PwC’s inspirational head of Cambridge office Sian Steele is leaving the firm after more than 20 years and going solo in the Cambridge UK science & technology heartland.

Steele has been largely instrumental in ensuring that the 21st Century PwC in Cambridge has trampled down barriers and created a broad and inclusive ethos to its 24/7 approach to working.

This has been reflected in the firm’s internal gender equality policies and, in terms of outreach, in the way it has thrown open its showcase facilities at the firm’s new headquarters in Cambridge to charities and businesses of all kinds and sizes.

Steele will continue to work on selected PwC portfolio business on a freelance basis while building a broad-based consultancy in her own right drawing on contacts she has made in the world-leading innovation cluster over the last two decades and more.

In her transformative work at the helm of PwC, Steele has drawn inspiration from her roots and experiences both in the domestic and corporate arenas. When she started out at PwC she and husband David, a technology wizard in his own right, had two children under two and fledgling Robert was not sleeping through the night.

PwC appreciated her obvious professional talent and exceptional people skills and granted her the enlightened opportunity through flexi-time working to follow a career without sacrificing the once-in-a-lifetime chance to raise a family. It is a debt that Steele has paid forward in spades.

Along with colleagues throughout the PwC UK management tier she has ensured that other young women have been granted a similar opportunity. It is one of the thrills of her distinguished career with the practice that PwC has adopted inclusivity as a business and employment game-changer.

Times have changed in the accountancy profession. There are specific protocols which impact on different types of work and guidelines and borders cannot be crossed, which can be frustrating for the practitioners concerned and the clients they serve who want them to handle ALL their financial requirements.

As she looked ahead to retiring at 60, Steele contemplated all her options. She had enjoyed fashioning networks in Cambridge, making long-lasting contacts, building bridges, helping client companies and management teams scale. 

She believes she can continue to add value to family clients and other individuals as well as to growing businesses operating under her own steam.

Steele is taking her remaining few weeks with PwC to grade her many options  at a sedate and considered pace.

“PwC is a fabulous firm and has been my life for more than 20 years but in common with any other organisation it is not the centre of the entire universe. Having said that I have been part of a really big firm and run very fast for a long time. 

“I have helped build big teams and assisted in taking the firm to fresh heights based on embracing diversity and inclusivity in terms of people, practices and general culture.

‘Now I need a couple of months to reflect on where I want to position myself in terms of advising personal and corporate clients as I venture out on my own.”

Audit partner Andy Grimbley, who has been based in Norwich, will take the reins on a temporary basis while a permanent new head for PwC Cambridge is sought. There is no shortage of able candidates.

Steele said: “Whoever takes over here long term will find a fantastic infrastructure, a highly able group of practitioners and a superb environment in which to work to further relationships with some of the best clients, both individuals and company management teams.

“I have been on a long, successful and often breathtaking journey with PwC. I was a new mum when I set out, both boys under two and young Robert didn’t sleep through the night. 

“Neither working mums nor flexi-time were anywhere near commonplace at the time but PwC allowed me to pursue a career without having to sacrifice the really special experience of raising a family.

“In those early years a lot of client organisations were male-oriented; this too has changed and I have been able to help a lot of families in the private context and male and female executives in the corporate world.”

Steele officially flies the PwC nest on April 30 but Cambridge remains a natural habitat for her talents.

She says: “Just look at the way Cambridge University, AstraZeneca and a host of other locally based organisations have rallied to provide expertise, products and funding to fight the coronavirus pandemic; it shows what a special place this is.

“Cambridge entrepreneurs are so generous with their time, money and expertise and it is difficult to envisage a more committed, integrated and innovative corporate community geared to changing for the better the way we live and work.

“I could not be more proud of Cambridge and the calibre and integrity of the contacts I have already made here. Working for PwC all these years has been a real blast; now I feel a fresh buzz at the thought of continuing to build relationships here and help more management teams and families succeed in their chosen pursuits.”

AstraZeneca, the transformative Big Biotech business, steered from Cambridge UK, has joined forces with government and academia in an historic global alliance designed to discover novel coronavirus-neutralising antibodies.

Harnessing internal expertise and via new collaborations, the vision is to identify monoclonal antibodies that have the potential to recognise, bind to and neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus and slow the impact of COVID-19.

More than 50 virology, protein engineering, clinical and bioprocess experts across BioPharmaceuticals R & D and Operations are working on this effort, using proprietary antibody discovery technology that was previously developed under an agreement with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of the Pandemic Preparedness Platform programme. 

As part of the DARPA programme, the technology enabled AstraZeneca scientists to rapidly discover potential therapeutic antibodies for influenza-A in less than 60 days.

AstraZeneca executive Mene Pangalos says: “Through our scientific expertise in infectious disease and antibody discovery and development, we have rapidly mobilised our research efforts to help respond to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

“By partnering with government and academia, our ambition is to accelerate the discovery and development of a safe and effective antibody treatment to help fight COVID-19.”

AZ’s technology can capture and screen antibodies from millions of primary B cells. The company is also utilising hybridoma technology, which is a method for producing large numbers of monoclonal antibodies through a culture of hybrid cells that results from the fusion of B cells and immortal myeloma cells.

Once identified, the monoclonal antibodies are screened against their ability to bind to the spike protein before further developability tests are carried out.  AstraZeneca is aiming for clinical evaluation in the next three to five months.

The international collaborative efforts are designed to evaluate additional promising candidates for future clinical use.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the US are providing AstraZeneca with genetic sequences for antibodies they have discovered against SARS-CoV-2 for further in silico and in vitro assessment.

Via collaborations with the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, promising antibodies from AstraZeneca – discovered through its internal research efforts and collaborations – will undergo preclinical safety and efficacy assessment in the organisations’ biosafety level 3 (BSL3) laboratories.

The company is also in discussion with world governments to support clinical development and manufacturing capabilities.

There are currently no specific treatments for COVID-19. Researchers across the world, including AstraZeneca, are investigating preventative approaches and treatment options for COVID-19, including monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and antivirals, as well as investigating the repurposing of existing drugs to treat the infection.  

A vaccine is a prophylaxis, or preventative, approach against disease. Vaccines require an immunisation and a healthy immune system; they have the potential to provide long-term protection against the virus, though it is estimated that it could take at least a year before a vaccine against COVID-19 is approved.

Monoclonal antibodies synthesised in the laboratory mimic natural antibodies. It is hoped that an antibody-based treatment could neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus and thus, in theory, be given as a preventative option for those exposed to the virus, as well as treat and prevent disease progression in patients already infected by the virus. An antibody-based treatment has the potential to provide immediate effect in the patient.

Mene Pangalos added: “At AstraZeneca we have a long history of and deep expertise in discovering and developing antibody-based treatments for a range of diseases.

“The proprietary technology we are using to identify novel coronavirus-neutralising antibodies has already been pressure-tested against influenza-A in response to the DARPA P3 programme. 

“Harnessing these capabilities, our scientists are working tirelessly and collaboratively, hoping we can contribute to putting an end to this crisis as fast as we can.”

AstraZeneca scientists are exploring three potential sources for antibodies against the SARS CoV-2 virus – patients who have recovered from COVID-19, immunised humanised mice and laboratory techniques such as phage display.

The spike protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the primary target being explored for potential COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies. The aim is that by targeting the spike protein, the antibody will be able to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus and affect its capacity to infect healthy cells.  

Globally-renowned Cambridge Quantum Computing has wowed the technology world with an astonishing breakthrough in the field.

The UK company reveals that it has used the ‘natively quantum’ structure of natural language to open up an entirely new realm of possible applications by translating grammatical sentences into quantum circuits, and then implementing the resulting programs on a quantum computer and actually performing question-answering. 

This is the first time that natural language processing has been executed on a quantum computer, the Bridge Street business discloses. And there is a bonus in the innovation.

By achieving the results without relying on quantum RAM, CQC scientists have created a path to truly applicable quantum advantage within the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era.

By using CQC’s class-leading and platform-agnostic retargetable compiler, tiket, these programs were successfully executed on an IBM quantum computer, achieving ‘meaning-aware’ and ‘grammatically informed’ natural language processing – a dream of computer scientists since the earliest days of the computer age. 

CQC says it looks forward to providing further details in the near future –including ways to scale the programs so that meaningfully large numbers of sentences can be used on NISQ machines as they themselves scale in quantum volume and using other types of quantum computers.

Cambridge Quantum Computing is a world-leading quantum computing software company with 62 scientists across offices in Cambridge, London, San Francisco, Washington DC and Tokyo. 

It builds tools for the commercialisation of quantum technologies that will have a profound global impact.

The company combines expertise in quantum software, specifically the tiket quantum development platform, enterprise applications in the area of quantum chemistry, quantum machine learning, quantum natural language processing and quantum augmented cybersecurity (IronBridge).

Business Weekly reported on Valentine’s Day that global giant IBM, headquartered in New York and with an $80 billion turnover, had fallen in love with the company which is headed up by CEO Ilyas Khan.

IBM made an unspecified strategic investment in the business, following years of collaboration between CQC and IBM’s quantum computing team.

A rapid diagnostic test for COVID-19 that gives results in just minutes is being developed and manufactured for population screening by Cambridge UK business Avacta and Cytiva – formerly GE Healthcare Life Sciences and also anchored in the East of England.

AIM-quoted Avacta develops Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents and the new test is based on this technology. The new test is intended for screening large populations to diagnose coronavirus.

The World Health Organisation recently highlighted the need for the development of rapid tests to quickly diagnose COVID-19 at point-of-care to assist in limiting and tracking infections. 

Existing tests are not suitable for screening large numbers of people for the infection as they are laboratory based and it can take up to several days to get the results.

Avacta is already generating Affimer reagents that detect the COVID-19 virus and together with Cytiva will develop and manufacture a test capable of diagnosing the infection in minutes using a respiratory sample such as saliva. 

Cytiva will transfer this diagnostic assay onto its proprietary point-of-care test strip platform and both companies will work together to complete analytical and clinical validation of the test as quickly as possible.

Avacta will own the intellectual property relating to the COVID-19 Affimer-reagents and retain all the commercial rights to future products. Further commercial details have not been disclosed.

Dr Alastair Smith, chief executive officer of Avacta Group, said: “Importantly the test will indicate if a person has the virus now, whether or not they are showing symptoms and will do so in minutes in-situ with no need for laboratory equipment.

“Unfortunately, many millions of people around the world will ultimately become infected and it is likely to be an annual occurrence. There is a clear and urgent need for a test that can be carried out quickly in the community to limit the spread of the virus and track its progress.

“We have demonstrated before in the case of the Zika virus that the Affimer platform can very quickly provide highly specific reagents in response to an outbreak of an infectious disease. 

“Our partnership with Cytiva means that we now have a global technology partner for a COVID-19 diagnostic which is essential if a practical and commercial solution is to be provided to governments and healthcare providers around the world promptly.

“Hundreds of millions of tests will be needed for population screening and we will be working hard to deliver an Affimer-based solution on Cytiva’s platform – and potentially on the platforms of other partners with whom we are in active discussion – as soon as possible. 

“We are aiming to have developed Affimer reagents for a COVID-19 test by the end of May that can be transferred to Cytiva and potentially to other global diagnostic manufacturers to implement in a test strip.”

A Cambridge invention designed to fight Swine Flu in 2009 is in global demand as a potential weapon in the fight against COVID-19.

The sought after innovation is a smartphone app originated in Cambridge University’s Department of Computer Science and Technology to map epidemics.

Co-inventor of the ‘FluPhone’ app –  Professor Jon Crowcroft, the Marconi Professor of Communications Systems at Cambridge – has now had approaches from healthcare professionals and academics in Australia, Canada and countries in eastern and central Europe, wanting to know more about the technology.  

He has also been contacted about it by NHSX, the arm of the NHS tasked with seeing how the latest technologies can be employed to improve health care.

The research app was originally developed by Jon and his colleague Eiko Yoneki, a senior researcher in the department, in the wake of the 2009 global Swine Flu (H1N1) outbreak. 

The aim was to collect smartphone location data and use it to measure social encounters between people and so model and predict how illnesses like Swine Flu were passed between individuals.  

This idea had since evolved from Jon’s and Eiko’s work in mapping human contacts to measure the ways people met in the real world. As part of that, they had built an app employing the short-range radio capacity of mobile phones (which is what Bluetooth headsets use) to detect the presence of other people coming within close proximity of the phone.

John Edmunds, a noted epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, heard them talk about their work. His research interests are in designing effective and cost-effective control programmes against infectious diseases and he said it would be very useful to harness the app for measuring epidemics.

They set up a pilot study and ran it for three months in Cambridge in 2010. Several hundred volunteers were recruited and asked to download an app onto their phones that would collect information on their social encounters and anonymously record how often they met other people. “It was a small study,” says Jon, “but it did effectively prove the concept.” 

This is a second coming. In his latest blog post for the Turing Institute, where he is also a Researcher at Large, Jon argues that the COVID-19 pandemic “is an urgent opportunity for scientists, the NHS and other health services around the world to use smartphones and their owners to gather valuable data on an unfolding pandemic. 

“This data,” he adds, “could not only provide crucial intelligence about how this pandemic is evolving, but also help us organise against the onslaught and develop effective, evidence-based strategies for coping with future outbreaks.”

The original FluPhone project aimed at doing both these things. Its goals were to enable epidemic modelling with precision and trace contacts.  
“If used now, it could help us find the parameters of the epidemic and allow us to predict its growth,” Jon says. 

“With the FluPhone application, people would register with their age, gender and contact info, and then we could measure all the encounters they have with other people who have the app. We could then use that data to map the fraction of the population that is infected and how many of them in turn infect other people.” 

He says the app would be particularly beneficial in identifying people who come into contact with an infected person, become infected themselves and subsequently spread the virus to others without knowing that they have done so because they are asymptomatic. 

“Using this app, we could discover them,” he says, “when without it, it’s very difficult to do so.”

Crucially the app could also map the impact of the disease among children. Back in 2010, there were initial concerns – from a university research ethics committee – about recruiting children for the pilot study.

But the levels of user privacy built into the system subsequently reassured them and the researchers were allowed to invite children over the age of 12 to take part. This is key because “children are very important in epidemics,” Jon says. “In influenza outbreaks, for example, it is very commonly kids who spread the infection between households.”

Though they don’t appear to be susceptible to COVID-19, it may well be that in fact they are. “There is already data on COVID-19,” Jon says, “suggesting that as many as half of children who come into contact with an infected person become infected – and infectious – themselves, but without showing any symptoms.”

If we are going to accurately predict the spread of viruses like COVID-19, we need to have more accurate transmission metrics, he argues, than a standard multiplier that suggests that one infected person will, on average, infect two others. 

“So it really matters for us to know if the teacher is going to catch the virus from the children they teach, or whether the children are going to catch it from the teacher and then take it home where others in the household will be infected. Our app would really help with this.”

Another potential use of the app would be in providing data to help judge how effective interventions like social distancing, quarantine and lockdowns might be in preventing the spread of the disease. 

Some Asian countries have been using technological data gathering to track the disease and try to halt its spread. In South Korea, authorities were granted access to residents’ mobile phone records to round up and test the contacts of those displaying symptoms, and quarantine those found to be positive. 

While this was quite invasive of residents’ privacy, it was also an example of an intervention that has been remarkably successful in stopping the spread of the virus.

Singaporean authorities have also been using an app – strikingly similar to the FluPhone variety – to monitor cases of COVID-19. 

“And they were able to do so without being overly intrusive,” Jon says. “When people developed symptoms there, they were asked to self-report – in other words, to send in the records from their app so that the health authorities could track and inform their contacts. They in turn were offered testing to discover if they had the disease.”

Now there is a similar app in the UK, which has been developed by King’s College London. It enables people to report symptoms of COVID-19 so that the progression of the disease can be tracked in real time.

Jon says: “The need for such an app is not over, it is only just beginning. After the peak, which will be in the next three to four weeks, we’ll still need ways to track the illness because the majority of the population will not be immune. 

“So when future cases turn up, we must be able to track their contacts and quarantine those who test positive, otherwise the disease will break out all over again. Apps like FluPhone will have importance for some time to come.”

• Image courtesy – UCL

Detailed guidance on the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has recently been announced, writes David Mills, Partner at Mills & Reeve LLP. 

The offer to reimburse employers 80 per cent of their employment costs (up to a maximum of £2500 a month) to avoid them making staff redundant, first announced on March 20, represents an extraordinary intervention in the labour market.

The scheme is open to all UK-based employers, whether businesses, charities or other organisations (though the public sector is not expected to make extensive use of the scheme). 

It will be backdated to March 1 and will be open for an initial period of three months. Any employee on the payroll as at February 28 can be covered by the scheme, unless they were already on unpaid leave at that point.
Staff laid off under the scheme are referred to as furloughed, which effectively means their employment is suspended, but not brought to an end. 

It is clear that it is the employer’s decision whether to furlough staff, but that normally the employee’s agreement will be needed (which is likely to be readily forthcoming in most cases).

While it is clear that staff on furlough will continue to enjoy the full range of statutory rights (except in relation to pay) there remain a number of unanswered questions. 

These include the extent to which periods of furlough can overlap with annual leave (it is clear that in most cases staff on maternity leave or sick leave will not qualify). 

In addition, while staff subject to the shielding guidelines can be put on furlough, it is less certain whether employees who are unable to attend work for other reasons relating to the pandemic are eligible, where they cannot work from home.

More details about the scheme and the related issues that employers needs to address can be found in the Mills & Reeve briefing on our website. You will also find details of other recently announced schemes supporting business through this period on our coronavirus hub – mills-reeve.com/insights/foresight/coronavirus

• For more specific information email david.mills [at] mills-reeve.com

Ingredient solutions business Treatt plc reports robust trading, free of COVID-19 impact, in all its global territories for the half-year to March 31. As a result, its UK share price shot up more than 59p (over 14 per cent) in early morning trading today to 47p.

An expected sharp drop in citrus raw material prices impacted on revenue in the first half of the current financial year. 

Consequently, while in-line with expectations, revenue for the period is expected to be approximately 5.1 per cent lower than the same half of last year. Prices have now stabilised.

Elsewhere, across territories and specialisms, the Suffolk company had an outstanding six months and this has been further buoyed by a recent surge of orders due to COVID-19 driven demand.

The Bury St Edmunds-based business manufactures and supplies innovative ingredient solutions for the beverage, flavour, fragrance and consumer product industries.

It plays a critical role in the food, beverage and cleaning supply chains and order intake in recent weeks has been strong as a number of customers respond to increased demand for beverages consumed at home and cleaning products (such as liquid hand soaps and floor cleaning products) which are of particular importance during the coronavirus outbreak.

The board can confirm that, to date, there has not been any adverse effect on the trading performance of the group due to COVID-19 and it is trading in line with the board’s expectations.

CEO Daemonn Reeve says the business has taken timely action to protect the health and safety of all its employees as well as doing all it can to support the communities in which it operates.

It received early indications of the likely steps that would follow from its colleagues in Shanghai, where the Treatt office remained open, albeit operating for one month on a staff rota; all staff have now returned to work.

In both the UK and US all non-essential staff are working from home and manufacturing continues, working within government guidelines and with appropriate health protection and wellbeing measures in place.

Whilst citrus remains a significant part of the business, there was good growth in reported revenue from fruit and vegetables (up 9.4 per cent), tea (up 47.5 per cent) and health and wellness (incl. sugar reduction) (up 19.9 per cent). 

The vast majority of Treatt’s portfolio is targeted at the growing demand from consumers for more natural and clean-label products which is helping to drive financial performance as well as an encouraging opportunity pipeline. 

Reeve said customers continued to look to innovation to differentiate their offerings, launch new products and categories and refresh existing ones. Building work on its new Suffolk facility has inevitably slowed as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. It now expect that the planned UK relocation may not take place until 2021 but at this stage it is not possible to confirm a definitive timetable. 

Treatt says the delay will not affect its ability to meet customer orders in the short to medium term but does enable the group to preserve cash during this period of uncertainty. 

At the end of the half, Treatt had net cash of £6.5 million and total bank facilities of £25m, of which £24.9m remains undrawn.

As previously reported, the expansion of its US manufacturing facility was completed last year and is now fully operational. Treatt’s capacity for products in its fast-growing fruit and vegetables, health and wellness and tea product categories has now doubled and is coming on stream in time for the new crop season as growth in these categories continues from both new and existing customers.

The group has a hedging strategy in place to try to minimise the impact of exchange rate movements over the course of a financial year though there can be material effects over shorter periods of time.

During the half there was a strengthening in the USD/GBP exchange rate so the board anticipates a net positive FX impact on the results of around £0.6m.

Reeve said: “The focus we have made over recent years on the culture in the business means that we have an incredibly strong and committed team of employees who we know will shine in these exceptional times, whilst protecting the health and safety of each other and the wider communities in which we operate.

“The business is both trading well and is financially robust; we are encouraged by our order book and current demand as we move into our peak seasonal period. 

“Also, and as expected, citrus raw material prices are firming once more, which should result in a stronger performance from our citrus category in the second half of the financial year. 

“Whilst it is difficult to determine the likely impact of COVID-19 on the demand for the group’s products in the coming months, our early experience has shown demand to be robust and at this time, trading remains in line with the board’s expectations.

It is currently expected that Treatt’s half-year results will be announced on May 12.

Philip Colligan, CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, explains how the foundation is reinforcing its educational mission by helping students, teachers and volunteers to make the most of online learning using the tiny Raspberry Pi computer.

Like most of the world, we’ve been getting used to life in the lockdown. As an organisation, we’re very lucky that the vast majority of our work can be done remotely.

We’ve moved all of our meetings and lots of events online. We have just held the first-ever Cambridge Computing Education Research Symposium as an online event, bringing together 250 researchers and practitioners to learn from each other.

Many of us have been figuring out how to combine working at home with additional daily caring responsibilities and homeschooling. Honestly, it’s a work in progress (in my house at least). 

We’ve introduced new flexible working policies, we’re working doubly hard to stay connected to each other, and we’re introducing initiatives to support well-being.

I am so proud of the way the Raspberry Pi team and all of our partners have responded to the crisis: taking care of each other, supporting the community, and focusing on how we can make the biggest positive contribution and impact.

Our educational mission has never been more vital. Right now, over 1.5 billion young people aren’t able to access learning through schools or clubs due to the restrictions needed to stop the spread of the virus. 

Teachers and parents are doing their best to provide meaningful learning experiences at home and online. We have a responsibility and the ability to help.

We are taking four immediate actions to help millions of young people to learn at home during the crisis:-

• Delivering direct-to-student learning experiences
• Supporting teachers to deliver remote lessons
• Helping volunteers run virtual and online coding clubs
• Getting computers into the hands of children who don’t have one at home

Digital Making at Home

Based on feedback from the community, we’ve launched a series of direct-to-student virtual and online learning experiences called Digital Making at Home. 

The idea is to inspire and support young people aged 7–17 who are learning at home, independently or with their parents, carers, or siblings. Taking our amazing library of free project resources (which are translated into up to 29 languages) as the starting point, we’re producing instructional videos that support different levels of skills. Each week we’re setting a theme that will inspire and engage young people to learn how to solve problems and express themselves creatively with technology.

Check it out and let us have your feedback. We’ve got loads of ideas, but we really want to respond to what you need, so let us know.

Supporting teachers to deliver remote lessons

We are working with partners in England (initially) to support teachers to deliver remote lessons on Computing and Computer Science. This work is part of the National Centre for Computing Education. 

We are adapting the teaching resources that we have developed so that they can be used by teachers who are delivering lessons and setting work remotely. 

We are designing a programme of online events to support learners using the Isaac Computer Science platform for post-16 students of Computer Science, including small-group mentoring support for both students and teachers.

All of our teaching and learning resources are available for free for anyone to use anywhere in the world. We are interested in working with partners outside England to find additional ways to make them as useful as possible to the widest possible audience.

Helping volunteers run virtual and online coding clubs

We support the world’s largest network of free coding clubs, with over 10,000 Code Clubs and CoderDojos reaching more than 250,000 young people on a regular basis. 

We are supporting the clubs that are unable to meet in person during the pandemic to move to virtual and online approaches, and we’ve been blown away by the sheer number of volunteers who want to keep their clubs meeting despite the lockdown.

We’re providing training and support to CoderDojo champions, Code Club organisers, educators, and volunteers, including providing free resources, support with handling issues such as safeguarding, and effective design and delivery of online learning experiences. We are also working with our network of 40 international partners to help them support the clubs in their regions.

Access to hardware

We know that a significant proportion of young people don’t have access to a computer for learning at home, and we’re working with incredibly generous donors and fantastic partners in the UK to get Raspberry Pi Desktop Kits distributed for free to children who need them. We’re also in discussions about extending the programme outside the UK.

Get involved

Everything we do is made possible thanks to an incredible network of partners and supporters. We have been overwhelmed (in a good way) by offers of help since the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Here are some of the ways that you can get involved right now:-

• Share what we’re doing. We need as many people as possible to know that we are offering free, meaningful learning experiences for millions of young people. Please help us spread the word. Why not start by sharing this blog with your networks or inside your company?
• Share your expertise and time. We regularly mobilise tens of thousands of volunteers all over the world to run computing clubs and other activities for young people. We are supporting clubs to continue to run virtually and online. We also need more help with translation of our learning resources. If you have expertise and time to share, get in touch at supporters [at] raspberrypi.org.
• Support us with funding. Now more than ever, we need financial support to enable us to continue to deliver meaningful educational experiences for millions of young people at home.

Cambridge-based drug discovery business Censo Biotechnologies is repurposing its laboratories at Babraham Research Campus and Roslin near Edinburgh, to help meet Matt Hancock’s challenge to complete 100,000 COVID-19 tests by the end of April.

It says it will soon be able to complete 15,000 COVID-19 diagnostic tests per month in a bid to help the country combat the virus.

The life science technology specialist says it will process a minimum of 500 diagnostic tests every day. These will enable the NHS to test their staff and tell anxious patients whether or not they are suffering from the virus. 

Censo has the capacity to rise to his challenge because of a recent injection of funds from its principal investor, Par Equity, an Edinburgh-based VC firm that specialises in hi-tech businesses including in hi-tech heartlands.

Mike Hawthorne, CEO of Censo said: “As a life science company we have spent 15 years finding ways of improving the lives of patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases around the world. 

“We were recently able to donate some PPE equipment to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and when the COVID-19 crisis emerged we saw another opportunity to help people in the UK. 

“We have been working with NHS Scotland for several weeks to see how our team and equipment can be used to run virus testing and we are now  finalising exactly how we will work together. Our whole team is delighted to be able to play a part in supporting our hospitals and GPs tackle the crisis.”

Paul Munn, managing partner of Par Equity added: “We are excited about Censo as they are global leaders in their field. At this challenging time it is particularly gratifying for both Par Equity and the investors in Censo to see a company in their portfolio supporting the NHS and government in this way. 

“We invested in Censo for the long term so I am thrilled that that it will also have such an important short-term impact.”

Censo’s proprietary technology allows potential new therapies to be tested on relevant human cell models. It is well known that testing on animals doesn’t correlate neatly with testing in humans, however it is too risky to test early stage therapies in humans.

Censo is bridging that gap using its ability to make any human cell and combine them together to create a living environment similar to that in the body. Potential new drugs are screened through this environment to see what effects they have.

Censo is a global leader in the fields of neurodegenerative and immunological drug discovery and counts global top-ten pharmaceutical and biotech companies among its partners.

The company has recently developed exciting potential human cell therapy candidates aimed at treating multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s Disease, motor neurone disease and pulmonary fibrosis.

During periods of economic uncertainty, and particularly in view of the sudden and significant impact of COVID-19 on many sectors, employers may want to consider some alternatives to redundancies – in particular laying off employees or imposing short-time working in accordance with the provisions of the Employment Rights Act 1996.  

The aim is to ensure that employees remain employed during these periods, but the employer can make a short term saving of labour costs and also have the flexibility to reinstate the workforce when trade starts to pick up, writes Liz Stevens, Professional Support Lawyer at Birketts LLP. The advantage for employees is that this can be an attractive alternative to being made redundant.

What is short-time working and lay-off and when can it be imposed?

An employee treated as being on short-time working under the statutory provisions will have a reduced number of days or hours and will receive less than half of their normal week’s pay. An employee who is laid off will be required to stay off work completely for a temporary period of at least one day, unpaid. 

It is important to note that employers can only impose short-time working or lay-off only where there is an express or implied contractual right to do so. In practice it is quite rare for contracts to include an express provision for short-time working or lay off. 

Unless there is clear and established practice of having done this in the past which has given rise to an implied contractual right, imposing adjustments to working hours/days is a potentially risky strategy for employers.

What is a guarantee payment?

An employee placed on short-time working or laid off may be entitled to be paid a statutory guarantee payment, for up to five ‘workless days’ in a three month period. 

The guarantee payment is subject to a maximum daily rate, which is currently just £29 per day or £30 per day from 6 April 2020 (subject to a maximum payment of five days or £145 (£150 from 6 April 2020) in any three months).  

Employees’ statutory holiday continues to accrue during a lay-off or short-time working period provided the contract is not broken.  

If any employee resigns or is dismissed during the lay-off or short-time working period, they will usually be entitled to be paid their normal salary during the applicable notice period.

Redundancy entitlement

There is no limit on the duration of statutory lay-off or short-time working.  However, statutory redundancy pay can be claimed by eligible employees if the period of lay-off or short-time working (or a combination of the two) has lasted:-

• Four or more consecutive weeks; or
• Six weeks (of which no more than three are consecutive) in a 13-week period.

Note that for redundancy purposes, an employee is only treated as on short-time working for any week if he is paid less than half of his normal remuneration. 

To claim a redundancy payment, an employee is required to serve a written notice on the employer of intention to claim. An employer can serve a counter-notice if it is reasonably expected that the employee will be able to return to work within a period of four weeks.

What if there is no contractual right to impose short-time working or lay-off?

If there is no express or implied contractual right to impose lay-off or short-time working employers could seek to mutually agree variations in hours and/or days of work with their employees, commensurate with a pay cut, on either a temporary or permanent basis. 

Where this is done it is important to put it in writing and obtain signatures from employees to demonstrate their agreement to the changes.

If any changes to employees’ contractual hours or pay are imposed without gaining their agreement, they could seek to pursue various claims against the employer including: constructive unfair dismissal, breach of contract and/or unlawful deductions from wages. 

• For more information call Liz Stevens on 01603 756474 or email: liz-stevens [at] birketts.co.uk