News & Press

Work-related stress is a major cause of absence from work, and stress levels are likely to be particularly high in the current uncertain economic climate. This is not a problem that is limited to the UK – stress is a concern in workplaces around the rest of Europe. While the extent of the problem varies from country to country, the root causes of stress have largely been similarly identified in most countries. A recent study undertaken by IES looks at stress levels and how stress is managed around the EU.

IES’s policy conference, held in November 2010, brought together experts, stakeholders and interested parties to debate issues relating to the health of our working population. Delegates heard contributions from UK experts, including Dame Carol Black, and speakers who set the UK experience in an international context.

Frequent staff movement in a civil service dominated by a generalist culture, coupled with the ‘policy pendulum’ driven by government changes in a first-past-the-post electoral system, are often held responsible for the chronic lack of institutional memory in the UK policy-making machine. This lack was highlighted by the public administration select committee earlier this year, which also noted that the incoming 1997 Labour Government adopted a ‘year zero mentality’ to policy-making.

Creative graduates value their creative education. Creativity is central to their identity and their outlook, and a creative education helps them to develop their potential, providing time and space to devote to their practice. They learn by doing, through project-based enquiry, and from those with sector experience, benefiting from the critical feedback, support and encouragement from their peers. A creative education provides them with the confidence to move out into the world of work, and provides them with a range of technical, professional and personal skills that can be applied in a variety of settings – not just creative roles.

HSE’s Moving Goods Safely 3 (MGS3) intervention targeted risks associated with the movement of goods in the logistics, warehousing, road haulage and goods delivery sectors. MGS3 was aimed at reducing injury and ill-health through a number of different work streams that focused on risk areas such as loading and unloading vehicles, vehicle movement and parking and appropriate use of equipment.