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 CIoJ President-Elect Professor Tim Crook The Chartered Institute of Journalists welcomes the historical development to permit the broadcasting of sentencing in criminal trials in England and Wales.
The initiative has been supported by the justice secretary, Robert Buckland QC, and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon.
The Institute has consistently campaigned for more open justice and improved media coverage of the legal system.
Institute President-Elect Professor Tim Crook was the UK’s first broadcast legal affairs correspondent and reported trials at the Central Criminal Court for 15 years.
He said: “This will substantially improve public understanding of the criminal justice system at a time when reporting coverage has diminished through newspaper closures and job losses.”
He added: “A progressive minded new generation of senior judiciary and enlightened campaigning by the journalism industry have negotiated this brilliant breakthrough.”
The first crown court broadcasts are expected to take place in April or May after legislation has been passed.
Professor Crook disagreed that televising sentencing could become some kind of “spectator sport.”
He said the public would be able to “fully understand the seriousness and solemnity of such occasions and the professionalism and quality of the people who work in our criminal courts.”
 Sascha Giese, Head Geek™, SolarWinds By Sascha Giese, Head Geek™ at SolarWinds
For even the most sensible among us, the word “automation” still strikes an uncertain, often fearful chord. Conditioned by the kind of rhetoric conveyed in movies like “The Matrix,” “The Terminator,” and “I, Robot,” the fear—even among the most seasoned IT professionals—of our jobs being affected by automation isn’t entirely unjustified. Particularly in the public sector, where budgets are increasingly restricted, this anxiety is understandable. However, there are two guaranteed ways to overcome this anxiety: a change in perspective and a willingness to push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Align Automation to Your Purpose
In most cases, anxiety around the implementation of automation in organisations originates from fear over being incapable of fulfilling your purpose. For IT operations, automation heralds a day when we won’t need people to run maintenance, manage resources, or troubleshoot issues—when the fundamentals of ops no longer require a human to operate them. Developers may have an advantage over IT ops because they’ve been automating things from day one. But when a machine or an application starts to take over the job they do well, it can be damaging to professional pride and self-worth, no matter how confident you are.
It changes, however, when you look closer at the purpose of both disciplines. A public sector technology professional’s real job isn’t to patch servers or manage clouds. At its core, it involves finding efficient and elegant technical solutions to help the organisation do things better. In this way, one could argue tech pros do their jobs better when they embrace automation: using ticket histories to identify recurring technical issues, devising scripts or workflows to automatically take care of them, and using the extra breathing space to get down to the root of the problem so it never happens again.
For developers, this purpose should be even more obvious. No developer or coder ever went into programming wishing they could spend 80% of their time working through meaningless code changes with no guidance. A developer’s true purpose is to create—to come up with new ideas and turn them into viable products or services beneficial to both end users and the bottom line. Automating the tasks in the way of that, no matter how much time or effort developers have spent learning to do them, can only help accomplish this core drive.
In other words, the best fix for automation anxiety is to get back to basics: for developers and tech pros alike to remember why they do what they do, instead of worrying about not being able to do it anymore. With a refreshed perspective, however, comes some challenges—namely, where to invest their energies in an automated world, and put this technology to the best use for the general public.
Combat Automation Fear by Spending Time With People
Though it might seem counterintuitive, as automation increasingly makes its way into IT environments, developers and other IT professionals will have to spend more time working directly with other people. For some, that’s potentially a greater source of anxiety than having robots render you redundant. But by doing so, they can better fulfil their professional purpose, and perhaps even find some unexpected sources of personal fulfilment.
For developers, it’s simple: find out what people—including colleagues and the general public—want. As automation takes over the drudgery of maintaining and fixing code, coders have a responsibility to use their newfound time to better understand the needs, objectives, and habits of those who use their creations. Most people would agree talking to other individuals isn’t always easy, but it remains the only clear way to know what’s working and what’s not, and to use this knowledge to develop apps to better serve those people.
The new challenge for tech pros is to communicate better—to tell a more convincing and compelling narrative about the value they can bring to their organisation. To a certain extent, this means translating technical metrics into a language non-technical people can understand, and showcasing the solutions, especially those involving automation management, in the same language. For tech pros, whose language of fluency is technical jargon, speaking to less technical people may prove a challenge. The more they can do this, the more IT leads will find themselves gaining the support of business leaders and being given a seat at the table on matters of future technology direction in the public sector.
It’s understandable to be nervous about increasing automation in organisations. People often assume more automation means fewer jobs for humans, but this is rarely the case. To combat the fear of automated IT, tech pros should remember why they do their job—the public sector relies on dedicated workers making sure public services run effectively 24/7, and IT teams should keep this purpose in mind when approaching new automation strategies. Working in harmony with technology is the surest way to drive the public sector forward and continue to provide the care and support the country needs.
 Kingston Council has agreed to recommission its children’s services to Achieving for Children until 2026, following a decision at Children’s and Adults’ Care and Education Committee yesterday.
After considering various options, members of the committee agreed the preferred option was to extend the current contract for another five years, through a joint arrangement with Richmond Council. The extension will include the reconsideration of governance arrangements.
This decision is also dependent on the outcome of Richmond Council’s Education and Children’s Committee scheduled for 17 December 2019. Members will be considering the same options, with the recommendation to extend the current contract.
Achieving for Children (AfC), a community interest company, was established jointly in 2014 by Kingston and Richmond Councils to provide their children’s services. In August 2017, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead became a co-owner of the company, which now provides children’s services across all three boroughs.
The company has been nationally recognised and continues to deliver excellent services for the councils it works with since its launch.
Sarah Ireland, Kingston Council’s Director of Corporate & Commercial, said:
“AfC has achieved a huge amount since it formed in 2014. We look forward to continuing to work with them for the next five years to provide children, young people and families in Kingston with the very best possible opportunities and support so that they can live safe and happy lives.
“Over the last few years AfC has worked with the council to deliver excellent services in a very challenging financial environment. We are seeing a huge growth in the need for children’s services, particularly for support and education for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). They have worked extremely hard to provide education and support across Kingston despite there not being enough money available to meet the SEND needs in the dedicated schools grant.
“Working with AfC we will continue to transform the way we deliver our children’s services and achieve excellent outcomes for Kingston’s children and young people.”
 MOBILANE – LivePanel at the Nursery in London N Family Club is a group of early years nurseries with a brand new nursery concept in four spaces across London. Offering day care to children aged three months to five years, the facilities create a family feel and offer support to parents, grandparents and carers in an ever-more fragmented community in a city environment.
Nurture and Nature in unison
The London Fields nursery opened in June 2019. As the doors opened and the first children took their first N Family steps, they were greeted by a beautiful living wall, courtesy of Oasis Plants and the Mobilane LivePanel. Installed on the roof level of the nursery, the 13 square metre LivePanel extends the roof garden’s nautical natural theme and is planted with Pachysandra, Carex Morrowii, Carex Ice Dance, Hedera Helix White Wonder and Euonymus Fortunei. This infusion of grasses, climbers, colour, foliage and form draws varied interest from its young patrons. The children are encouraged at play to take notice of the plants, to spot when they need a little care and to learn about plant science, growth and nature.
A healthy, clean air environment
Maximising green elements in an otherwise grey urban environment, the LivePanel plants are also working hard on improving the air quality. Renowned for their pollution-busting qualities, the leaf cover not only forms a naturally beautiful wall of colour but is busy removing harmful particulates from the air in this intensely busy city environment. The nursery maximises the children’s outdoor time, weather permitting, with sessions taking place alongside the living wall up to three times a day. At the start of a child’s educational journey, this area is the backbone of a healthy living environment at the Club where reading, socialising, exploring, playing and learning in the fresh air is a vital element of a child’s development and preparation for school.
Flourish and grow
“We are thrilled with the LivePanel living wall, as are the children.” explains Paige Francis, Operations Manager at N Family Club. “The children particularly enjoy playtime alongside the living wall. They take time out to see how it is growing and show great interest in its development. The plant choice of grasses, climbers and different colour leaves creates a beautiful backdrop to their daily activities. We’ve been pleasantly surprised as to how quickly it has established and we’ve been impressed with how much it has already started to flourish and grow – we’ve had plenty of positive comments from parents and visitors too!”.
To find out more about N Family Clubs in the London area and to see the LivePanel wall in action, please visit the N Family Club website.
Installed and planted by Oasis Plants.
A range of works and 234m2 modular data centre design and build completed for Thurrock County Council, which will serve its 170,000 thousand residents.
Secure I.T. Environments Ltd, one of the UK’s leading design and build companies of modular and containerised data centres including refurbishment of existing data centres, has announced today the handover its latest data centre project to Thurrock County Council. The new 234m2 data centre, will provide a new energy and space efficient home for an IT infrastructure serving 170,000 residents across over 160km2.
 Chris Wellfair, Projects Director at Secure I.T. Environments The data centre was required as the operational location and IT systems had reached end of life. This led to a critical timeline to ensure handover for the new facility was achieved on time and within budget. The project was split into two phases, the first comprising the design, build and testing (including acceptance testing) of the new data centre, the evaluation of existing critical and essential power, and decommissioning of the existing ICT infrastructure. Phase two is an on-going five-year programme of planned preventative and reactive maintenance, including emergency call-out services.
The new data centre room includes Resilient Data Centre energy efficient air-conditioning in N+1 configuration, Riello MPW UPS, a built-in 65KVA generator, 840U of server space, raised access flooring, environmental monitoring, biometric access control, CCTV and Novec fire suppression. The project also included all ground works and connection to existing electricity supplies and back-up generators located on other parts of the site.
Chris Wellfair, Projects Director at Secure I.T. Environments, added “We have worked hard for over a decade to ensure that customers can trust our name when it comes to the delivery and maintenance of their data centres. For the public sector in particular, where people rely hourly on access to council services, we take great pride in being a part of councils achieving their digital vision.”
 About Secure I.T. Environments Ltd
Secure I.T. Environments Ltd is a UK company specialising in the design and build of energy efficient internal/external secure modular data centres, containerised data centres and its infrastructure. The company has established an enviable relationship with its clients based on trust and mutual respect by working as a team with the client and its project team.
The company offers a “Total Solutions Package” to the private, healthcare, education and government sectors, as well as co-hosting companies in the UK and offshore, by way of design, implementation and installation management services for projects from small stand-alone computer rooms to large public sector contracts and co-hosting locations. All rooms are designed to meet the latest test standards, now regarded as the benchmark standard for modular rooms being installed throughout the UK and Europe.
Secure I.T. Environments’ primary aim is to ensure that clients’ critical infrastructure components are protected against all external threats in a suitably protected modular room or Modcel containerised environment. To this end the company has established long-standing partnerships with its manufacturers, who are at the forefront of R&D, to ensure the highest level of physical protection and energy efficiency is maintained.
• Contract will include up to 2 million MiPermit digital permits per year
• Introduces MiPermit innovation to leading UK Smart City
Chipside, a provider of parking and traffic management IT to more than 160 UK local authorities, is delighted to announce it has been awarded a contract with Bristol City Council for MiPermit digital permits. The contract will enable Bristol City Council to deploy up to two million digital permits per year through Chipside’s MiPermit system – enabling city residents and visitors to buy, manage and renew permits electronically.
 Paul Moorby, Founder and CEO of Chipside Paul Moorby, Founder and CEO of Chipside, comments; “We are delighted to win a contract with Bristol City Council. It will not only strengthen MiPermit’s position in the South West as the premier digital permits brand, but also give us the ground space to contribute innovative technology to an already-celebrated connected city”.
Bristol topped Navigant Consulting’s UK Smart Cities list in 2017 and beat Barcelona, Dubai and New York to win the Smart City Award (Judges’ Choice) at the GSMA’s 2018 Global Mobile Awards (The GLOMOs). The award provided global recognition on how Bristol has raised the bar on defining the Smart City of the future. With central government funding from the Smart Cities Agenda, the city’s ‘Bristol is Open’ initiative now offers innovators a testbed to develop disruptive solutions to city challenges.
“The diversity of the issues tackled through smart city technology is an indication of the potential of connected public services to improve residents’ lives,” continues Paul Moorby. “I look forward to introducing our MiPermit technology to the city and seeing the system’s capabilities and efficiencies positively impact Bristol’s residents and visitors to the city.”
IED Annual Conference 2019
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AMI Conversational Artificial Intelligence Solution Transforms Services for Citizens
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The latest edition of the Government & Public Sector Journal is available to read online: LATEST EDITION
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For GPSJ by Nigel Wilcock, Executive Director of the Institute of Economic Development
Photo: GPSJ
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Joining Government and industry representatives, RingGo brings its wealth of experience in how parking can encourage electric vehicle adoption to the campaign
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