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Tate Liverpool
presents young people's free festival
THIS summer, from 18 July
to 20
July 2014, Tate Liverpool will host a festival of music,
performance, art, and dance that has been programmed by and for
young people aged 15 to 25.
Led by Tate Collective Liverpool, an ongoing youth art initiative,
Blueprint Festival 2014 will be a 3 day festival where young
visitors can experience unexpected encounters with art, music,
spoken word, dance, theatre, a parade of living sculptures and free
admission into Tate Liverpool's summer exhibitions.
The Blueprint Festival 2014 and its accompanying exhibition is part
of Circuit, a four year national programme connecting 15 to 25 year
olds to the arts in galleries and museums working in partnership
with the youth and cultural sector. Led by Tate and funded by the
Paul Hamlyn Foundation, it provides opportunities for young people
to steer their own learning and create cultural activity. The
festival also offers participants the opportunity to develop an arts
community and learning network with peers and professionals.
The festival starts with the launch party on Friday, 18 July 2014, from 6pm
at Tate Liverpool featuring performances by acclaimed young bands
including headline act 'All We Are' supported by The Orielles.
Visitors will also have the chance to get a first glimpse at the
Blueprint Festival 2014 exhibition, a 2 week showcase of work by
emerging artists curated by Tate Collective Liverpool and a
selection panel of high profile arts professionals, including the
former Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey. The launch party will then
continue at a spectacular event at The Kazimier from 8pm.
On Saturday, 19 July 2014, from 1pm onwards, visitors to Tate Liverpool
can take part in Rubberglove beatboxing, lyric writing and MCing
workshops, listen to music and performance poetry, or try out some
design inspired by the gallery's summer exhibition Mondrian and his
Studios. At the same time, the festival will move out into the City,
with live acts, art and performance workshops in Liverpool ONE's
Chavasse Park as well as a parade of living sculptures through
Liverpool City centre. From 7pm, young people can experience Tate
Liverpool in a whole new way as Tate Collective Liverpool and
selected cross-disciplinary artists including The Costumologists and
Youmeandus transform the gallery into a digital playground of music,
performance and art.
On Sunday, 20 July 2014, from 12pm, Tate Liverpool will be taken over by
young designers, graphic artists and printmakers selling their work
at an art fair arranged in collaboration with Inprint, a startup
established by Liverpool John Moores University and Manchester
Metropolitan University graduates of 2013. Print and design studio
Jonzo will be running a zine-making drop-in, while acoustic musical
performances animate the gallery and the Albert Dock.
Grace Collins, Tate Collective Liverpool member said:- "The
group, of around 30 of us, has been working on the festival for
nearly nine months now. The Blueprint Festival 2014 is going to be
an immersive, exciting and busy weekend and we can't wait to share
with Liverpool what we've been working on."
For more information about Blueprint Festival 2014 and the
exhibition go to:-
tate.org.uk/liverpool.
Blueprint Festival 2014, produced by Tate Collective for Circuit, is
a strand of Flux Liverpool, a City wide celebration of young
people's creativity and entrepreneurialism. Held in Liverpool from
the 17 July – 2 August 2014 Flux Liverpool aims to energise young
people's creativity through events, performances, workshops,
discussions, and projects. Events at venues across the City will
also coincide with and complement the Flux Liverpool programme,
including: Blueprint Festival 2014 for Circuit at Tate Liverpool,
Young DaDaFest, The BIG Event and the Young Liverpool Film Night at
FACT.
Liverpool welcomes energy-saving LED street lights
IN the coming months, work will begin to
replace all of Liverpool's street lights with new LED lights.
The Council has decided to change the current, old 'orange'
sodium lights to LED lighting to reduce its carbon footprint and
energy usage, in its drive to make Liverpool a greener City.
LED lighting has been found to produce a whiter, clearer light which
is more consistent and improves the lighting over the traditional
'orange' lights. This helps with visibility at night and leads
to a public feeling of increased safety locally.
Approximately £2.6m is spent by Liverpool City Council per annum on
the energy costs associated with running the 57,000 street lights
and illuminated signs and bollards across the City. The upkeep of
old street lighting is costly both in terms of energy consumption
and ongoing maintenance costs and this is money that could be
invested elsewhere.
The LED street lighting programme will be completed in phases over
the next two years as part of a £7m investment into the project.
Phase one will begin in June 2014 and will see 12,000 street lights
fitted with the new LED lights.
The Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson said:- "We have decided
to bring LED street lighting to Liverpool to improve the lighting
across the City and make our streets safer. This will help to make
our City greener and a better place to live by saving over 1,400
tonnes of carbon emissions each year. Our maintenance costs will
also reduce by £2.7m overall over the next five years once all of
the street lights have been converted. We can then reinvest this
saving in to other key services for the benefit of our local
communities and the prosperity of Liverpool."
Liverpool City Council is working with Amey, who deliver highways
and street cleansing services across the City, to roll out the new
LED street lighting. The implementation programme has identified the
oldest street lights to replace with new LED lights and will begin
in Fazakerley, with 1,038 lights being converted across 158 streets
over a four week period, starting in June 2014.
The remaining 22,500 street lights, serving 3,214 streets within the
City will be upgraded over the next 2 years. The annual programme
and further information about LED lighting can be found online at:-
liverpool.gov.uk. |
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Sickness rates
in North West highest in the UK
THE North West officially
has the highest sickness rates in the UK, according to the 2014
Sickness Absence survey, published by EEF, the manufacturers'
organisation and Jelf, Employee Benefits, a specialist business
consultancy. The survey, the largest of its kind, shows that 5.6
days per person a year are lost to sickness in the North West, while
sickness rates are the highest in the UK at 2.4%.
Nationally, levels of absence have reached a record low of 2.1%,
equivalent to 4.9 days per employee per year. This remains around
the levels seen over the last few years. However, long-term absence
has increased, with 40% of companies reporting an increase in the
last 2 years.
According to the survey, stress and other mental health-related
disorders have shown the biggest increase in long-term absence, with
just over half of companies reporting it as a cause, an increase of
7% in the last 5 years. 20% of companies cited it as the most common
cause, an increase of 4% in the last 5 years. This possibly
reflects, for the first time, evidence of the effect on employees of
the long period of recession and austerity.
This increase comes despite more investment by employers in managing
sickness absence and placing employee health and well-being
programmes on a par with other business investments. 66% of
companies now have sickness absence programmes, while 68% of
companies offer access to occupational health services for
employees. Over a quarter of companies also offer employee
assistance programmes, health checks and health cash plans.
Yet, despite these investments, there is increasing evidence that
manufacturers are seeing no benefits from the 'Fit Note', a
programme of which EEF has been highly supportive since its
introduction. In addition, employers are still reporting that the
quality of the advice given by GPs is poor, despite half of
employers saying they have made adjustments to enable employees to
return to work.
Darrell Matthews, North West Region Director at EEF, says:-
"Sickness and absence levels in this region are the highest in the
UK, so we certainly cannot afford to rest on our laurels. Driving
down absence rates, helping more employees return to work earlier
and encouraging their well-being is critical for our economy. But,
despite employers increasing investment in managing sickness absence
and providing their employees with more health-related benefits, the
improvement in overall absence rates has more or less now plateaued.
From now on the focus has to be on reducing long term absence, which
is only going to happen if we up our game. This must start by making
the 'Fit Note' fit for purpose so that it can make real
inroads in reducing unnecessary sickness absence."
Iain Laws, Managing Director – UK Healthcare at Jelf Employee
Benefits, adds:- "A focus on prevention must become a priority
for UK employers who need to maintain a competitive workforce within
an overall population that is both ageing and ailing. This is not
only essential to tackle absence, but to also address the less
easily identifiable issue of presenteeism, which can see job
performance decline as a result of ill health. This is fundamentally
a well-being problem with stress and musculoskeletal issues almost
certainly mirrored as the main causes, as with absenteeism."
Other findings from the report are:-
► Only 24% of employers believe that the
'Fit Note' has
resulted in employees returning to work earlier, compared to 40% who
said that it had not.
► More companies disagree (45%) than agree (16%) that the advice
given by GPs about employees' fitness for work has improved. The gap
between those who rate the advice positively and those who view it
negatively has widened substantially over the past 2 years.
► Focus groups of employers are reporting they are seeing no
improvement in return to work under the 'Fit Note' system
compared to the old 'Sick Note'.
► 33% of companies did not receive any 'Fit Notes'
signed 'may be fit for work', a figure which has remained more or less
consistent in the 4 years the 'Fit Note' has been operating.
► 40% of companies said there was insufficient information in the
'Fit
Note' to make a decision, up from 33% in 2012.
► A fifth of companies have not seen any computer generated
'Fit
Notes', with employers reporting manual notes were still the
most common.
In response, EEF is making the following
recommendations:-
1. Government setting a cut off date by which all GPs and medical
professionals in hospitals will have received training in use of the
'Fit Note'.
2. Setting a similar cut off date following which all 'fit notes'
must be computer generated.
3. Spending some of the £170m currently earmarked for the Health and
Work Service on the training of all 40,000 UK GPs in Occupational
Health. EEF estimates this would cost approximately £6m.
4. Make the Health and Work Service mandatory for employees to be
referred to, as opposed to the voluntary scheme currently proposed.
5. Allow companies to offset the cost of intervention where they pay
for treatment against business costs as an allowable business
expense. EEF's survey shows half of companies already do this and a
greater incentive would encourage more to do so. This would help
employees return to work earlier and help reduce pressure on the
NHS.
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