Taken from National Measurement News - Leap Seconds - Open Dialogue Debate (link):
"A leap second is a second which is added (or, in principle, removed from) to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to keep it in sync with solar time. Historically, time has been determined by the rotation of the earth and the location of the sun in the sky; in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) noon is defined to be the mean time the sun reaches its highest point in the sky in Greenwich. However, the rotation of the earth is irregular. This means that any time standard (such as UTC) determined by accurate measuring devices like atomic clocks slowly falls out of sync with solar time. And so, every couple of years we need to insert a leap second to UTC to keep the two in sync.
There have been international discussions over the last 13 years about ending the insertion of leap seconds into UTC. Doing so would give us a continuous timescale without the occasional (and unpredictable) jump, and so simplify computer software which handles time and avoid the potential problems which come with such complexity. However, this would lead to UTC time slowly drifting away from solar time, and would essentially involve ending the long history of the link between time and the sun.
So far, the British Government’s stance has been to strongly support the continued use of leap seconds. To find out what the public think we are now working with Sciencewise to set up a public dialogue about the issue. A public dialogue run by Sciencewise brings together members of the public, policy makers, scientists, and other expert stakeholders to deliberate on national public policy issues involving science and technology. It enables participants to discuss and develop their views about complicated technical issues by allowing them to learn from written information and experts. This leads to the reaching of carefully considered conclusions, which are then used to directly inform the Government’s decision making.
The public dialogue exercise is due to take place from February through to the summer of 2014, so watch this space!"
More:
NPL on leap seconds: link
Leap Seconds - Sciencewise funded project 2013: link
Wiki on the Leap Second: link
Previous TZ-UK thread: link