystems of often hundreds of suppliers. This is a world where our best manufacturing companies, as I say, will be making individual components to slot into the high value end of the production market, as often as they make finished consumer products.

And above all it is about science and technology and sophisticated skills in innovation, in design and production.

At the cutting edge

Today is about the manufacturing that we do right at the cutting edge.

This is where the low carbon solutions are being found. Where new industrial platform technologies like plastic electronics, industrial bio-technologies, lightweight composite materials and silicon electronics are reshaping the way we think about certain products.

The point is that these technologies, and others like this, are transforming the production of everything from lipsticks to solar cells, to civil nuclear components and next generation vehicles.

These are areas where Britain has immense potential. We are already a leader. But we have to remain, all the time, ahead of the curve, because the competition is always catching up with us. And therefore, if we stand still, we will simply fall behind.

We also need to recognise the risks involved in trying to succeed in high-growth industries and technologies at an early stage of development. Risky expensive barriers, especially in the current economic conditions, from which in my view it is the Government’s job to help set businesses free. Our job is to take away those barriers which hold back the development of innovative and potentially high growing companies using these technologies.

So that’s where I believe there’s a clear role and responsibility for Government in making sure we have the best possible business environment and skilled workforce for advanced manufacturing.

We can’t do the work of the entrepreneurs – nor should we try. And we can’t displace the private sector. We can’t replicate markets – that’s not the job of Government. But where there are barriers holding such business back, our job is to intervene, and try to minimise or pull away those barriers to allow for that business growth to take place. And that’s the remit of this department, our new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Today’s package

Today, we’re launching a package of major new measures to help UK advanced manufacturers seize these new opportunities.

It comprises more than £150 million of targeted investment that will increase your access to information and support; help boost our skills base, encourage the take up of new technologies and tackle challenges faced by specific sectors such as aerospace.

It includes: £45 million from the Strategic Investment Fund to help develop low-carbon aircraft engine technology. We have a good track record, but again, there are others who are catching up and we are at risk of being overtaken; so we have to stay ahead of the game.

Not only advancing and perfecting products, but making sure products and their engineering processes form part of our transition to a low carbon economy. And for that, the Government’s low carbon industrial strategy and our wider manufacturing industrial objectives and strategy are going to underpin what Government in total can do to support that activity.

£40 million of support for the SAMULET Research and Technology Programme which will strengthen the position of UK aero-engine manufacturing and its supply chain through new technologies.

A significant expansion of the Printable Electronics Centre (PETec) in Sedgefield, creating up to 1,500 new jobs in the next 5 years. I’ve been to that Centre – it has huge potential; the foundations are great; it has a long way further to go and to expand.

And developing a Centre for Excellence in Silicon Design in the South West. Both exciting technologies with huge potential.

We’re increasing access to the services available through our highly successful Manufacturing Advisory Service to enable businesses across the industry benefit from low-carbon and other growing markets. Four companies, including the excellent high-potential growth company we visited in Cambridge this morning – and three others here now – have told me how their businesses have benefitted from the support provided by the Manufacturing Advisory Service.

I congratulate them, thank them, and now they’re going to have to do more with additional resource that we are putting in to the service.

And we’re investing £45 million of funding in Rolls-Royce to build four new Advanced Manufacturing Facilities in the UK - creating and sustaining around 800 jobs and sharpening Britain’s competitive edge in aerospace and civil nuclear global supply chains.

As the advanced manufacturing industries of the future evolve, we will be right behind them as a Government. With strategies on skills, innovation and venture capital that make sure they have the platform they need for global competition.

I was very pleased that we were able to launch the Innovation Investment Fund – seed-corn investment of £150m; over the next ten years I am confident that it will grow into a venture capital fund of £1bn in scale and size; in order to help back innovative companies that need growth capital.

I want to thank the Ministerial Advisory Group, the TSB, the Regional Development Agencies – which play an essential role in deepening our industrial strategies and activism in every part of the country – the CBI, and all of the companies involved in today’s important step forward.

Conclusion - Looking to the Future

If there are two messages that I want people to take away from today’s launch it’s this.

First, that modern British manufacturing matters to our future. I’d go further – it is indispensible for our future. Which is why I am determined that this Government should continue to play its part in putting in place the conditions for our future success.

It is vital to our balanced economic mix in this country. It is at the heart of Britain’s knowledge economy. As one of the UK’s biggest exports, advanced manufacturing can and must be key to our recovery from recession. The next generation of British entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers will be among the most important Britain has ever produced. And we must back them and invest in them now.

But the second part of my answer is, this is not a government that believes in the post-industrial economy. That’s what you get when you have an internet consultant with too much time on his hands. We are committed to creating the conditions in which British manufacturing can compete and prosper. We are not, therefore, a post-industrial economy. And that is what today is about. And today is, I hope, just the start of the development and evolution of our active industrial policies that will see Government backing where there is opportunity for that intervention to place; as long as we can be sure that, as a result of our action, real impact is the result.

So – opportunity and impact. Those will be the criteria which the Government will refer to as we develop our industrial activism. And I’m very grateful for you for coming here today to start that.

Investment totalling £151.5 million has been announced as part of the Government’s targeted strategies for key sectors and markets. It will expand access to information, encourage take up of new technologies and address specific challenges faced by the aerospace sector.

Advanced Manufacturing describes businesses which use a high level of design or scientific skills to produce technologically complex products and processes. Because of the specialised requirements involved, these are usually goods and associated services of high value.

Read about the measures and let us know what you think on our commentable website:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/advancedmanufacturing

In his first major speech on higher education since taking responsibility for it under the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), Lord Mandelson today outlined his views on the essential issues facing universities ahead of an HE Framework on the future shape of the sector that he will publish later this year.

To an audience of university vice chancellors and representatives from across the HE sector, he emphasised the crucial role universities play in building a stronger UK economy and responded to some of the key challenges of social mobility raised in Alan Milburn’s report ‘Unleashing Aspiration’ on access to the professions published last week.

Ahead of an independent review on university tuition fees due later this year, Lord Mandelson said the central questions around how higher education is funded cannot be separated from the issue of access to a university education for those from poorer backgrounds.

Speaking at Birkbeck College, London, he said:

“Over the last decade we as a country have invested hugely in our universities. We have actively pursued a policy of widening access. We have put knowledge and science at the centre of our vision of our economic future, and protected its funding at unprecedented levels.

“We have instituted a fees system that has, in my view, been a radical and signal success in strengthening the resources available to universities without sacrificing accessibility to students.

“But we are obviously facing an incredibly difficult decade of rebuilding growth and future strengths in Britain. There are tough decisions ahead. Our graduates face the toughest job market for years. And ultimately those big twentieth-century higher education questions are still with us. For what end? For whom? Paid for how?”

Outlining the key role of universities on the economy, Lord Mandelson said:

“It seems to me that in defining the economic role of universities we come up with a set of linked challenges all of which are tied to the critical role of universities at the heart of a knowledge economy.

“Equipping people as rounded intellectual beings but also giving them the skills they will need in a global economy.

“Turning more of the knowledge that is generated in UK universities into jobs and growth, especially by bringing businesses and universities together to collaborate.

“These are management challenges for individual universities; but they are a strategic challenge for the UK as a whole. The diversity of mission statements and the autonomy of universities in defining precisely how they serve their students and customers is clearly vital. But there is also a need for a collective strategic vision for the sector and its role in our national economic life. That is the balance we will aim to strike in the Higher Education Framework.”

On social mobility and Alan Milburn’s report, Lord Mandelson said:

“A university education remains the gateway to the professions and a ticket to higher lifetime earnings on average. So I think we have to ask: why, for all the work in the sector and all the seriousness with which it has tackled this question are we still making only limited progress in widening access to Higher Education to young people from poorer backgrounds – especially at our most selective universities?

“We clearly need to look again at how, and how early we identify and engage potential candidates for university. I am attracted to the idea of stronger links between the professions, universities and schools - work experience, early mentoring, clearer lines of communication about what preparing for university and a career in the professions means at every stage of secondary education.

“I agree with Alan Milburn that as well as the usual criteria of standardized testing, there is a strong case for using other more contextual benchmarks for talent spotting that look at the way candidates have exploited the opportunities open to them in their lives. Some universities in the UK are using these approaches. There is good evidence that they work. And any Vice Chancellor that takes a broad and innovative approach to identifying talent will have the firm backing of the government.”

Lord Mandelson made it clear that he would not pre-empt the independent review of fees planned for launch in the autumn. He added:

“I do not believe that we can separate the issues of fees, access and student support. Any institution that wants to use greater costs to the student to fund excellence must face an equal expectation to ensure that its services remain accessible to more than just those with the ability to pay.

“Whatever funding mix for higher education we develop, there must always be a link between what an institution charges and its performance in widening access and supporting those without the ability to pay.”

Read the full speech

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The result is the fact that our universities have been the source of a huge amount of the progressive and critical thinking on government, education, social welfare and economics that has shaped twentieth century society.

A further result is the fact that while much of the innovative science and research in British life up until the latter half of the nineteenth century took place outside of our universities, a huge amount – if not most of - the best science and innovation since has taken place within them.

Another result is the gradual shift from a country in which higher education was the preserve of a small minority, at the end of adolescence, to one in which only a third of higher students are aged 18-22 and where there are more people enrolled this year in the Open University alone than in the entire university system nearly forty years ago when I was a student. And a society in which, I am glad to say, more than half of higher education students are women, when they made up only a quarter half a century ago.

We’ve gone from having a small number of institutions, with an essentially Victorian idea of what a university education was, to a Higher Education landscape that is now more diverse in its approaches and mission statements than it has ever been. This institution, Birkbeck, with its commitment to research and teaching excellence and its innovative approach to evening study is an exceptional example of this transformation that has taken place in our university sector.

These changes are a response to economic as well as social change. The development of an industrial and then a services economy in which mass literacy and numeracy are important and where technical education and specialization are increasingly required for higher paid employment.

My argument today is that these basic trends and the issues they have raised are still at the heart of higher education policy. Over the last decade we as a country have invested hugely in our universities, more than ever before. We have actively pursued a policy of widening access. We have put knowledge and science at the centre of our vision of our economic future, and protected its funding at unprecedented levels.

We have instituted a fees system that has, in my view, been a radical and signal success in strengthening the resources available to universities without sacrificing accessibility to students.

But we are obviously facing an incredibly difficult decade of rebuilding growth and future strengths in Britain following the international banking crisis and ensuing recession. There are tough decisions ahead. Our graduates face the toughest job market for years. And ultimately those big twentieth-century higher education questions are still with us. For what end? For whom? Paid for how?

Now I’m not even going to try to answer these questions comprehensively today. But they are the backdrop to the Higher Education Framework that I have decided will now be published in the Autumn rather than now.

It will be a flagship policy statement for the new department of Business, Innovation and Skills. I recognise of course that bringing university policy into a department with ‘Business’ in its title has not thrilled everyone in the university world. But it really puts universities in my view at the heart of policy on our future growth and prosperity in our country and I want to argue today that that is exactly where they should be – right at the heart of our policy making and the future of our country, our economy and society.

I want to set out some of my initial thinking on three broad arguments. I will say something about what the economic role of our universities should be in the twenty first century – and how we should understand the very idea of an ‘economic role’ for higher education.

I want to draw some explicit lines between that economic role and the social role of universities, particularly as engines of social mobility and life long learning. Here, Alan Milburn’s report of last week has framed the parameters of the debate extremely well in my view. Finally, I’m going to argue that these conclusions about social mobility have to be part of any debate about university fees in England.

For what end: the economic role of a university

I want to start by talking about the economic role of our universities. By this I mean the uniquely important role that universities play in preparing people for the world of twenty-first century work. And the extent to which we translate the knowledge minted in our universities into economic growth, which is fundamental to our prosperity. I want the universities to focus more on commercialising the fruits of their endeavour.

Before I expand on this, I need to be clear that I do not believe that the function of a university is limited to – or even primarily about - economic outcomes. They are not factories for producing workers. Defining the skills that directly underwrite many skilled jobs in the UK is not the same as defining useful and necessary knowledge. The case for a higher education system that invests in everything from classics to quantum physics is a compelling one.

I say this not just because the utility in knowledge is often impossible to predict. It is because knowledge is an end in itself. Because historical awareness and critical thinking are part of the inventory of a rounded human being.

But also because character and economic competitiveness are actually rather hard to disentangle. If the modern economy is built on specialisms, it is also built on a raft of soft skills such as intellectual confidence, logical thinking, communication and working and collaborating in teams.

I believe that these things come above all not from particular disciplines, but from the discipline of good teaching. And for me, that raises an important challenge for universities. We have become very good at developing criteria for assessing research excellence in universities, and for incentivising research excellence. We also need to look in my view for ways of incentivising excellence in academic teaching – which is not quite the same thing.

But, as I say, the modern global economy puts a premium on specialization. It is an economy of supply chains and niches. The sectors in which British firms have potential comparative advantage in the next decade – low carbon, digital communications, life science, the creative industries: these are all absolutely reliant on high levels of knowledge, of skill and innovation. They will also draw heavily on our capacity for research and our ability to commercialise it. So our universities are inescapably central to our economic future.

I am struck that we are building on very strong foundations here. Graduate employment rates and wage premia suggest we are developing highly employable people. British universities and businesses are collaborating at record levels. Increasingly they are doing this in areas beyond the well-established research-intensive sectors such as pharmaceuticals. Just last week the Royal Society published a report highlighting the value of research collaboration in the services sector.

The quality of the UK’s universities and research base has played a critical role in attracting inward investment from knowledge-intensive businesses like Microsoft and Pfizer. These companies are not here out of fellow-feeling –they are here above all for a world-class university system and a science base that is second only to that of the US in productivity.

That same level of quality has also seen us become the second biggest destination for another kind of import: overseas students, for whom the UK is now the second largest destination after the United States.

We live in a world where 2 billion people are younger than 25 and where the appetite for Anglophone education is simply immense. So this is something we value hugely and we will continue to welcome genuine international students and ensure that the country’s immigration system, and the implementation of the student tier of the points-based approach, will fully support this recruitment in future – and I have my eagle eye well trained.

We will also throw our weight behind UK universities looking to export their brands globally as the Prime Minister and I are already doing in our own foreign investment visits.

As far as producing employable people is concerned, the key is surely the relationship between universities, employers and students. Some of our biggest companies will still say they can’t find sufficient well-qualified graduates in Britain – especially in core disciplines like engineering. We need employers to communicate clearly and constructively to universities the skills they need so that courses can adapt and evolve – something that businesses have not always done effectively. Perhaps they have been shy or felt that they would not receive a hearing? We need universities to communicate to students the career trajectories from different subject choices, and the likely market demand for their skills.

But we also need to have some sense of the wider strategic picture on skills and national capabilities. Not least because public resources are finite and it is hard to justify having no collective sense of where the marginal pound in British higher education should be properly focused. That is why we tied the funding for 10000 additional students this year to the skills that the economy will need for the future, particularly science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees.

We also need to encourage and assist universities in exploiting the intellectual property they generate to drive wider economic growth. The Innovation Investment Fund that Paul Drayson developed and that we launched as part of Building Britain’s Future will provide a huge new pool of venture capital for university spinouts. I hope that over the coming 10 years the Innovation Investment Fund will grow to £1 billion and we have already as a Government set the seeds for that growth.

But we also need to look for ways to encourage further collaboration between researchers and industry. It strikes me that one of the biggest challenges here lies not with universities, but with businesses. Especially with small firms, who simply don’t realize the resources they have down the road in the local lab.

This is why we need to keep looking for innovative ways to bring businesses and researchers together, including incentives for collaboration in the new Research Excellence Framework.

I am also keen to do some further work on the unique role of postgraduate education, which is often the point where students develop specialist skills to complement a more general undergraduate education. It is also a major export earner for the UK, and one which we have perhaps taken too much for granted. For that reason, I have decided to launch a review of postgraduate provision in Britain, led by Professor Adrian Smith, the director general of Science and Research in my department. It will draw on expertise from universities and businesses and report back in early 2010.

So, to sum up, it seems to me that in defining the economic role of universities we come up with a set of linked challenges all of which are tied to the critical role of universities at the heart of a knowledge economy.

Equipping people as rounded intellectual beings but also giving them the skills they will need in a global economy.

Turning more of the knowledge that is generated in UK universities into jobs and growth, especially by bringing businesses and universities together to collaborate even more than they do now.

These are management challenges for individual universities; but they are a strategic challenge also for the UK as a whole. The diversity of mission statements and the autonomy of universities in defining precisely how they serve their students and customers is clearly vital. But there is also a need for a collective strategic vision for the sector and its role in our national economic life. That is the balance we will aim to strike in the Higher Education Framework when we publish in the Autumn.

For whom: social mobility and lifelong learning

This picture of the economic role of higher education has some immediate and obvious implications for how we see its social role. If a university education is an entry ticket to the best paid employment and a preparation for a globalised world of work, then access to it will inevitably define the degree of social mobility that we’re able to achieve in Britain.

We are doing better, but not well enough. I am impatient about this progress and intend to turn up the spotlight on university admissions.

Alan Milburn’s report was a milestone. As he set out, this is a much bigger issue than just higher education. It has implications for parental attitudes and the whole education system, especially the journey towards or away from university that begins in the early teens, or indeed even earlier than that.

In thirteen years as MP for Hartlepool I saw first hand the damage that can be done by low expectations and by barriers to social mobility. I have always believed that a fair Britain is one in which the daughter of a Hartlepool shopkeeper has the same shot at being a High Court Judge as the son of a Surrey stockbroker.

Now of course it is true that university education is not the only way to prepare successfully for modern economic life. Indeed I believe that one of the great challenges for this government is now further defining and promoting different pathways into non-graduate careers, building on our strengths in further education and developing adult skills. We now have quarter of a million apprentices in this country – five times more than we did a decade ago when this Government started out - which opens up the potential to develop over time a whole new offer to young British people for professional development.

Nevertheless, a university education remains the gateway to the professions and a ticket to higher lifetime earnings on average. So I think we have to ask: why, for all the work in the sector and all the seriousness with which it has tackled this question are we still making only limited progress in widening access to Higher Education to young people from poorer backgrounds – especially at our most selective universities?

We clearly need to look again at how, and how early we identify and engage potential candidates for university. I am attracted to the idea of stronger links between the professions, universities and schools - work experience, early mentoring, clearer lines of communication about what preparing for university and a career in the professions means at every stage of secondary education.

And I agree with Alan that as well as the usual criteria of standardized testing, there is a strong case for using other more contextual benchmarks for talent spotting that look at the way candidates have exploited the opportunities open to them in their lives. Some universities in the UK are using such approaches already. There is good evidence that they work. And any Vice Chancellor that takes a broad and innovative approach to identifying talent will have the firm backing of the government and of me.

I also think we need to ask whether the higher education system adequately supports mature students and part timers. I think we have taken huge steps in all these areas – not least in the pathbreaking model of the Open University and here at Birkbeck, which openly positions itself as “London’s evening university”.

But we need to be that serious about adult skills and life-long higher and further education, for a number of simple reasons. First: almost half of British university students are already mature students. Second, most of the future British workforce of the 2020s is already in their twenties or older, and it is their skills that will determine our economic capabilities at that critical point. Third, the demographics of an ageing population mean that even with an influx of foreign students, the student market is going to get progressively older, and demand will reflect that.

There is clearly a place for the conventional, campus-based, full time, away-from-home model of study leading to a final degree – to state the obvious. But we need to keep encouraging the alternatives that are springing up: two-year honours degrees, part time modular degrees, modular programmes that don’t have to lead to a full degree.

These are controversial issues and they evoke passionate views. But they need reasoned debate and I don’t shy away from that. My provisional conclusion, suggested by the ideas I have just floated, is that we need to do more in these directions.

Rightly, we have invested heavily in excellence in British universities. We have an obligation to ensure that the chance to benefit from that excellence is determined by natural talent rather than social background. We also need to ensure that higher education can be an integral part of a whole working life, not just its antechamber.

Paid for how: funding and access

Which brings me to my final point, which is about funding. Bluntly put: excellence is not cheap. When this Government came to office, we faced the challenge of maintaining a world class university sector, with higher participation rates. And I was in the Cabinet Office at the start of the Government’s term and I

remember sitting in meetings as we took on the funding gap in the order of many millions of pounds, which was accompanied by debate from all sides. We now face the same challenge with inevitable pressure on public resources. We cannot duck the issue: everything we want to achieve in higher education depends on a solid, sustainable system of funding for higher education.

Part of the solution must be widening the sources of funding universities can draw on. This might be a more professional and confident approach to seeking endowments and donations. It can be growing income from research collaboration with industry or even government. It can be marketing a university brand around the world. Universities are doing more of all of these and I welcome and encourage that. But they alone do not represent a sustainable funding model for the sector as a whole.

Inevitably we are going to come back to the balance of state and user funding. And this raises the issue of fees, and their role in paying for world class institutions. I have no intention of pre-empting the independent fees review that we will launch in the Autumn on this question. But I would make a simple point that follows from everything I have just said.

I do not believe that we can separate the issues of fees, access and student support. Any institution that wants to use greater costs to the student to fund excellence must face an equal expectation to ensure that its services remain accessible to more than just those with the ability to pay.

There is a lively debate in this country on how we should fund higher education and I welcome that debate and I am going to nurture it. It is time for that debate to reach some absolutely hard and fast conclusions. But whatever funding mix for higher education we develop, there must always be a link between what an institution charges and its performance in widening access and supporting those without the ability to pay.

Conclusion: higher education in modern life

I realize that this is an audience probably used to sitting through overlong lectures, but I have no intention of pushing my luck, so let me sum up. I’ve sketched out what I think are some of the biggest issues that I want to tackle in setting the direction of higher education in our new framework in the Autumn. I haven’t been exhaustive this morning and I’ve asked more questions than I have answered, but that was partly the point because you are going to have to help me and the Government find these answers. We won’t find them alone.

However, I think I’ve made it clear what sort of Universities Secretary I am and where I am coming from. I’ve argued that in a modern economy and society universities are a social trust. They have three great roles: passing on existing knowledge, generating new knowledge, and helping ensure that new knowledge underwrites our collective prosperity wherever possible. I believe that the way we enable and equip our universities to do these things will say more about how we understand the unique challenges of prospering in a globalised economy and culture at the start of the third millennium than almost anything else a government can do.

I’ve argued that there is no tension between a more strategic view of Britain’s universities as critical to our knowledge economy and our future economic growth and their essential autonomy or their cultural and civilisational role. That is fundamental to my entire approach to policy in respect of universities. The man in Whitehall – and increasingly the woman - does not know best how to run a university.

Far from the gross caricature of academic insularity, I have been incredibly struck, since my appointment, by the massive appetite in the sector for what I can only call ‘relevance’ to our economic and social challenges in a globalised economy. I have yet to find a Vice-Chancellor in an ivory tower in respect of dealing with these economic challenges – maybe by the chance I have covered the length and breadth of the country I will, but not so far. I’ve been asked many times by university leaders with respect to the economy: ‘how can universities help?” For that reason, I believe the logical home for university policy is in a new department whose core remit is investing in economic growth, investing in our future. Building our national strengths in knowledge and innovation. These are also the remits of a modern university.

However, I’ve argued that we are at risk – as are all countries that aspire to excellence in their higher education sector – of failing properly to exploit the role of university education as a means of social mobility.

I think that the historic anti-elitism of some parts of the left on education policy has often been a dead end because it has confused excellence and privilege. Those two things are not the same. But the only way to square that circle is a higher education system that widens access and increases social mobility even as it fosters excellence. It is not enough for universities simply to confer life advantages from one generation of professionals to their children. Everyone should be able to aspire to those advantages – on the basis of merit, not the lottery of birth.

Finally, I argued that we cannot separate these issues from the question of how higher education is funded in England. We have to face up to the challenge of paying for excellence. But whatever the outcome of the fees review, our expectations of institutions in widening access and supporting poorer students must advance in lockstep. The path to an equal opportunity Britain must run through all our universities.

I started by suggesting the last hundred and fifty years have seen a revolution in British universities. I’ll finish by saying that it seems to me that this has been an undeniably progressive revolution.

It has embedded science in our national intellectual culture and widened access to knowledge, education and critical thinking to a degree that is hard to exaggerate. It has fundamentally reshaped our liberal arts culture and our democracy. It has underwritten the creation of new industries and better jobs for literally millions of people and played a crucial role in equipping British people to prosper in a globalised economy and culture.

However, for us as a country it is also an unfinished revolution. And in that fact, for us, lies both the challenge and also the huge opportunity.

Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation, will formally kick off the consultation at the London launch of a new European Space Agency (ESA) facility at Harwell, on Wednesday 22 July. The consultation will seek views on whether the current organisation which oversees space in the UK, the British National Space Centre (BNSC), is the best funding structure to meet the challenges of the future and deliver the greatest benefit to the country.

Read the consultation document here

The BNSC has helped the UK to build a hugely successful sector which is second only to the USA in space science, contributes £6.5bn a year to the UK economy and supports 68,000 jobs.

However, as the world becomes increasingly dependent on advances in space science and in order to safeguard the UK’s “critical mass” of skills and expertise, today’s consultation is seeking views on the appetite for a single agency to better co-ordinate the UK’s civil space strategy.

The Minister for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson said:

“Space is so important to our future. The UK space industry has thrived under the BNSC, but the Apollo 11 anniversary demonstrates the need for ambition, purpose and a clear sense of commitment.

“We now have to look ahead to the next 40 years. I want this consultation to be inspired and influenced by this idea. So we can provide the best support to our world-leading space sector. So it can continue to flourish and when the economic growth takes hold, make an even bigger impact on the UK economy and our lives.”

A thriving space sector will play an important role in building Britain’s future and the recession busting trends of the space industry is a testament to the nature of business that will generate the jobs of the future.

Space is a key part of the global communications network, driving globalisation and providing new business opportunities. The UK’s leading satellite infrastructure will also support sustainable development, help protect our oceans and fisheries, and allow us to predict and help when natural disasters strike throughout the world.

Britons benefit from space technology every day – often without realising it.

Some advances are obvious, such as satellite communications, television broadcasting. Mobile networks and accurate GPS equipment in cars. Others are more obscure, such as timing networks underpinning telephone and power grids.

Space applications can provide solutions for developing policy and providing services, for example, the Digital Britain initiative which will use satellites to achieve its goal of total UK broadband coverage by 2012.

The 12-week consultation starts on the day the European Space Agency (ESA) lands in Harwell, Oxfordshire – opening its first facility in the UK.

The ESA facility will focus on three areas – adapting space data and images to create new everyday applications; climate change modelling that uses space data; and developing technologies such as novel power sources and innovative robotics which could be used to explore the Moon and Mars.

Through the new ESA facility and the International Space Innovation Centre which will be created in Harwell, the UK will maximise its world-leading strengths in these areas and enable our space industry to win a larger share of the global market in space systems, services and applications.

The Government also recently announced the Space Innovation and Growth Team which offers a huge opportunity for the government to work alongside industry to define a clear plan – a 20 year vision – and come up with a strategy for the future growth of the UK space industry.

The Minister for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson, added:

“Britain is undergoing a space renaissance. We must build on this to strengthen our outstandingly successful space programme. I hope this consultation will help us establish the infrastructure we need to take UK space into a new age.”

Read the consultation document here

As part of those talks he will update them on discussions that the Government has been having with all the parties involved and reiterate the Government’s commitment to continued Vauxhall production in the UK.

Lord Mandelson said:

“We are determined to continue out detailed discussions with RHJI, Magna and other interested parties to secure a long term commercial future for Vauxhall.

“I and my officials are in constant contact with the US and German governments and GM and others to ensure Britain’s interests are fully represented.

“As one of GMEs most efficient plants, Ellesmere Port produces one of the UK’s favourite cars, the Vauxhall Astra and I hope one day the Ampera.

“Vauxhall is an excellent and very popular UK brand. Continued Vauxhall production remains a top priority for this government.”

The projects are the first ‘Early Bird’ bids to receive funding under the Government’s £20m Transformation Fund to support informal adult learning – learning for pleasure, self-development and community development.

Each project has been allocated a share of £1m by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The projects will introduce a range of innovative adult learning initiatives and activities for the benefit of a diverse range of communities and individuals.

The Transformation Fund delivers on commitments made in The Learning Revolution White Paper, published earlier this year, which announced a new approach to improving people’s lives and prosperity though learning for pleasure.

Kevin Brennan, Minister for Further Education, Skills and Consumer Affairs, said:

“These new projects will help to transform the way adults engage with learning - be it through music, creative writing, or parent groups - at the same time as promoting new partnerships in local communities.

“Learning for pleasure is hugely important - contributing to health, building confidence and improving community cohesion. In the longer term, informal learning can also act as a stepping stone towards more formal qualifications and employment.”

BIS has also announced today that the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) has won the tender to manage the Transformation Fund and oversee the distribution of the remaining £19million grant fund.

Alan Tuckett, Chief Executive of NIACE, said:

“NIACE is proud to have the role of supporting the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills managing the Transformation Fund. We argued in our response to the Informal Learning Consultation that there is no better stimulus for local adult learning providers than the creation of a fund to trigger innovation and new partnerships.

“There’s already evidence from the ‘early bird’ bids of how creative and imaginative community-based adult learning can be when it’s given the opportunity for blue-skies thinking and the money to put those ideas into practice.”

The Transformation Fund was set up to encourage new partnerships between public, private and community organisations and create informal learning activities which:

• encourage more and different people into informal learning, particularly people from disadvantaged groups;
• open up access to learning in new places, in new ways and at more flexible times;
  support people to set up self-organised groups and learning clubs;
• widen choice, by developing and sharing innovative content;
• build partnerships and strengthen the capacity of informal adult learning organisations;
• improve connections and progression between different kinds of learning; and
  make better use of broadcasting and technology to stimulate and support learning.

The fund, available in 2009-10, adds to the £210m which the Government has already ring-fenced to support informal adult learning. The Government also invests £360m each year in museums and galleries, £10m in UK online centres in libraries and other community settings and £21.5m in union learning.

The Transformation Fund delivers on a pledge made in the Government’s The Learning Revolution White Paper, published in March 2009, which describes how Government and a multitude of partner organisations can work together to create a new movement for informal learning.

Press release - British business future lies with engaging its employees - 16 July 2009

Involving employees fully in the future of the firms they work for will be a key step if businesses are to innovate and take advantage of new opportunities, an independent review announced today.

The MacLeod Review of employee engagement has recommended government support and more cooperation by UK businesses both large and small, to make sure the relationship between employees and employers is at the centre of successful business plans.

Led by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, the review was commissioned in September to make recommendations on promoting employee engagement.

David MacLeod said:

“This is about unleashing the potential of people at work and enabling them to be the best they can be. Whether we are in a downturn or in better economic times, engagement is a key to innovation and competitiveness.

“Engagement is increasingly recognised as vital by senior figures in the public sector, the private sector and trades unions. We are delighted that if our recommendations are accepted, a distinguished sponsor group has already agreed to work with us to raise awareness and understanding.

“Employers in all parts of the economy can make a success of employee engagement through culture change, rather than investing significant financial resources.”

Nita Clarke said:

“Our recommendations set out a road-map for government to offer help and support, and for businesses and employee groups to help each other.

“By respecting the contribution employees can make and ensuring they are fully involved in developing their organisation’s future, employers can help unlock their full potential. If workplaces up and down the UK learn from the best standards that are already in place, the whole country will benefit.

“When done well, employee engagement is a win for the organisation, a win for the individual and therefore a win for the country as a whole.”

The MacLeod Review has recommended:

• The government should work to raise awareness of employee engagement benefits and techniques.
• A senior sponsor group bringing together representatives from business, the public sector, not-for-profit organisations and unions, should be set up to boost understanding of this vital topic – many leading figures leaders have already agreed to be part of this group.
• The government and its agencies should work together to ensure their support is aligned and tailored to the needs of different organisations in different sectors of the economy seeking to enhance levels of employee engagement.
• A range of more practical support for organisations who want to raise levels of employee engagement should be made available by March 2010. This support should be designed in consultation with businesses and other organisations to ensure it is tailored to their needs.

Contributors to the review included some of the biggest names in British business, as well as smaller firms and public sector bodies.

If you would like to read the full report, please click on the link below.

Engaging for success: enhancing performance through employee engagement [MacLeod review] (885KB)

The report is also available in Welsh; please contact Debra Macleod on 0207 215 0973 for a copy. Mae’r adroddiad hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg; cysylltwch â Debra Macleod ar 0207 215 0973 am gopi.

The Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, launched today, sets out the action the Government is taking to ensure that British businesses and workers are equipped to maximise the economic opportunities and minimise the costs of the transition to a low carbon economy.

The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) Blueprint sets out to transform the UK environment for life sciences companies and ensure faster patient access to cutting-edge medicines and technologies. The OLS forms part of the Government’s active industrial policy.

Agreed across Government, and with industry, academia and the NHS, key actions include:

• The Government, with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), will introduce an “Innovation Pass”, a 3-year initiative that will make selected innovative medicines available on the NHS for a time-limited period. The Pass will be piloted in 2010/2011, with a budget of £25 million
• The NHS Chief Executive will review system levers and incentives, including Payment by Results, to accelerate the uptake of medical technologies
• The Government will reinforce the need for greater emphasis on research and clinical trials in the next NHS Operating Framework
• From 2010, the Society of Biology will begin to accredit undergraduate bioscience degrees to help ensure that graduates leave with the core mathematical and practical skills and competencies required by employers
• The Government will support the formation of a UK Life Sciences Super Cluster to co-ordinate work across industry, Higher Education and the NHS, and to boost international recognition of UK life sciences
• The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) will launch an £18 million “RegenMed” programme of investment to support commercial R&D with additional funding from the Medical Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The TSB has also committed to improve its expertise in the life sciences
• The Government will invest an extra £1 million to promote the UK and NHS brands at flagship life sciences events in the UK and overseas.

Lord Drayson, Minister for Science & Innovation, said:

“The UK life sciences have everything going for them: world-class facilities, talented scientists and entrepreneurial flair. By championing innovation, the NHS can support the life sciences industry in developing ways to improve people’s health. And we are changing how industry, academia, Government and the NHS work together to create jobs and ensure a bright future for this country.”

Lord Darzi, Health Minister for Quality and Innovation, said:

“By placing innovation at the heart of healthcare delivery we will help create a pioneering NHS, one that responds to patients expectations, and one where the adoption of new ideas and the diffusion of innovation is encouraged and supported.

“Establishing a culture of innovation is also essential for the NHS to meet any current economic challenges, and the Life Sciences Blueprint will help us continue to support this country’s knowledge industries and ensure that we benefit from the competitive edge which they provide.”

Andrew Dillon, Chief Executive of NICE, said:

“Securing a successful future for the life sciences industries is important for patients and the UK economy. NICE is committed to engaging constructively with companies and we are extending the access that companies have to us, as we appraise their products. The Innovation Pass is an opportunity for data to be gathered on potentially important new treatments. NICE has been involved in discussions about the Innovation Pass, and we are looking forward to continuing to play a key role in developing the Pass.”

The Blueprint forms a key part of Building Britain’s Future, the Government’s vision for the country’s future on the other side of the recession. As first set out in “New Industries, New Jobs”, the Government is pursuing a new, more active industrial policy to drive growth and create high-value jobs of the future.

Download the Blueprint

Innovation and science will play a key role in building a stronger and more competitive economy able to take advantage of the upturn. The iawards will recognise those people and businesses that will help to do this.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

“New innovations will help us build for the future and take advantage of new opportunities in low carbon, digital technology, bioscience and advanced manufacturing.

“The iawards will celebrate and recognise Britain’s most innovative entrepreneurs.”

Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson said:

“Now more than ever we need to support and celebrate British innovation.

“New ideas and products will get us out of the downturn and provide the foundations on which we can build Britain’s future. The next iPlayer, Spotify and Ecotricity are out there and the people that will create these successful companies need to be supported and celebrated. The iawards will do just that.”

James Caan said:

“Britain is home to some of the greatest minds in the world. We are the nation that invented the jet engine, created the code for the Internet and led research on the human genome project. Science and technology will shape the future of our economy. This is why it is so important for the iawards to recognise and honour Britain’s innovators for the vital contribution they make to our economy.”

Entries for the 13 categories are open to all organisations, but must specify the British involvement in any innovation - demonstrating that innovative thinking and development came from a British organisation or team.

The awards categories reflect the greatest challenges we face as country where science and innovation offer the best chance of developing viable solutions. Each entry must demonstrate how its innovative qualities relate to at least one of the following challenges:

• addressing the healthcare needs of an aging society;
• increasing international security from tackling global poverty to minimising the threat of terrorism;
• preserving finite natural resources in the face of population growth and climate change; and
• delivering public services which make best use of new technologies.

They must also demonstrate that the innovation has an impact on one of the Governments grand challenges for science.

The iawards will be run by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.  Siemens will sponsor the ‘Next Big Thing’ category and Microsoft will sponsor the best technology start up category.

Winners of the awards will be helped by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) to meet potential business partners at key industry events such as the giant Medica trade fair in Germany and TechnologyWorld in Coventry this autumn. They will also receive public relations support from the iawards team. All of shortlisted entries and the winners will also have exclusive access to the iawards logo.

Science and technology has been a driving force behind Britain’s export success. Exports for life sciences, for example, rose 19% in 2008. Innovation is also important in keeping the UK as the number one destination for inward investment in Europe. UKTI statistics show that the number of investment projects in creative industries increased by 65% in 2008/9 and in software and computer services by 36%.

For more information, and to enter, visit www.iawards.org.uk. The closing date for entries is 16 September. The iawards gala dinner will take place at the Science Museum, November 16, 2009.

The iawards categories are:

1. The iaward for life sciences – This category is for innovation in any life sciences area which supports society in terms of healthcare and the national challenge of an ageing population.
2. The iaward for transport – This category is for innovation in any area of transportation which supports society in terms of moving people, products and service delivery.
3. The iaward for energy and environment – This category is for innovation in any area of energy and environment which supports society in terms of the challenge of providing/conserving energy and our responsibilities ensuing from climate change.
4. The iaward for places to live and work – This category is for innovation in any area which supports society in terms of places to live and work.
5. The iaward for digital communications – This category is for innovation in any area which supports society in terms of communications and how our economy is driven by pace of change.
6. The iaward for entertainment/media – This category is for innovation in any area which supports society in terms of the creative industries and how this is a key economic driver for our nation.
7. The iaward for a consumer product – This category is for innovation in any area which supports our society and has provided a product or service which has most positively impacted the lives of mass consumers.
8. The iaward for the cross-application of technology – This category is for innovation in any area which supports our society in terms of one of the key national challenges.
9. The iaward for best collaboration – This category is for innovation in any area which supports our society in terms of one of the key national challenges.
10. The iaward for British inside – This category is for innovation in any area which supports our society in terms of one of the key national challenges.
11. The iaward for inward investment – This category is for innovation in any area which supports our society in terms of one of the key national challenges.
12. The iaward for the next big thing – This category is for innovation in any area which supports our society and is yet to be fully commercialised in its widest potential.
13. The iaward for best technology start up.

For more details about the awards, visit www.iawards.org.uk

On Saturday, BIS hosted an ‘unconference’ - Connected Generation - exploring youth engagement in a digital age.

As with all unconferences, the agenda was set on the day by participants, who volunteered to lead sessions on their areas of expertise. Youth workers and practitioners met with researchers, innovators and policy makers to explore how to engage young people using social media and online technologies.

By hosting the conference at Kingsgate House, BIS staff walked the talk of the Department’s ‘Learning Revolution’ White Paper. The White Paper suggested cheap or free ‘open spaces’ should be provided by publicly-funded organisations to support learning by self-organised groups.

Connected Generation was the second in a series of volunteer-run events, made possible by the kind sponsorship of a number of individuals. You can learn more about the conference and its outputs or discuss the issues of youth engagement in the digital age.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said:

“Blacklisting someone because they are a member of a trade union is totally unacceptable.

“I am determined to act quickly to stamp out this despicable practice. Today’s proposals outline how we will deliver this”.

The main proposals are:

• to make it unlawful for organisations to refuse employment or sack individuals as a result of appearing on a blacklist;
• to make it unlawful for employment agencies to refuse to provide a service on the basis of appearing on a blacklist; and
• to enable individuals or unions to pursue compensation or solicit action against those who compile, distribute or use blacklists.

This consultation will run for a shorter than usual period of six weeks to enable legislation to be brought forward as soon as possible. Ministers plan to seek Parliamentary approval for the regulations in the autumn and implement them urgently as soon as it can thereafter.

Notes to editors

1. Under the Employment Relations Act 1999, the government has the power to introduce regulations prohibiting the blacklisting of workers for their union membership or activities.
2. In 2003, the government consulted on draft regulations, but at that time no hard evidence was found that blacklisting was taking place.  In response to the consultation, the government committed to reviewing the issue if hard evidence came forward.
3. In March the Information Commissioner reported that 40 construction companies had subscribed to a database used to vet construction workers, which has now been closed under data protection law.  On 27 May, Mr Ian Kerr, the individual who operated the database, pleaded guilty at Macclesfield Magistrates Court of committing a criminal offence under data protection law.    He will be sentenced in due course.
4. In response to this new evidence on 11 May 2009, the government announced that it would seek to bring forward legislation to outlaw blacklisting – the statement to Parliament can be found here – http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090511/wmstext/90511m0001.htm#column_33WS
5. The consultation published today can be viewed at  http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51729.pdf

Download the report here

Introducing the report, Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, said:

“This report shows the vital role DIUS played in helping Government put in place a range of support for businesses and individuals in Britain to help them through the current downturn as quickly as possible and to prepare for the opportunities that a return to global growth will bring in the future.”

The Annual Report also contains information about DIUS structure and governance, progress against DIUS Departmental Strategic Objectives (DSOs) and the Public Service Agreements (PSAs) for which DIUS led delivery, and value for money savings targets.

The Department was succeeded by the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in June 2009. The 2009 BERR Annual Report and Consolidated Resource Accounts and 2009 DIUS Consolidated Resource Accounts will be published separately in July 2009.

“A Better Deal for Consumers - Delivering Real Help Now and Change for the Future” sets out action to promote responsible borrowing and lending and provides a longer term framework to enhance and enforce consumer rights in the wider economy and a changing world.

Today’s announcement builds on the real help already provided for homeowners, pensioners, savers and those struggling on low incomes and follows Building Britain’s Future, which set out Government’s plans for creating growth and jobs as the economy moves out of recession.

Measures include:

• A wide ranging consultation on significant reforms to the regulation of credit and store cards to put consumers more in control of their borrowing and to help guard against people running up credit and store card debts they can’t pay off. This will balance the importance of choice and a flexible market with personal responsibility and protection from over-indebtedness;
• A ban on unsolicited credit card cheques which can tempt consumers unaware of the high interest rate charges to borrow money they cannot afford.
• A review by the Office of Fair Trading of the market for high cost credit, typically above 50% APR, such as pay day loans and door step lending;
• Appointment of a new Consumer Advocate responsible for co-ordinating work to educate consumers and to help them get their money back when things go wrong;
• New powers for the courts to ban persistent rogue traders; a new national specialist team for internet enforcement to tackle scams which con consumers on the internet; new money for a central ‘Fighting Fund’ to tackle rogue traders operating on a large scale; and a pilot scheme giving Trading Standards officers powers to help consumers get money back; and
• A new self-help tool-kit developed by the Money Advice Trust and a new Debtor’s Guide from the Insolvency Service to help people in debt take control of their finances.

Read the Press Notice

Download the White Paper and supporting documents

Find out how the new rules might affect you and test your knowledge of consumer issues with the quiz below:

This Government remains committed to ensuring finance is not a barrier to higher education, enabling people to make the most of their talents and improving their life opportunities. I welcome the latest figures released today that show that more people from lower socio-economic groups are going into Higher Education, with the proportion increasing 3 percentage points since 2002.

Overall there are 300,000 more students in higher education than there were in 1997. We have achieved this owing to continued Government investment, which is over 25% higher in real terms than in 1997.

We are committed to maintaining this increased investment and funding for student support will be increased in 2009-10 by 4% compared with 2008-09. In cash terms, we are planning to spend over £5 billion on student support this year, and even more next year.

In 2006, we introduced a radical new package of student support aimed at supporting those who need it most. We predicted that around a third of students would get a full non-repayable grant; in fact about 40% may receive a full grant, beyond our expectations.

In these difficult economic times, we are continuing to take difficult decisions in the interests of students, universities and taxpayers alike.

We have therefore decided to maintain the current package of maintenance support for full-time students, reflecting the current low inflationary environment.

In 2010/11 students starting a full-time course will be eligible for the same level of up-front maintenance support that was available for new students in 2009/10:

• the full maintenance grant will remain at £2,906
• the family income threshold for a full maintenance grant will remain at £25,000
• the family income threshold for a partial grant will remain at £50,020
• maximum maintenance loans and thresholds will remain at 2009/10 levels, which for a student living away from home outside London could be as much as £4,950 a year

Students continuing their studies in 2010/11 will also be eligible for the same levels of maintenance support that they received in 2009/10.

In addition, new and continuing full-time students will be able to access a fee loan of up to £3,290 a year, which has been increased by 2.04% in 2010/11 to reflect the up-rating of the maximum tuition fee level.

A similar increase applies to fee and course support for new and continuing part-time students in 2010/11, which reflects our continuing commitment to part-time study.

For full-time “old system” students (mainly those who started their courses before 2006) the same principles apply: their fee contribution loans and fee grants will be up-rated by 2.04% and their maintenance support will be the same as in 2009/10.

We have also decided to align the financial support for new entrants to post graduate and equivalent initial teacher training courses with what is available for the generality of undergraduates. Bursaries and other payments for students undertaking initial teacher training will remain available.

In over 500 constituencies, numbers of young undergraduate entrants to higher education have increased since 1997. And the 20 most deprived constituencies all show higher than average growth over that period. Some of the poorest areas have seen the biggest percentage increases in young higher education entrants.  Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) has been a key driver of rising participation post – 16, and independent evaluation shows that it also has a positive impact on attainment at level 2 and 3.

To help maintain this increase in participation overall we will continue to encourage those in receipt of the EMA to think about progression into higher education. In these difficult economic times, it is both fair and reasonable to expect that those students who see an improvement in their financial circumstances are assessed for student support, according to their need. We have therefore revised our plans for a guarantee of student support, and will offer students in receipt of EMA a clear quote of the student support they will receive if their circumstances are unchanged at the time they apply for higher education.

The Student Support Regulations will be laid before Parliament today and, following approval by Parliament will need some weeks to implement. I have asked the Student Loans Company to begin processing new applications for student support as early as possible during the autumn term and returning students in the New Year.

If you have a question about student finance, please visit theStudent Finance pages on DirectGov

The Draft Legislative Programme, published yesterday, set out plans for a Digital Economy Bill. The Government is today publishing an update on the implementation of those actions in the recent Digital Britain White Paper which do not require primary legislation. Papers and correspondence relating to the range of proposals in the White Paper, and dates for the next phase of work are all included with this update.

Funding for sustainable, independent and impartial news, in the nations, locally and in the regions

A consultation on proposals for a contained, contestable element of the television licence fee to fund sustainable, independent and impartial news, in the Nations, locally and in the regions, is one of the documents published today. The Digital Britain White Paper made clear the Government’s commitment to audiences having choice of high quality, public service content. It made a particular case for the need for top-up funding to prevent a decline in the provision of impartial news in the Nations, locally and in the regions.

The 12-week consultation seeks views on the proposal for a contained, contestable element to be introduced to the next licence fee settlement.

Specifically, the consultation asks:

The consultation will end on 22 September. The draft legislative programme set out plans for a Digital Economy Bill in the next Parliamentary session.

Notes to editors

1. The update on the actions and implementation of the Digital Britain White Paper is available on the DCMS website.
2. The consultation on sustainable, independent and impartial news in the Nations, locally and in the regions is available on the DCMS website.
3. The Digital Britain White Paper is available on the DCMS website.
4. The draft legislative programme is available on the Building Britain’s Future website.
5. Department for Business Innovation & Skills press enquiries: 020 7215 5256.
6. Department for Culture, Media and Sport press enquiries: 020 7211 6052/ 6277

The Government will invest £150m alongside private sector investment on an equal basis. This could leverage enough private investment to build a fund of up to £1 billion over the next 10 years.

Read the full press notice here

Listen to Lord Mandelson and Lord Drayson’s speeches in the podcast below:

Public service entitlements will for the first time be guaranteed to parents, patients and communities. New measures will also drive economic growth and create jobs.

The full plan and policy detail can be found at: www.hmg.gov.uk/buildingbritainsfuture

As a first step, the Government is today making a number of commitments to the British people:

• We will not lose another generation to work. Every young person who has been out of work for a year will have to take a job, training or work experience place.

• A new, more active industrial policy to drive growth and create the high value jobs of the future. We will establish a new £150 million Innovation Fund which will lever up to £1 billion of private sector funding.

• By switching spending priorities, we will target investment worth £1.5bn over the next 2 years to deliver 20,000 new affordable homes, creating 45,000 jobs in the construction and related sectors.

• Patients will get enforceable entitlements to the highest standards of health care, including hospital treatment within 18 weeks, access to a cancer specialist within 2 weeks and free health-checks on the NHS for people aged 40-74.

• Parents will be guaranteed an education individually tailored to their child, including a personal tutor for every pupil at secondary school, with catch up and one to one tuition for all those who need it.

• We will give local people more power to keep their neighbourhoods safe, including the right to hold the police to account at monthly beat meetings, to have a say on CCTV and a vote on how offenders pay back the community.

• We will work with the British people to deliver a radical programme of democratic and constitutional reform. We now plan to legislate in the 2009/10 session for further reform of the House of Lords, including completing the process of removing the hereditary principle. And we will now bring forward a draft bill for a smaller and democratically constituted second chamber.

In the coming months we will build on this plan by setting out more details in key areas, including: transport, infrastructure, financial services, social care, climate change and energy, life sciences and constitutional reform.

The Prime Minister said:

“In this plan for Building Britain’s Future we are determined to take forward the reforms of the last decade. Our task after three terms in office is not merely to defend Britain’s achievements over the last decade but to work even harder so as to meet new challenges with the same sense of conviction.”

Building Britain’s Future marks the start of a conversation with the British public on the big issues facing our country.

Cabinet and Regional Ministers will be holding town hall meetings across the country to discuss the plan.
For more information about the consultation, go to:
www.hmg.gov.uk/buildingbritainsfuture/roadshow.aspx

Building Britain’s Future also includes the Government’s Draft Legislative Programme for the next Parliamentary session:
www.commonsleader.gov.uk

He delivered the speech at the “Value of Higher Education” event at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) on 24 June 2009.

View: speech transcript

View: social media news release about the speech

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This sets out an ambitious goal to radically increase the number of people with learning disabilities in employment by 2025.

The Government wants as many as possible of these jobs to be at least 16 hours per week.

We aspire to close the gap between the employment rate of people with learning disabilities and that of the disabled population as whole.

The current employment rate for disabled people as a whole in 48%. Closing this gap in today’s terms would mean 48% of people with moderate and severe learning disabilities in real jobs - or in England, around 45,000 more people with moderate and severe learning disabilities in employment than we believe is currently the case.

Phil Hope and Jonathan Shaw are the joint lead Ministers for the strategy. They said:

“We need to get more people with learning disabilities into jobs. We know that people with learning disabilities want to work and can do a good job that employers value. Valuing Employment Now will need leadership at all levels, with different agencies and service providers working closely together.

“This is why it is – and has to be - a cross-Government strategy. The goal is challenging, but one we are committed to. It will require a major change in approach and attitudes, which will take time.

“But it is worth it. Employment is a fundamental part of life, and it is only when people with learning disabilities have the same opportunities as all other citizens that will we really be valuing people.”

The strategy includes action to raise expectations throughout the system that all people with learning disabilities can and should have the chance to work: from birth and early years through education, among health and social care staff, local authorities, employment agencies, employers, and people with learning disabilities themselves and their families.

Download the ‘Valuing employment now’ strategy and related documents from the Department of Health website.

Eight new low carbon vehicle projects are set to benefit from a share of £25 million of Government funding to run ‘real life’ trials, Science Minister Lord Drayson and Transport Secretary Lord Adonis announced today.

The project will be the biggest of its kind and accelerate the availability of innovative low carbon cars to consumers. The successful bids, which bring together car manufacturers, power companies, RDAs, councils and academic institutions will operate ‘real life’ trials in eight locations across the UK.

Government investment will support the investment already made by the consortia themselves and is the most significant step in the UK to date of a co-ordinated move towards low carbon transport.

It is planned that approximately 340 vehicles will begin trials on UK roads within the next six to eighteen months, the biggest project of its kind. The majority of the vehicles are electric, with a small number being plug-in petrol/electric hybrids. The information gained from this project will make an important contribution to the future plans of manufacturers and their partners, to develop low carbon vehicles for the mass market.

The Technology Strategy Board created the Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator competition to act as a catalyst for industry, the public sector and academia to come together to create low emission vehicles and provide solutions to powering them.

The winning consortia showcase new and emerging low carbon vehicle technologies in real world situations - many of the electric cars will be recharged via plug-ins around cities across the UK, as well as at home.

Lord Drayson, Science Minister in the newly formed Department for Business Innovation & Skills, said:

“Low Carbon doesn’t mean low performance. Modern electric cars offer power and bucket loads of torque.

“Today’s announcement signals our intent to reduce our dependence on petrol- and diesel-based engines, and determine the best practical alternatives.

“Government and consumer demand for more environmentally-friendly vehicles is already creating business opportunities for established industry players and innovative new entrants.”

Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said;

“We want Britain to be at the forefront of ultra-low carbon automotive technology, blazing a trail for environmentally friendly transportation.

“Central to our plans is the stimulation of demand for low carbon cars through projects like this to test the technology and give motorists the opportunity to feedback the information needed to make greener motoring a reality

“Our aim is for ultra-low carbon vehicles to be an everyday feature of life on Britain’s roads in less than five years. This is a challenging target and there is still a long way to go. However, if we continuing to work closely with motorists and the industry with initiatives like the demonstrations project, I believe it is achievable.”

Motoring journalist Quentin Wilson supporting the launch, said:

“For me this announcement signals the start of an exciting journey that will see a radical change in the type of cars that we see on the UK’s roads in the next half century. The fact that there will be a move towards making these cars as appealing and as powerful as petrol consuming vehicles makes the next few decades a very interesting time for the environmentally conscious UK car driver.”

For more details about the launch, see the social media news release.

Here Lord Drayson describes how the life sciences industry represents the single most important growth area that we have in this country and why boosting innovation and investment is a key element in the Government’s strategy of industrial activism.

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“So what can Government do to increase the number and the hit rate of sensible, prescient decisions that it makes – so that, in future, Schneider Cup-type successes far exceed TSR2-like disappointments?

This is all about the task of backing research with genuine potential, and “keeping faith”, as it evolves, for what can be ten – fifteen – years or more.”

View: speech transcript

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Digital Economy central to industrial strength and competitiveness

The Digital Britain White Paper, published today  sets out the importance of the Digital Economy to the nation’s economic future, and how it will drive future industrial capability and competitiveness.

• Download the Digital Britain Report
• For further information including YouTube footage, additional quotes and pictures, please visit our social media news release

It comprehensively makes the case that the United Kingdom’s communications infrastructure and increased Digital Participation are key to building a 21st century knowledge economy, and must be considered essential objectives if we are to become world-leaders, and reap the benefits of this rapidly transforming sector.

The Prime Minister said:

“Digital Britain is about giving the country the tools to succeed and lead the way in the economy of the future.

This report shows how we will ensure we have a world-class digital and communications infrastructure, that we promote and protect talent and innovation in our creative industries, that we modernise our TV and radio frameworks and support local news.

Investing in areas such as broadband access for every home and business and the move from analogue to digital technology will bring benefits across the board, driving growth, enabling businesses to thrive, and providing new opportunities and choices for households right across the country. It is an essential part of building Britain’s future.”

Digital Britain measures include:

Communications Infrastructure

We are taking steps to strengthen and modernise the UK’s Digital Infrastructure so the UK can compete and lead globally

• Universal access to today’s broadband by 2012, creating  equal access for all and a fairer digital future
• A fund for investment in the next generation of superfast broadband to ensure it is available to the whole country, not just some of it
• Digital Radio Upgrade by 2015
• Accelerating current and next generation mobile coverage and services
• Proposed new role for sectoral regulator Ofcom to carry out a full assessment of the UK’s communications infrastructure every two years

Digital Participation

We are taking steps to ensure that everyone can share in the benefits of Digital Britain

• Three year National Plan to improve Digital Participation
• Programme of Digital Switchover in public services
• A new Digital Inclusion Champion: Martha Lane Fox
• Revised Digital remit for Channel 4 and key role for BBC
• Guaranteed funding for three years for targeted marketing and outreach

Digital content

We are taking steps to make the UK one of the world’s main creative capitals

• Robust legal and regulatory framework to combat Digital Piracy
• Digital Test Beds to promote innovation, experimentation and learning around creation and monetization of digital content
• TV Licence Fee: consultation on contained contestability, primarily to secure news in the nations, regions and locally
• A new direction for Channel 4, championing new talent across all digital media
• Guidance note and clarification on the media merger regime and an enhanced evidence role for the regulator in local mergers
• Support for Independently Funded News Consortia

Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson said:

“Britain needs an active industrial policy if we are to maximise the benefits from the digital revolution. We need a clear approach which is fully accessible and provides regulatory certainty, smarter public procurement and a readiness to intervene where necessary. The Digital Britain Report does this by offering a strategic view of the sector, backed by a programme of action. This report will cement the UK’s position as a world leader in the digital and communication industries and ensure Britain is not left behind in the digital revolution.”

Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw said:

“Britain’s digital industries are among the most successful in the world and a major part of our economy. We need to make the right decisions now to make sure they continue to grow and prosper. We need to make the most the most of the opportunities today and in the years to come, exploiting the world’s ongoing technological revolution. This report will be key to our economic growth, social inclusiveness and well-being as a nation.”

Stephen A. Carter, Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, said:

“Digital Britain is a statement of intent and ambition, a commitment to infrastructure and access, and an overdue recognition of the Industrial importance of the Creative Industries

The Digital Economy is a case study in the interdependence of competitive markets, regulation, entrepreneurialism, and a strategic approach from Government”

Digital Britain: The Implementation Process 

A summary of the Report’s conclusions is available to download. Some of the decisions require action which will be carried out immediately; some require further consultation or legislation.  Chapter 9 of the Report gives further detail on the Implementation Process.

Contact information:

Department for Business Innovation & Skills press enquiries: 020 7215 6403 / www.bis.gov.uk

Department for Culture, Media and Sport press enquiries: 020 7211 6267 / www.culture.gov.uk

THE HEADLINES

CHAPTER 1:  INTRODUCTION AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Only a Digital Britain can unlock the imagination and creativity that will secure for us and our children the highly skilled jobs of the future… secure the wonders of an information revolution that could transform every part of our lives… enable us to demonstrate the vision and dynamism that we have to shape the future.
Rt Hon. Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister, at the Digital Britain Summit

This Chapter gives a summary of the Report’s conclusions, the ambition behind the Digital Britain programme and examines the significance of the digital sector. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/exsumchpt9_digitalbritain-finalreport-jun09.pdf

CHAPTER 2: BEING DIGITAL

“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.”
Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive, Microsoft

The Government is determined to address three obstacles to digital inclusion - availability, affordability and capability and has today announced the appointment as Champion for Digital Inclusion of Martha Lane Fox. Together with a supporting Taskforce, she will work to tackle digital exclusion and the economic and social disadvantages it can cause.

With one in 10 households currently unable to access baseline broadband networks, the UK Government’s commitment to deliver universality in today’s broadband services of up to 2Mb/s by 2012 is a significant step which will give access to everyone in the UK.

To get more people using digital services, the Government is:

• appointing a new Digital Inclusion Champion and expert Taskforce
• developing a National Plan for Digital Participation, to increase the extent and scope of digital technology use in all parts of society
• providing guaranteed funding over three years to the new Consortium of Stakeholders for targeted marketing and outreach
• making public service content providers and broadcasters more central to increasing digital participation
• developing a programme of Digital Delivery of Public Services (more in ch

CHAPTER 3(a): A COMPETITIVE DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE

“If Lord Reith was right that the broadcasting system should be a mirror of the nation’s conscience, surely our ambition should be for a broadband system that is the engine of the nation’s mind.”
Lord Carter, CBE

The Report sets out a programme of broadband access and upgrade, in the context of a full review of the national communications infrastructure capability.

Fixed-line infrastructure

The Government welcome the substantial investment and upgrade that is already taking place to build the next generation broadband infrastructure. Market-led investment is set to achieve wide-scale coverage, with superfast coverage likely to be available to two thirds of the population within five years. 

However, evidence, analysis and industry consensus shows that, in the absence of some market incentive, around one third of the country is likely to still be excluded by that date. The Government accepts that the case has been made for high-speed, next generation broadband services being made available to the vast majority of the UK population.

To address this:

• the Government will consult on proposals for a Next Generation Fund which will be financed through a 50 pence per month levy on all fixed copper lines
• the Fund would be used to support market expansion to the final third
• Mobile liberalisation
• The last 25 years have seen mobile radio networks transform our lives and businesses. Today’s expansion of data services, in particular mobile broadband, is putting increasing demand on mobile network capacity.

To address this, the Government will:

• reform and liberalise spectrum, following the recommendations of the Independent Spectrum Broker

To ensure the UK’s wireless infrastructure is right for the future, the Government will support:

• the effective transition to next generation, high speed wireless broadband; 
• increased wireless coverage across the country for 3G and next generation mobile;
• the extension of reliable coverage throughout the rail network
• the maintenance of a highly competitive mobile market

The Report makes the case that strengthening and modernising the UK’s communications infrastructure is essential to the future economic health of our society, individual security and ability to access information and services. To that end, the Government proposes:

• a new duty on the sectoral regulator, (Ofcom) to carry out a full assessment of the UK’s communications
• infrastructure every two years.

Chapter 3(b) RADIO: GOING DIGITAL

“One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or No.”
Thomas Carlyle

The Government is proposing a Digital Upgrade timetable for digital radio, to be completed by the end of 2015.

The Digital Upgrade Programme includes:  

• a new licensing regime for national radio multiplexes
• a revised regulatory framework for commercial radio
• all national and large stations to stop broadcasting on FM and MW
• a proposal to work with the BBC Trust to ensure extended coverage of its national DAB multiplex so it is comparable to FM
• a five-point plan to support the take-up of digital radio in cars
• a new tier of ultra-local radio, with small local community and commercial stations to occupy the vacated FM spectrum
• greater coordination across Europe on the development of digital radio services

CHAPTER 4: CREATIVE INDUSTRIES IN A DIGITAL AGE

“This is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears: big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen”.
Clay Shirky, Blog Posting April 2009

Britain has an impressive track record in making and selling creative content, and building creative businesses, We have significant international success in marketing services, educational publishing, film, video games, data management, music, publishing, TV and broadcasting. Our creative industries are already a major source of jobs and national wealth, with almost 2 million people in creative employment.

As well as this industrial strength, these industries uniquely underpin our cultural identity.

Britain’s standing as a source of innovation in content and applications is disproportionate to the relative size of our overall economy. The Government wants that to continue. But digital distribution is radically changing the way we watch, listen and use content, which is having a profound impact on the market.

Evidence suggests that most people – given a reasonable choice – prefer to be legal users and buyers. To support this, Government will provide a framework for a legal market in the online sharing and using of content, offering inexpensive, convenient and easily accessible downloads. To tackle the hardcore of users who willfully continue to flout the law, a new, graduated protection regime for rights holders will be introduced.

Key actions to protect creative content include:

• giving Ofcom an explicit duty to significantly reduce unlawful file-sharing
• written warnings for those who download unlawfully, with repeat infringers facing identity release and civil action through the courts
• the Technology Strategy Board will lead and coordinate investment in Next Generation Digital Test Beds and has allocated an initial budget of up to £10- million
• a suite of technical measures, such as bandwidth reduction or protocol blocking, for ISPs to use should
• notification fail to stop unlawful file-sharing
• considering the case for a wider cultural tax relief, based on that currently enjoyed by the film industry, for all
• culturally-specific digital content

CHAPTER 5: PUBLIC SERVICE CONTENT IN DIGITAL BRITAIN

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age”.
President Barack Obama

Digital innovation has transformed the opportunities for delivery of a wide range of Public Service Content. Public cultural institutions such as the Tate Gallery or the British Library now reach a far wider audience than ever before. At the same time, there are increasing demands on the commercial broadcasters, who are walking away from traditional public service content obligations.

With the old, advertiser funded model under strain, gaps are emerging in the provision of valued public service content. This reinforces the importance of a strong, confident and independent BBC. It is a gold standard for British media, and the creative engine that allows many of our finest talents to grow. It has shown real strategic vision in its entry to the digital and online world over the last 15 years.

While the Government believes a multi-annual financial settlement is necessary to provide the BBC with operational stability and independence from political intervention, it also believes that the BBC should not be the sole provider of essential public content.

Responding to the changing media market, the BBC has begun to develop its role as a partner with an increasing range of other media and cultural organisations. Potentially the most significant of these is the prospective joint venture between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide.

The Channel 4 Corporation (C4C) has a key role to play in providing a balanced mix of public service content alongside the BBC. It is a major commissioner of independent content, and in 4IP has begun to extend delivery into the online and multimedia world. To enable C4C to continue as a catalyst for innovation in future and build on Next on 4, the Government invites the Board of C4C to respond to its proposals to:

• update the statutory remit of Channel 4 should be updated to include providing public service content, promoting creativity and new talent across all digital media
• make C4C’s remit less television-centric,

and with clear commitments to

• national and international news
• programming for older children and young adults
• original, high quality content, including film, which provides alternative perspectives and reflects Britain’s diversity
• developing content through partnerships with other British cultural organisations

In looking to secure a long-term and stable financial footing for Channel 4, the Government has considered a range of options, including a joint venture between C4 and BBC Worldwide; a merger between C4 and a private sector partner; creating a new commercial entity; and options for a standalone C4.

After detailed examination, the Government has concluded that:

• partnerships of scale between C4C and BBC Worldwide have the potential to deliver significant value to both parties
• it welcomes the discussions between the BBC and C4 on a series a joint ventures including around digital channels, advertising and DVD sales, and are ready to provide the regulatory clearance for such joint ventures, if commercial terms can be agreed.

BBC Worldwide has the potential to become a significant global rights business for Britain and restricting it to a narrow supporting role to the BBC would be a missed opportunity.

Funding for essential pubic service content is facing an acute challenge, with provision of news in the nations, regions and locally under particular threat. Without action, there will be a significant reduction in the range and quality of commercially provided news across all media - TV, radio, newspapers and online.

To address this, the Government will:

• discuss with the BBC Trust whether a portion of the projected underspend in the Digital Switchover Help Scheme could fund a range of pilots to test options for contestable funding for news before 2012
• consult on the idea of a Contained Contestable Element of the Licence Fee, primarily for news. This option would mean that, from 2013 onwards, an element broadly equivalent to the 3.5% currently ring-fenced for the Digital Switchover Help Scheme and communications could be maintained, for the clearly defined purpose of funding news.

Subject to the outcome of this consultation, the Government proposes:

• pilots of Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNCs) should be conducted in Scotland, Wales and one English region to help secure a regional and local stream of multimedia and broadcast news
• these IFNCs could include existing TV news providers, newspaper groups or other newsgathering agencies
  IFNCs would be substantially publicly financed, potentially through a Contained Contestable Element of the Licence Fee
• as well as providing cross-media news, IFNCs would provide broadcast news for the existing regional news slots of current Channel 3 Licensees, to maximise audience reach.

The framework for the independent production sector must also be updated for a digital age to support original, high quality independent content across the UK online and on air.

To that end: the BBC’s New Media Rights Framework should be adopted more widely in Government and other public bodies who commission online content

To sustain a content production base in the Nations, the Report recommends that:

• the BBC Trust encourages the BBC to aim to exceed its targets for production in Scotland by 2012, and in Wales and Northern Ireland by 2012
• STV Group plc and UTV Ltd should be given equivalent status to qualifying independent production companies for the purposes of independent production quotas which apply to the BBC, C4, ITV plc and five. The Government proposes to bring forward legislation, following a consultation.

The Office of Fair Trading has conducted a review into the local and regional media sector. It has concluded that:

• the existing merger regime is suitably flexible and evidence-based to respond to changing market conditions and no legislative change is needed; but
• the OFT will amend their guidance to ensure that in cases relating to local and regional newspaper mergers raising prima facie competition issues, the OFT will ask Ofcom to provide a Local Media Assessment

In recognition of the changes from linear television viewing of public service broadcasting since the Communications Act 2003, the Government will discuss with Ofcom:

• how it can take account of wider delivery of public service content in future, and
• whether to amend their statutory obligation to review delivery of public service broadcasting to include the wider delivery of public service content

CHAPTER 6: RESEARCH, EDUCATION AND SKILLS FOR DIGITAL BRITAIN

“…Used well, technology strongly develops the study and learning skills children need now and in the future, including the fundamentals of “e-safety”… We must avoid raising a population divided between ICT “haves” and “have nots” because this would pose a considerable threat to both economic wellbeing and social cohesion…”
Sir Jim Rose

Further growth in the UK’s technology and creative sectors is dependent on research and innovation, and on people with the skills to maximise the opportunities of Digital Britain. There must be continued investment in research to keep pace with technological change and enable new companies to be created. Therefore:

• the Government will invest £120 million over three years through the Digital Economy Programme, in new research and training to prepare the country for the next 20 years of digital evolution
• this includes three new research hubs, to be launched this year with £12 million funding each, to address the core issues facing Digital Britain

The Technology Strategy Board has assigned an initial budget of £30m to advance Digital Britain-related innovation.

For Digital Britain to realise its full potential it needs enough people with the right skills. The Estelle Morris Review of ICT User Skills is published today. The Government welcome the report’s recommendations, which include:

• Clearer progression routes to IT user qualifications;
• Encouraging more provision of training for IT user qualifications;
• Ensuring skills provision underpins the strategy for digital media literacy
• Working towards a basic digital life skills entitlement scheme for all adults without basic ICT skills to:
  • Request up to nine hours to cover a core set of online learning modules
  • Approach any learning provider in the scheme and receive support to learn the basic skills they need to get online
  • Access a single helpline and website with online learning modules and links to a range of free resources
• To maintain a competitive digital economy our education system we must also inspire the next generation of talent. The report sets out how Government and industry can work better together to bring the vision of Digital Britain to young people; beginning in our primary schools and continuing through Further and Higher Education.

Businesses that do not adopt digital technologies fail to benefit from the productivity and competitiveness benefits they offer. SMEs in particular need targeted support to help them understand the strategic implications of technology and to deploy the skills within their workforce. Therefore BIS, in collaboration with the Regional Development Agencies is investing up to £23m over three years piloting a range of business support interventions to help firms exploit advanced ICT.

Government’s role as both regulator and customer offers a unique opportunity to support investment in innovation and skills. To help address skills issues in the digital sectors, we will now look to make it a requirement that successful bidders for major new Government IT contracts have in place formal training plans for the development of the project team.

CHAPTER 7: DIGITAL SECURITY AND SAFETY

“We have always had the ability to create structures that are quite bewildering to us. A good example is a city. The Internet is more like a city than anything else. In cities there are slums, there are palaces of wisdom, libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, places of entertainment and shops. And there are places where you would not want to go down dark alleys, let alone have your children do so, but slowly we let our children learn to use the cities and they do.”
Stephen Fry - Digital Britain Summit

As we shift from analogue to digital networks, national to global, from standalone media to a converged media world, there are issues around security and safety that must be embraced. With new opportunities come new challenges, and it is right that international, national and domestic policy, regulatory and legal frameworks are adapted to keep pace with these changes.

By its nature, the digital world is one where self-responsibility, self-regulation and self-governance and international cooperation are central. But accepting that, there must still be appropriate safeguards, and structures which will both protect individuals but and mean it works effectively. Before people will be confident using their personal data as online currency, or fully using the internet for financial and retail transactions, they must trust that it is secure.

While its global nature is one of the internet’s great strengths, it also means it is not subject to any clear single jurisdiction. To address the need for guidance and protection for both individual users and national networks, the Government will:

• develop the UK’s role in global internet Government structures
• carry out a major exercise this year to test resilience against a telecommunications emergency
• support industry proposals for voluntary adoption of minimum standards
• consult on penalties that Ofcom is able to impose for contraventions of the Communications Act 2003, particularly relating to persistent misuse cases
• explore the formation of a Tripartite Internet Crime and Security Initiative, bringing parliamentarians, Government and business together
• adopt the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system as the sole method of classifying video games in the UK, implementing the recommendations of the Byron Review to put all games rated 12 or over on a statutory footing

CHAPTER 8: THE JOURNEY TO DIGITAL GOVERNMENT

“Businesses are facing up to the real challenges of cutting costs in order to stay in business and emerge stronger form the downturn. The public sector needs to do likewise… so that the Government can continue to invest in excellent public services while maintaining sustainable public finances.”
Operational Efficiency Programme: final report, April 2009

 The Government’s impact on the digital economy goes way beyond its role as policy maker. In delivering public services, as a large customer of ICT products and services and as the owner of data systems, the public sector has enormous influence on the market. In many areas, such as education, health and defence, Government can use its position as the leading procurer of services, to drive up standards – in some cases to set standards – and to provide an investment framework for research and development.

The Report therefore recommends that:

• to provide single-minded focus and oversee Whitehall-wide systems and standards, the Government Chief Information Officer should approve all significant ICT procurement by Government departments
• Almost half the population access information about Government or local council services online. Significant savings can be made through wider online delivery of public services. Some public services are already being delivered almost exclusively online

With great benefits available to both the customer and the public purse:

• there are advantages to delivering more public services online. By 2012 there will be a significant increase in digital participation and this will be the trigger for a programme of Digital Switchover of Public Services

CHAPTER 9: DELIVERING DIGITAL BRITAIN

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Since work on Digital Britain began, there has been extensive consultation, debate and evidence gathering with a broad range of interested parties. The Interim Report prompted almost 300 written responses; over 500 people attended events in London, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; the Digital Britain Online Forum has had nearly 20,000 page views; and Ministers and the Digital Britain Team held nearly 500 meetings with people whose expertise and opinions have informed the Final Report.

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS

Today’s Report marks the end of that phase of work, and the first step in delivering the Digital Britain agenda. A series of analytical reports is also published, and a timetable for further consultation. The Report clarifies areas the areas where legislative change is needed. A Bill will be introduced as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

Department for Business Innovation & Skills press enquiries: 020 7215 6403
www.bis.gov.uk

Department for Culture, Media and Sport press enquiries: 020 7211 6267
Out of hours telephone pager: 07699 751153
www.culture.gov.uk

“The creation of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills places science at the heart of the Government’s strategy to help the economy come through the recession stronger, more competitive and more sustainable. Our ability to maintain and develop our strong science base will be essential to our long-term economic success.”

“However, this change also creates a department with a huge remit. In this context, it is clearly no longer feasible for a single Select Committee to scrutinise both the work of the department and do justice to the assessment of science across Government.”

“Both in my capacity as Science Minister and in light of my new responsibility for Defence R&D, the largest Government research budget outside the science and research ring-fence, it is my belief that the creation of a separate committee to look specifically at science across Government is necessary. I will be making the case for this to the Leader of the House.”

Notes to Editors

For media enquiries contact the BIS Press Office – Rachel Clarke 18002 020 7215 5945 (this is a text-direct telephone; please dial the number in full).

The new Department brings together two former Departments - the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Lord Mandelson said: “Being Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is both a privilege and a challenge. Our purpose is to help the government bring the country out of recession and build up our economic strengths and competitiveness - I and my ministerial team are resolutely focussed on this task.

“The government needs to provide active and urgent help to business and employees. Bringing together the strengths and capabilities of the two former Departments will enable us to do that more effectively, ensuring British business can compete successfully in the future world economy.”

• RT HON LORD MANDELSON: FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR BUSINESS, INNOVATION AND SKILLS AND LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL
  Overall responsibility for Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Privy Council; working part of time in Cabinet Office as First Secretary of State.

• RT HON PAT MCFADDEN MP: MINISTER FOR BUSINESS, INNOVATION AND SKILLS (attends Cabinet)
  Deputises for Secretary of State on departmental business, particular focus on Industrial Activism - New Industry, New Jobs.

• RT HON LORD DRAYSON: MINISTER FOR SCIENCE AND INNOVATION (jointly with MoD, attends Cabinet)
  Responsible for innovation, Technology Strategy Board, science policy and wealth creation from science, Research Councils, Foresight programme - science and society issues, Space, National Weights and Measures Laboratory, Design Council, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), Energy Technologies Institute, Commission for Environmental Markets and Economic Performance, British Standards Institution, UK Accreditation Service, Life Sciences (including Office for Life Sciences and pharmaceutical sector), low carbon economy.

• RT HON ROSIE WINTERTON MP: MINISTER FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND COORDINATION (jointly with CLG, attends Cabinet when Ministerial responsibilities are on the agenda)
  Responsible for strengthening regional economies (including Grants for Business Investment), Regional Development Agencies and sub-national implementation, Solutions for Business (business support simplification).

• RT HON DAVID LAMMY MP: MINISTER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
  Responsible for building strong relationships across the higher education sector, higher education teaching quality, Higher Education Strategy, Research Assessment Exercise and Research Excellence Framework in higher education, High Level Skills (seeking to increase significantly the number of people qualified to Level 4 (or university level skills) and above), voluntary giving (universities raising independent revenue from donors), student support policy - student grants and loans, all student loans issues, sponsorship of Higher Education Funding Council for England and Student Loans Company, intellectual property issues and the Intellectual Property Office.

• KEVIN BRENNAN MP: MINISTER FOR FURTHER EDUCATION, SKILLS, APPRENTICESHIPS AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS (jointly with DCSF)
  Responsible for further education, apprenticeships, Adult Skills Agenda, engaging employers in skills including Train to Gain, National Skills Academies, Sector Skills Councils, UK Commission for Employment and Skills, LSC sponsorship, Skills Funding Agency set-up, competition policy, consumer affairs.

• LORD DAVIES OF ABERSOCH: MINISTER FOR TRADE, INVESTMENT AND BUSINESS (jointly with FCO)
  Responsible for UK Trade & Investment (reporting jointly to the Business Secretary and Foreign Secretary), advising the Secretary of State and the Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills on overall business policy, working on specific business issues alongside the Minister for Business and Regulatory Reform, Exports Credits Guarantee Department, Public Service Reform, trade policy, Europe.

• BARONESS VADERA: MINISTER FOR ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS, SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE (jointly with Cabinet Office)
  Responsible for competitiveness, enterprise, growth and business investment, small business, general oversight of Shareholder Executive and its portfolios, Business Council for Britain and the Business Environment Unit.

• IAN LUCAS MP: MINISTER FOR BUSINESS AND REGULATORY REFORM
  Responsible for business sectors (aerospace; marine and defence, automotive; chemicals; construction; manufacturing, materials and engineering; retail; services), Better Regulation Executive, better regulation within BIS, Olympic legacy, sustainable development and regulation including waste electrical and electronic equipment issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, corporate governance, Companies Act, Companies House, Insolvency Service (including companies investigations), export control.

• LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: MINISTER FOR POSTAL AFFAIRS AND EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
  Responsible for postal affairs: Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd, encouraging employer support for apprenticeships, student issues, employment relations, ACAS.

Notes to Editors

1. Pat McFadden, Lord Drayson, David Lammy, Rosie Winterton, Lord Davies and Kevin Brennan are Ministers of State.
2. Lord Carter, Ian Lucas, Shriti Vadera and Lord Young are Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State.

The Government has today created a new Department for Business, Innovation & Skills whose key role will be to build Britain’s capabilities to compete in the global economy. The Department will be created by merging BERR and DIUS.

The merger will create a single department committed to building Britain’s future economic strengths. To compete in a global economy and create the jobs of the future Britain requires a regulatory environment that encourages enterprise, skilled people, innovation, and world-class science and research. The merger of BERR and DIUS brings together the parts of the government with key expertise in these areas.

It combines BERR’s strengths in shaping the enterprise environment, analysing the strengths and needs of the various parts of British industry, building strategies for industrial strength and expertise in better regulation with DIUS’s expertise in maintaining world class universities, expanding access to higher education, investing in the UK’s science base and shaping skills policy and innovation through bodies such as the Technology Strategy Board.

It also puts the UK’s Further Education system and universities closer to the heart of governm ent thinking about building now for the upturn.

The new department is the institutional realisation of the approach to promoting UK competitiveness and productivity as set out in the New Industries, New Jobs paper of April 2009, produced jointly by BERR and DIUS.

The new department will:

• Advocate the needs of business across government, especially of UK small businesses;
• Promote an enterprise environment that is good for business and good for consumers;
• Design tailored policies for sectors of the UK economy that represent key future strengths and where government policy can add to the dynamics of the market;
• Assess the changing skills needs of the UK economy, especially the intermediate and high skills vital in a global economy and design policies to meets them through public and privately funded life long training;
• Invest in the development of a higher education system committed to widening participation, equipping people with the skills and knowledge to compete in a global economy and securing and enhancing Britain’s existing world class research base;
• Continue to invest in the UK’s world class science base and develop strategies for commercialising more of that science;
• Continue to invest in skills through the Further Education system to help people through the downturn and to prepare Britain for the future;
• Deliver on the government’s ambitious objectives to expand the number of apprenticeships;
• Encourage innovation in the UK;
• Defend a sound regulatory environment that encourages enterprise and skills;
• Collaborate with the RDAs in building economic growth in the English regions;
• Work with the EU in shaping European regulation and European policies that affect the openness of the single market and the competitiveness of
• European and British companies;
• Continue to work to expand UK exports and encourage inward investment to the UK.

Departmental websites

A new website will be created in due course. In the meantime, you can continue to access our existing pages:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.dius.gov.uk

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.berr.gov.uk ]]> http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.bis.gov.uk/bis-announcement/feed http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.bis.gov.uk/lord-drayson-responds-to-department-for-business-innovation-and-skills-announcement http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.bis.gov.uk/lord-drayson-responds-to-department-for-business-innovation-and-skills-announcement#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:00:29 +0000 BIS website admin http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090807071121/http://www.bis.gov.uk/?p=7 Commenting on the Government reshuffle, Lord Drayson, Minister for Science and Innovation, in the newly formed Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said:

“The Prime Minister remains fully committed to science and innovation and is giving me the resource and framework to drive this agenda forward.

“I look forward to working with Peter Mandelson to ensure that all of the ground-breaking research which takes place on our shores can continue to thrive and contribute to the health of our economy, people and planet.

“The science ring-fence is safe and sound and the innovation agenda will further benefit from this move.”