January



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January 15, 2014
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Draft Amendments Reform DPO Functions

The Ministry of Economy published - on 16 October 2013 - draft amendments to the Data Protection Act 1997 (the Act). The amendments offer a simplified registration procedure if an organisation appoints an Administrator of Information Security, which is similar to a Data Protection Officer (DPO). However, organisations choosing to appoint a DPO will be subject to a 'significant extension of obligations.' Under the current law, while appointing a DPO is optional, notifying the GIODO of all data filing systems containing personal data and registering all data filing systems containing sensitive personal data with the GIODO is mandatory. Under the proposed amendments, controllers who choose to appoint a DPO only have to keep an internal, publicly available, record of data filing systems containing personal data. They must still register any systems containing sensitive personal data. It seems that the draft may in practice introduce additional burdens for companies, which decide to appoint a DPO. The draft amendments also introduce several new obligations for data controllers concerning DPOs. Public consultations on the amendment are expected to begin on 12 November 2013.

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January 15, 2014
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Job Numbers Jump +40% in November

Online job board InfoJobs recorded a +39.8% increase in the number of jobs posted online during November 2013, compared with the same month last year. In November 2013, there were 93,261 jobs posted online, equating to 26,561 more job advertisements than last year. The number of young people seeking employment in November rose by +12.5% compared with a year ago.

There were 1,594 people between the ages of 16 and 19 in search of employment last month. Catalonia and Madrid were the regions with the greatest number of jobseekers who would be willing to relocate in order to secure a job. Castilla-La Mancha was the region with the highest number of jobseekers (60.8) actively seeking work outside of their region. Retail and Sales was the sector that reported the biggest jump in job adverts on InfoJobs compared with a year ago, the additional 22,714 jobs equated to 44.4% of all jobs posted on the job board last month. This was followed by IT and Telecommunications (15.4%) and Customer Services (10.6%).

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| Health & Social Care
January 15, 2014
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What Happened to Duty of Care to the Vulnerable?

It is high time for the government and HR managers to take a much harder line on recruitment in health and social care. There is a sizeable minority of care workers who should never be allowed near vulnerable people, as highlighted by recent high profile cases of shoddy care at nursing homes and abused children. And while they are not suited to care for the vulnerable, they would not show up in a Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) check. The problem stems from a risk-averse recruitment culture, in which reference checks are not properly carried out, allowing unsuitable individuals to enter the sector. DBS checks are effectively serving as a comfort blanket for those with responsibility at policy level to ensure the protection of the vulnerable since they are no longer advising independent reference checking. An increasing number of HR professionals in care provider organisations now don't give reference information at all, favouring the risk-averse approach of many commercial organisations in giving dates of employment and job title only. Some organisations who get only these standard references back will appoint regardless, ignoring the risk. Those HR practitioners who won't give full reference information are, therefore, potentially denying their organisations' best performers the right to further their careers. Recruiters should make sure to exercise rigour when choosing career workers. Failure to act will lead to more tragedies for the most vulnerable people in society.

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