Resource & Support - #Education (Ofsted Publications)

raised an interesting point.

Subject(s): Education;

General publications from OFSTED

Other contacts:

More details can be read at:
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/(sort)/date




Published: 30/08/2010 00:00:00

Advocacy - #Justice (The Public Law Project)

raised an interesting point.

Subject(s): Justice;

PLP is an independent, national legal charity which aims to improve access to public law remedies for those whose access is restricted by poverty, discrimination or other similar barriers.

Other contacts: admin@publiclawproject.org.uk

More details can be read at:
http://www.publiclawproject.org.uk/




Published: 30/08/2010 00:00:00

New updates about Early Years qualifications and suitability

Ofsted have updated qualification, compliance and inspection requirements http://ping.fm/dPX9y

Advocacy - #Legislation (A new website that provides a forum where law firms can bid for legal work)

Somebody raised an interesting point.

Subject(s): Legislation;

A new website that provides a forum where law firms can bid for legal work

Other contacts: https://www.bid4fees.co.uk/page/contact

More details can be read at:
https://www.bid4fees.co.uk/




Published: 05/08/2010 00:00:00

Other Gov Site - #Regulation (Policing in the 21st century: reconnecting police and the people)

Somebody raised an interesting point.

Subject(s): Regulation;

Consultation on Policing in the 21st century: reconnecting police and the people

Other contacts: CPGcommunications@Homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

More details can be read at:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/consultations/policing-21st-century/




Published: 30/07/2010 00:00:00

Legislation - #Legislation (National Archives: UK Legislation)

raised an interesting point.

Subject(s): Legislation;

Publishing all UK legislation is a core part of the remit of Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO), part of The National Archives, and the Office of the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Other contacts:

More details can be read at:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/




Published: 29/07/2010 00:00:00

Family Justice Review reminder

Just a quick reminder that the Family Justice Review is still in progress and if you have an interest in this area you should get in contact with the panel and let them know your comments.

Call them on 020 3334 4200 or go to their website at http://www.justice.gov.uk/reviews/family-justice-intro.htm

David Norgrove is the Chair Person and if you want to know the other members of his team his team, go to http://wheresmydadorguk.giving.officelive.com/ByGroup.aspx and look for “Family Justice Review” in the group name.

The terms of reference can be read at http://www.justice.gov.uk/reviews/fjr-terms-reference.htm

Shared Parenting Bill

We must bring to your attention the presentation of the Shared Parenting Bill by Mr Brian Binley MP on 13 July 2010.

More information can be seen via theyworkforyou.com website at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-07-13a.812.3 and can be followed at the parliament.uk website by clicking http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/sharedparentingorders.html

He was supported in the bill by MP’s Dr Thérèse Coffey, Mr Douglas Carswell, Mr Philip Hollobone, Mr Christopher Chope, Mr Peter Bone, Mark Reckless, Caroline Dinenage, Mark Pritchard, Harriett Baldwin and Mr David Nuttall

Although not confirmed by Mr Binley yet, the draft text indicates that these would be new Court Orders that would need to be applied for, rather than an actual legal presumption of Shared Parenting without the need for confirmation by a judge.

We as an organisation greatly welcome this bill, and hope it gains the support it so justly deserves.

Role of Parental Responsibility

As part of the development process of NAT, our NRP Awareness Tool, we identified lots of areas where Parental Responsibility (PR) is either ignored, misunderstood or just wrongly interpreted.

Various areas of concern exist, including Childcare, Healthcare & Education. Although Central Government agencies understand PR, local government or regional agency offices appear not to.

We will be releasing how we understand PR regulations within England & Wales, with links to existing legislation, practice direction, precedence and published guidance.

The aim is to "de-skill" this area of law, providing clear indications of how the regulations should be implemented and removing and reducing ambiguity of intent.

If you have any examples of situations where you feel your rights as NRP with Parental Responsibility are not being upheld, then please let us know within our discussion thread on Facebook by going to http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=23833223484&topic=16637

Many thanks

Brighter website and #NRP Awareness Tool close to release

We’ve spruced up the main website as part of the upcoming release of our #NRP Awareness Tool.  It’s taken a little longer than expected, but it’s all looking good !

“NAT” (NRP Awareness Tool) will allow a parent to generate, follow-up and manage a suite of correspondence with government departments, non-governmental bodies and relevant agencies to highlight and reinforce the position of NRP (Non Resident Parent) where the PwC (Parent with Care) has upset the status quo of regular contact.

Please have a look round the new site by clicking wheresmydad.org.uk ; “Like” pages as you see them and let your friends on Facebook know you care about parental equality.

#BBC Law in Action needs our help !

If you have recently been, or are currently involved in the Family Law “system”, the BBC would like to hear from you.

Specifically if you’ve had dealings with CAFCASS.  They would like to know your experiences with CAFCASS and any thoughts you have on the visibility of Family Courts, now that the press are prevented allowed to report certain cases.  Any links to these would be most welcome, as it has been suggested that the courts are more stringent about reporting restrictions since the “opening” of the courts.

Please contact Lucy Proctor at the BBC either by telephone 020 8752 6194 or by email to lucy.proctor@bbc.co.uk

Her Majesty’s Courts Service’s (HMCS) Business Plan 2010-2011

On 15 March 2010 - 10 days ago – Bridget Prentice (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice) announced the Key Performance Indicators for Her Majesty's Courts Service for 2010 to 2011

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100315/wmstext/100315m0002.htm

The Business Plan has finally been deposited in the library and can be seen by clicking http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2010/DEP2010-0680.pdf

Section 2.3 specifically mentions Family Courts.

Security Warning – Anyone may be able to obtain your email address from Facebook !

Do you have an account with Facebook ?

Have you changed your Privacy Settings for Contact Information ( http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy&section=contact ) to stop people getting your email address?

We use a number of providers for email services, to protect our “name”, including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo too …

Unless you have protected your email address within the Privacy Settings on Facebook, anyone importing contacts to Yahoo will get a list of these email addresses into their Yahoo Contacts!

Within Facebook, we have a number of “Friend Lists” setup, including what we call “9 Limited” – most new “friends” are added to this list when we respond to a friend request within Facebook, just until we know who they are.  In the Privacy Settings, we do not allow people to see certain things – like phone numbers and email addresses – by including the “9 Limited” list in the “except:” boxes.

WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU TO CREATE A SIMILAR “LIMITED” FRIENDS LIST, ADD UNKNOWN CONNECTIONS (WHICH INCLUDES FRIENDS, APPLICATIONS AND PAGES) AND CHANGE YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS TO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO VIEW YOUR PRIVATE CONTACT INFORMATION e.g. EMAIL ADDRESS OR MOBILE NUMBER.

Once we found this out, we did a small test and found that we could get 90% of email addresses for our friends on Facebook !! We’ve deleted the downloaded contact records.

“You cannot negotiate with these people and expect rational discussion”

Although I appreciate you may not like "the system", and shouting may be good for the short term, the only way we believe to change things is to use the system.  By "use", we mean understand, consider and anticipate the way "it" works. 

This means acting like a solicitor, as you say, LISTENING to what people think is wrong with "the system" and then respond in a meaningful and structured way.

Our stated activity at the moment is assessing the state of UK & EU law.  This is no easy task and is taking time.  However, where we see a distinct area we can make a positive and constructive change, we formulate policy and strategy to overcome these obstacles.

It may sound like "lawyer" or "politician speak" - and that is EXACTLY what we're aiming for.  We want to be able to accurately oppose the current situation and argue the case for NRP's, and we do understand that some other groups do not agree with our methods.  The more fronts that we can make public and loud, the better - but again, these are OUR methods, and we think they will have an impact on the overall situation suffered by Non Resident Parents.

Some of these routes include taking part in the current review of Family Law (please see both details of the review at http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/newsrelease200110a.htm and the Government Green Paper at http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/CM-7787.pdf )

We believe that getting involved in the creation, amendment and repeal of legislation is the best way to improve the situation and increase equality for Non Resident Parents in a currently unfair, unjust and plainly biased system.

Automatically creating and managing your personal mail campaign

We’re developing software to create and manage the "letter writing" process for Non Resident Parents, to reinforce their position prior to the established "status quo" of contact with their children changing. As part of this is the use of the correct language to enable further automatic complaints to be raised when the agencies and authorities fail or refuse to assist - including the use of the Administrative Court and Civil Procedure Rules. The system is nearly (!) ready, and will be needing some guinea pigs soon - anyone wanting to use the system, by all means join us on our page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/wheresmydad.org.uk and read more about the Civil Procedure Rule via http://wheresmydad.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C7771365DF4DB62E!200.entry

#ge10 #ge2010 #election2010 Plethora of information ..

Draft Policies have been updated and we just love Twaiter !

Our main policies are now linkable, and tweets are sent out regularly so you can see what they are !  Simples.

If you want to view or link to them, just use this handy table

Policy Area	Short Link
Government Restructure	http://bit.ly/Restructure
Benefits and Social Cohesion	http://bit.ly/Policy02
Community Relations	http://bit.ly/Policy03
Jobs and Welfare	http://bit.ly/Policy04
Pensions and Older People	http://bit.ly/Policy05
Third Sector, Charities and Voluntary Organisations	http://bit.ly/Policy06
Business	http://bit.ly/Policy07
Schools	http://bit.ly/Policy08
Culture, Media and Sports	http://bit.ly/Policy10
Defence	http://bit.ly/Policy11
Foreign Affairs	http://bit.ly/Policy12
Health & Social Care	http://bit.ly/Policy13
Crime	http://bit.ly/Policy14
Immigration	http://bit.ly/Policy16
Justice and Democracy	http://bit.ly/Policy17
Local & Devolved Government	http://bit.ly/Policy18
Climate Change and Energy	http://bit.ly/Policy19
Countryside Management	http://bit.ly/Policy21
Environment	http://bit.ly/Policy22
Housing	http://bit.ly/Policy23
Transport	http://bit.ly/Policy24
Treasury-Systems	http://bit.ly/Policy25
Age, Civil & Criminal Responsibility Act	http://bit.ly/ResponsibilityAct
Corporation Tax	http://bit.ly/CorporationTax
Value Added Tax	http://bit.ly/ValueAddedTax
Sales (or Purchase) Tax	http://bit.ly/PurchaseTax
Inheritance Tax	http://bit.ly/InheritanceTax
Stamp Duty (on Property Purchases)	http://bit.ly/StampDuty
Changes to National Insurance	http://bit.ly/National-Insurance
Education Funding Tax	http://bit.ly/EducationTax
Income Tax	http://bit.ly/IncomeTax
Individual and Household Tax Allowances	http://bit.ly/TaxAllowance
Council Tax & Higher Earner Local Tax	http://bit.ly/CouncilTax
Recreational Drugs Review	http://bit.ly/DrugsReview
Boundary Reform	http://bit.ly/BoundaryReform

Letting you know about www.thirdchamber.org.uk

I thought I’d let you know about http://www.thirdchamber.org.uk which is the link to Andrew’s personal site about the upcoming election. 

Please look at the blog at http://thirdchamber.blogspot.com/ and keep up to date with all the news :)

Follow on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Third_Chamber

Currently investigating use of Part 54 of the Civil Procedure Rules

In addition to updating our automatic letter generation tool, for Non Resident Parents, we are looking at creating Applications for Permission to Apply for Judicial Review of court and public agency decisions, action or lack of action, of these public agencies.

For information about the Notes for Application see here: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/1220.htm 

and for Dept of Justice notes, they can been seen here: http://www.justice.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/contents/parts/part54.htm

Version 1 of the tool currently asks for lots of information about your circumstances, and generates specific letters based on your answers, to specific agencies and related parties.  We envisage version 2 will include the correct information in follow up letters that will comply with the Pre Action Protocol.  Where fees are payable, so long as you’ve followed our procedures for Information Collection and Initial Agency Awareness, we anticipate we will provide funding for this, where alternative funding is not available.  A brief description of these procedures can be seen here: http://wheresmydadorguk.giving.officelive.com/currentCampaigns.aspx

Click to follow us on Twitter, or Facebook

Parental Responsibility: Request for Assistance

We are currently compiling our list of “standard” correspondence packs, tailored to individual requirements, that will form the basis of our “self-help” section for Non Resident Parents with Parental Responsibility.  These packs will contain a selection of automatically generated letters that should be sent to various central & local government departments, Non Governmental Organisations and other authorities that we believe will enhance and enforce your rights as a parent with parental responsibility.

The principles behind the wording of these letters comes from existing legislation and regulations and a small section of policy and regulations are listed in our document http://wheresmydadorguk.giving.officelive.com/Documents/Gov%20Policy%20Statements.doc which can be currently used to remind the authorities you can have the information about your child(ren) you’re asking for.

However, as part of this project, we are currently generating a comprehensive knowledge base of legislation, rules, regulations  & policies for both UK and EU Government.  This “simple” task has many, many, many (!) related articles, with incremental changes and branches and we are mapping the relationships for publication 1st quarter 2010.  This map will be automatically updated as new regulations are proposed and enacted.  This project is well progressed, and on schedule.  A small demonstration of the “proof of concept” will be available on our soon to be published new website and we will welcome your suggestions for improvement.

The computer techies out there will recognise the above problem with team-based business system development, and it is analogous to the Change & Configuration Management process.

The next “phase” is the local government regulations and policies, along with upward mapping to UK/EU regulations and polices.  This is where we will be needing your help!  We will, of course, be contacting all the local government bodies within England & Wales, and asking for copies of their interpretations and policy documents. In the meantime, if people could ask their local authority for this information, we can use it should they not want to help us with our project.  An electronic version of any information you can get would be most welcome – please send your contributions to localpolicy.project@wheresmydad.org.uk

Just a quick reminder about our blog address’s

As part of our website (http://www.wheresmydad.org.uk) changes, we have decided on the following internet services:

Our blogging services are:

MS Live Space at http://wheresmydad.spaces.live.com/default.aspx
WordPress at http://wheresmydad.wordpress.com/

we micro-blog using the following services:

Twitter at http://twitter.com/wheresmydad
Brightkite at http://brightkite.com/people/wheresmydad

our Social Network site is

Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/wheresmydad.org.uk

and we publish items to/from the above services via our Google Shared Page at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/wheresmydad

Our website will primarily be based on Joomla.

A new data publishing chart will be published soon, including a list of the applications used.