The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is considering labelling all sperm, eggs and embryos with either electronic ID tags or barcodes. In 2002, the IVF clinic at Leeds General Infirmary used the wrong sperm during a treatment, which lead to a white couple having twins of mixed race. New labelling procedures now being discussed would prevent this type of incident occuring.

Labelling for IVF procedures are already being developed at the IMT International in Chester, where barcodes on the bottom of dishes are read by built-in digital cameras, so if a dish used does not match the patient, an alarm will sound. A barcoding system is already used by the National Blood Service and has resulted in a major drop in errors.

An alternative to barcodes is labelling with electronic RFID tags. A system has been developed by Research Instruments in Falmouth where a tag placed on the bottom of each dish will transmit a unique ID using radio waves, again resulting in an alarm sounding if the incorrect dish is used. Testing has been carried out on mouse embryos that would suggest that there is no expected risk from this procedure.

The UK government intends to bring relevant public services together to introduce a ‘one stop shop’ for people dealing with the death of a relative. Relatives of the deceased currently have to cope with several government departments to carry out necessary administrative procedures. The government hopes that the new action plan will overcome this kind of inefficiency.

In a Cabinet Office report, issued on 24 March plans are set out regarding the use of technology to link together the relevant services and enable them to share information across departments. The most important introduction would be that of a ‘Bereavement Portal’, which would be accessed by the main citizen portal, Directgov at the end of this year. Directgov already offers some information for grieving relatives but if the proposed developments take place it would enable people to register deaths, cancel benefits and tenancies, inform relevant agencies and sort out probate with a single ’sign-on’. Other developments anticipated include a web-based system allowing the electronic sharing of information about deaths by registrars; improved IT facilities installed into registries, connected to the Court Service’s central IT system; and the possibility of pre-populating Department for Work and Pensions forms with information already held.

All these plans raise issues of data protection and the security required to control the safe sharing of information. Hence the is a need for significant legislative changes and as a result the plans are termed ‘aspirational’, with the aim to be completed by 2015.

Are you a Liberal Democrat or Labour supporter living in a constituency expected to go Conservative? Are you questioning the value of your vote? If so, you can now sign up on the website tacticalvoter.net and pledge to “swap” your vote with a Labour or Liberal Democrat supporter in a constituency where a seat is up for grabs.

Organisers hope to wipe-out the Conservatives and see the Liberal Democrats become Britain’s second party. Michael Howard and six shadow cabinet colleagues are at the top of a list of high-profile candidates who are seen as vulnerable at the general election.

The campaign is run by a not-for-profit firm called Howard’s End. It was set up by a group of Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters. Its spokesman, Jason Buckley, a teacher from Essex, said: “For Labour voters, there are seats where voting Lib Dem is a no-brainer. The chance to oust senior Tories like Howard, Letwin, Davis and May is irresistible. The only people voting Labour in these seats should be the candidates and their agents.”

Advocates of vote swapping claim it helped the Liberal Democrat gain in Cheadle in 2001, and Dorset South, where the Labour MP Jim Knight won with a majority of 153.

Clearly, all pledges to swap a vote are based on the honour system. There is the chance the Liberal Democrat voter you have pledged to swap your vote with is actually a Tory in disguise.

The Work Foundation, sponsored by Adobe, has released a report examining the role of ICT in public services this week. Written in the light of both the Gershon and Lyon reviews, it acknowledges the transformational potential of ICT and aims to show why ICT needs to be part of a wider strategy to improve the quality of public services. The report examines three areas: customer focus, value for money and effective management of staff.

On reading the Executive Summary some may find the conclusions of the research self-evident. However, stating the obvious, particularly in the case of public service development, is often deserately needed and necessary - it is well worth reading beyond the first pages.

The conservative right in the UK is taking a page from America’s political playbook. Conservativehome.com, a website that aims to serve as a forum for the revival of Conservative thinking and policies in the UK, started today.

The creators of conservativehome.com hope to use the internet to influence political events, as bloggers in the US have. The American website Drudge Report has been given credit for ousting Dan Rather from CBS news programmes after exposing documents he presented on President Bush’s military service to be false.

Although conservativehome.com will initially be used as a promotion tool for the Conservative party’s election bid, the group behind the site wants it to eventually become a real alternative to broadcast media.

The website, which is independent of the Tory party, was started by Tim Montgomerie, the political secretary to Iain Duncan Smith when he was Tory leader and head of the Conservative Renewing One Nation unit under William Hague.

The site hopes to persuade “social conservatives” to back the Tories at the election. It will favour tax relief, oppose British membership of the euro, support the strengthening of marriage and back pre-emptive action in the “war on terror”.

Digital television will permanently replace analogue in parts of Wales tonight, reports the Guardian. The government’s quest to install digital TV in every British home by 2012 begins in the villages of Ferryside and Llansteffan in Carmarthenshire.

After the analogue signal is switched off tonight, the two Welsh villages will join Berlin, in Germany, as the only areas in Europe with digital-only TV signals.

West Sussex County Council are set to launch an online catalogue of over 1,000 e-products as part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s roll out programme for the National Projects.

According to Kablenet, products so far available to local authorities include a digital TV starter kit, a mobile street management system and a document for help in implementing e-payments technology. Roland Mezulis, chief e-government strategist at West Sussex commented that: “The new Product Catalogue brings a wide range of products together in a way that is accessible to the average local authority user or IT supplier.”

The system is currently in the pilot stages of development and will be officially launched on 31st March. Watch this space.

In an attempt to try and reduce the number of people calling local police forces with non-urgent inquiries, the Home Office has launched a website providing the answers to over 500 common queries. The Police FAQs database, launched yesterday by Hazel Blears MP, includes information about missing persons, court appearances, speeding tickets, lost property and anti-social behaviour.

Speaking at the launch Blears explained how the service would save the police time and money by answering online the public’s most common qusetions about UK criminal law and policing. In addition to the FAQ, the website also contains links to the 43 police forces in England and Wales, and tools are in place on the site to allow each police force the opportunity to add specific local information to its regional profile.

As reported on kablenet, the site is part of the existing Police National Legal Database (PNLD) and there are already plans to expand the contents over the coming months, perhaps also making it available via internet kiosks for those without home internet access.

The government has singled out the need to improve employees’ ICT capabilities in a new report on workplace skills. The white paper, Skills: Getting on in Business, Getting on at Work, released this week by the Department for Education and Skills singles out skills in information and communications technology, stating: “The pervasiveness of ICT, both at work and for leisure purposes, means that functional competence in using ICT needs to be counted as an essential skill for the modern world.”

As reported by Silicon, the paper also calls for the improvement of ICT education in schools, particularly for 14-to-19 year olds, and highlights how adults can receive ICT training though venues such as government-backed learndirect facilities. The report also underlines the importance of providing internet and computer access for people who do not have these facilities at home.

In response to the white paper, Karen Price, CEO of e-skills UK said: “The future of business in the UK depends upon its ability to exploit IT effectively for competitive advantage - and this requires skills at a much higher level. ” As part of its effort to improve workplace skills, the governement’s new National Employer Training Programme (NETP) will provide public funds for workplace training.

The New Statesman’s Skills For Business Supplement is available here.

The all-party European Information Society Group (Eurim) has issued a seven-point IT manifesto that aims to influence UK party policies before the upcoming election, reports vnunet.

Eurim’s list, which is based on discussions with industry and government, calls for better IT opportunities for students and charities, more unified policing, and a commitment for all UK citizens to have broadband access by 2010.

Only those issues which respondents agreed upon were taken into consideration in drafting the manifesto. This excluded topics such as the adoption of open source or commercial software.

Richard Allen, Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam, said: “There are significant policy differences between the parties on specific applications of technology, like identity cards, to which the Lib Dems are strongly opposed.

“But what is common to all parties is that any future government will be increasingly dependent on IT to deliver its services and for the overall success of the British economy.”

Phillip Virgo, secretary general of Eurim, sees it important to raise these issues, even if candidates disagree over them.

“The problem with the manifesto is that we are in the business of promoting joint working between parties. As such there is no clear blue water or red blood between the parties,” he said.

Eurim brought these proposals before MPs twice before, first launching them a year ago, and having renewed them at the start of the party conference season.

The manifesto can be downloaded here.