UK eGovernment news

George Osborne has declared war on “anti-business culture” after the recent rows on private sector bonuses. He has argued that the bad feeling around bonus schemes and pay threatens to damage Britain’s prosperity.

The Commons Business Select Committee has rejected Business Secretary Vince Cable’s choice of Les Ebdon as head of the Office of Fair Access (Offa), the university fair access watchdog.  But the Liberal Democrat Minister is set to stick by his decision despite misgivings from No. 10 and other Tory counterparts.

A Commons advisory committee has suggested that all MPs should be provided with iPad tablet computers. The estimated cost is around £250,000, which would be reimbursed from the taxpayer’s coffers. Their reasoning is that significant amounts of paperwork can be cut down with this move, which in turn would save the taxpayer’s money.

The Commons Administration Committee on Wednesday urged a “rapid roll-out of suitable mobile tablet hardware” to all 650 MPs. It has been a year since MPs began testing Apple’s iPad devices that cost about £400 apiece. 



Christina Fernandez, the Argentine president, has announced that Argentina will make a formal complaint to the United Nations over Britain’s “militarisation” of the Falklands. In a speech to MPs and veterans of the Falklands war, she accused Britain of colonialism.

Data from England’s Department for Health show that doctors and health professionals will have access to NHS funds of £65 billion beginning April 2013, provided the government’s plans to push reforms scrape through.

Plans for the Scottish government to hold a referendum on independence from the UK has garnered favour from some observers, with hope that a decisive vote will finally clear this decades-old question.

Unless the inefficiencies of the NHS are addressed, this great foundation of the welfare state will crumble under the weight of its own responsibility argues the author.

Youngsters exhibiting behavioural problems at Neyland’s Pupil Referral Unit in Pembrokeshire, Wales, were locked in a padded room without proper ventilation, according to a cording to a Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales report surfaced through an FoI request.

Sweden has been named as the EU’s most innovative member, but Switzerland is ahead of it as the most innovative country in continental Europe. However, both nations trailed behind the United States, Japan and South Korea according to the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2011, unveiled by the European Commission on 7 January.

Cross party MPs have declared that elderly people are not receiving the best  health and social care because of fragmented services and suggested that joined-up commissioning would improve the situation significantly.

The EU has given into pressure from China, which has been working in tandem with India, Russia and the US, and backed down on its insistence that all airlines comply with its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).



Prime Minister David Cameron has been pressurised by GPs, MPs and colleagues to contemplate discarding the reforms suggested by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee says unpaid taxes worth £10.9 billion have been written-off by the Treasury, and that future medical negligence claims could cost the exchequer £15.7 billion.

Germany’s exports stumbled to a 3 year low in December 2011 while imports abruptly decreased as well.

Theresa May has tried to calm the fury over the decision to grant bail to the radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada. Qatada was released despite strong protest from the Home Office, his defence team arguing that he was unlawfully detained as he did not face immediate deportation.