23rd December
Look In On Your Older Neighbours, Around Half a Million Spend Christmas Day Alone
With Christmas just around the corner and the country suffering from very cold weather, Health Ministers are calling on the public to keep an eye out for their older neighbours, help out with shopping or pop round for a chat.
Around half a million older people spend Christmas Day alone and more than 50 per cent of over 75s live on their own.
Christmas is about being together. But it can be the time that people can feel isolated or alone. And it only takes a few minutes to ask after a neighbour.
Figures show:
- around half of all people aged 75 and over live alone;
- 17% of older people have less than weekly contact with family, friends and neighbours;
- 11% have less than monthly contact; and
- over 500,000 older people spent Christmas Day alone in 2006.
Phil Hope said:
“Popping your head round the door to say hello, sharing a cuppa or offering to get shopping can make all the difference to someone who is lonely or vulnerable.
“Christmas is a happy time for many of us, but for some it means being alone. And it’s a time of year when temperatures are beginning to plunge. Checking in on someone not only brings Christmas cheer but also offers peace of mind that they are keeping well.
“In the new year, we will be putting forward plans to create a National Care Service – a simple, fair and affordable system for everyone. It will build on the care that families and neighbours already give to each other.”
The current severe weather conditions have made it all the more important to check on the needs of others and remain vigilant to the risks faced during this period of very cold weather.
Weather reports indicate that it will remain cold through this week with maximum daytime temperatures generally near or just above freezing with widespread overnight sharp frosts.
People - especially the elderly - should take extra care to avoid slips and falls and be aware vehicles might take longer to stop than normal. People who are frail or have health conditions should stay inside if at all possible.
Public Health Minister Gillian Merron said
“It is essential to look out for elderly relatives and neighbours who could be at risk over the Christmas period.
“Check they are warm enough, ensure there is enough food and medicine in the house, and if they need to go out offer to accompany them during very cold weather.”
Independent Age Director of Policy and Communications, Simon Bottery said:
"Older people value their independence but it can all too easily turn to isolation for those that struggle to get out of their homes. The most valuable Christmas present you can give this year might simply be a visit or a phone call to an older neighbour, friend or relative."
source: Department of Health
Heinz Recalls Some Apple and Pear Purée Baby Food
Heinz is recalling from customers some Heinz 100% Apple and Pear Purée baby food with a 'best before' date of 11 January 2011, because of leaking product pouches. The Agency has issued a Food Alert for Information.
Product recall notices will appear in the national press today, Wednesday 23 December. Point-of-sale notices will be shown in stores that stocked the affected product. These notices will explain to customers why the product has been recalled. If you have any cartons or pouches of the affected product, please call the Heinz UK Careline on 0800 0151557 for a full refund.
source: Food Standards Agency
17th December
Schools Told To Give More Help To Children With Special Needs
Schools will not get a good Ofsted report if they fail to cater well for children with special needs, the Schools Secretary said yesterday.
Ed Balls was speaking after the publication of a two-year inquiry by Brian Lamb, the chairman of the Special Educational Consortium, who recommended major reform of the system. He found that some families with children who needed extra help were being neglected by schools and local councils.
A national special needs helpline for parents will be set up and there will be more specialist teachers.Parents will benefit from a better appeals process if their child has special needs and is excluded from school and will have the right to complain to an ombudsman.
Mr Lamb said he had met some very angry parents as part of his investigation. While some families were well supported, others experienced a battle to get the needs of their child identified and met. He said: “The education system is living with a legacy of a time when children with special educational needs were seen as uneducable. We found many examples where they were sidelined rather than challenged to be the best that they could possibly be.
“My inquiry has concluded that there needs to be a major reform of the current system. There needs to be a radical recasting of the relationship between parents, schools and local authorities, to ensure a clearer focus on the outcomes and life chances for children with special needs and disability.”
Mr Lamb said children with special needs were currently eight times more likely to be excluded than their classmates and that he expected to see a steep decline in this.
Many parents struggled to have their children assessed as having special needs, finding the process stressful and encountering negative attitudes, he said.
Mr Balls said that Ofsted would be getting new responsibilities to ensure that schools were delivering for children with special needs. He said work would begin immediately on establishing a national special educational needs helpline to provide independent advice to parents.
Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “The problems of insufficient special needs provision in mainstream schools cannot be solved by simply providing more information to parents.
“The reality is that there is often insufficient training and support for teachers in the classroom and insufficient time for teachers to prepare for teaching children with learning difficulties and disabilities.”
source: Nicola Woolcock, Times Online
16th December
Teen Pregnancy Advisory Group Calls for Radical Thinking
Government advisers have called for more innovative approaches to tackling high teenage pregnancy rates.
The recommendations were made in the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group's (TPIAG) annual report, published today. The government's Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, devised in 2000 with the help of TPIAG, is set to miss its target to halve under-18 conception rates by 2010.
According to the TPIAG, more accessible contraception and sexual health services are needed to reduce teen pregnancies. The report has called for more sexual health clinics within schools, more evening and weekend contraception sessions at community health centres and some radical thinking nationally.
"The government needs to try innovative approaches such as looking at how to get personalised advice and support to all young people," said TPIAG chair Gill Frances. "This would ensure they are prepared to take responsibility for a relationship, fully understand the consequences of sex and could get the necessary help and support."
Other recommendations include more training and resources to ensure the children's workforce is meeting the needs of young parents. The group also wants government to ensure that legislation to make personal, social, health and economic education statutory moves swiftly through Parliament, and commit to extending the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy beyond 2010.
source: Ross Watson, Children & Young People Now
14th December
Vetting and Barring Scheme to Affect 2m Fewer People
The government's controversial vetting and barring scheme will affect two million fewer people than previously thought, according to Children's Secretary Ed Balls.
The government has accepted the recommendation of Sir Roger Singleton, who was reviewing the scheme, that fewer people should have to be vetted before working with children and young people. The scheme, which will now affect those with weekly rather than monthly contact with children, will now cover 9 million instead of 11 million people.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show at the weekend, Balls said: "What we've done is we've reduced the test down from monthly contact to weekly contact, and I think that's the right thing to do. We've also said that a foreign exchange trip or an author going from school to school won't be affected."
He said parents had never been covered by the scheme: "A head teacher who is saying that you should not come into school without a check, that you shouldn't help with a school play - that is a ludicrous overreaction in exactly the same way, if you ask me, a head teacher who says you can't play conkers in the playground. There's no rule which says that. Heads have got to use their judgement."
source: Charlotte Goddard, Children & Young People Now
CWDC Invests £600,000 in Playwork Training
The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) is to inject £600,000 into training for playworkers who want to boost their career prospects.
The cash, which will feed into the government's three-year funding package for playwork training, will finance professionals to study the playwork NVQ Level 3 or the Level 3 award in playwork for early years and childcare workers.
The Children's Plan committed to supporting 4,000 playworkers to achieve Level 3 qualifications by 2011.
So far, 2,027 have enrolled on courses. The extra £600,000 funding is intended to help to drive that number up.
Deirdre Quill, director of integrated workforce at CWDC, said the extra money would improve professional development for playworkers and contribute to positive outcomes for children and young people.
She said: "We understand just how important playwork is to the development of children, and that is why we have so far invested more than £2.5 million into this sector. Professional development for the workforce is a cornerstone of creating better life chances for children, young people and their families. So we are delighted to be able to invest an extra £600,000 to ensure more playworkers can take on Level 3 qualifications."
source: Lauren Higgs, Children & Young People Now
11th December
Early Years Single Funding Formula Delayed Until 2011
The government has been forced to delay its new funding model for free childcare by a year because local authorities are not ready for the changes.
Children’s minister Dawn Primarolo told the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee yesterday that she intended to delay the date when the Early Years Single Funding Formula takes effect.
Local authorities were expected to start applying the formula in April 2010. But a government survey has shown that less than a third of authorities are ready to deliver from April 2010, forcing ministers to backtrack on the plans and delay the formula until April 2011.
"I have asked my officials to invite all local authorities that are confident they are ready to implement their new formulae in April 2010 and who wish to do so to continue as planned," said Primarolo.
"These local authorities will be able to apply to join a pathfinder programme, which currently involves nine local authorities but which we will now expand."
Ministers introduced the formula in a bid to distribute money more fairly to both state and privately run nurseries to pay for free childcare places. Every child aged three and four is entitled to 12.5 hours of free childcare each week, and this will rise to 15 hours from next September.
The formula has caused concern among council-run nurseries, many of which were facing budgetary cuts, despite claims that they provided for the most deprived children and offered a number of targeted services.
Private providers were also worried that they appeared to be gaining little from the formula. Authorities had been accused of basing their new funding plans on insufficient data.
Megan Pacey, chief executive of Early Education, which represents the interests of council-run nurseries, welcomed the delay. "Taking the time now to make sure that we get this right is absolutely vital if a decade of investment benefiting the most disadvantaged children and their families is not to be undone," she said.
source: Ross Watson, Children & Young People Now
9th December
Goverment Launches Internet Safety Code For Children
The government has introduced a new "green cross code" for the internet as part of a £2m online safety strategy, designed to protect children and young people from risks such as cyberbullying and inappropriate websites.
"Zip it, block it, flag it" is the slogan for the campaign, which advises young people to keep their personal details private online and to block and report anyone who is threatening them on the internet.
The strategy, which was developed by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, includes measures to make online safety a compulsory part of the curriculum for children aged five and up from 2011.
The announcement comes as new research shows that almost a fifth of young people have been exposed to harmful or inappropriate content online. A third of children also think their parents have no idea what they do when they are online.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he hopes that "zip it, block it, flag it" will become as familiar to this generation as "stop, look, listen" did to the last.
He said: "The internet provides our children with a world of entertainment, opportunity and knowledge – a world literally at their fingertips. But we must ensure that the virtual world is as safe for them as this one."
Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Europe’s largest teaching union, said internet service providers (ISPs), not schools, should do more to filter offensive materials so that children are not exposed to inappropriate websites.
She said: "We need to ask ourselves whether it is schools that should take the responsibility for fire-fighting measures, or whether such a responsibility should rest on the shoulders of ISPs for tackling the publication of offensive material at source."
source: Lauren Higgs, Children & Young People Now
Click Clever Click Safe Campaign Launched
Government, industry and charities have signed up to a new set of standards to protect children and young people on the internet. And yesterday the Prime Minister officially launched the UK’s first internet safety strategy, Click Clever Click Safe.
The guidelines mean all companies will have to clearly state on their websites what the rules are for using their site and what children can do if they see something that is offensive or shouldn’t be there. Recent research has shown that 99 per cent of 8-17 year olds have access to the internet and almost a fifth said they had come across harmful or inappropriate content online.
The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS), which is made up of over 140 organisations, including Facebook, Microsoft and Google, will draw up the standards. The strategy will include a Digital Code for internet safety and e-safety lessons which will become a compulsory part of the school curriculum from 2011.
source: Number10.gov.uk
7th December
Government Does U-turn On Childcare Voucher Tax Plans
A government U-turn on scrapping tax relief on childcare vouchers has been welcomed by children's campaigners.
The government was considering plans to end tax relief from 2011 and divert money into offering more free childcare places for two-year-olds.
But in a letter to Parliamentary Labour Party’s Women’s Committee joint chairs, Fiona Mactaggart MP and Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed the plans have been scaled down.
He said that tax relief for basic rate taxpayers will continue, but higher rate taxpayers will see their tax relief halved from 40 per cent to 20 per cent from 2011.
The original proposals to phase out the childcare vouchers had been widely criticised by childcare groups and Labour politicians.
The Pre-school Learning Alliance is among those to welcome the U-turn. A spokesman said: "This was a very unpopular proposal, as highlighted by the resulting swell of protest from all quarters, including some of his own ministers."
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4 Children, said: "Shifting funding from vouchers to free nursery places for two-year-olds was the wrong trade-off, and this is a great result."
The Save Childcare Vouchers campaign estimates that childcare vouchers save families around £900 on their childcare costs.
A spokesman for the campaign said: "Parents, employers and childcare providers across the UK will be delighted that the government has listened to their concerns. Keeping the tax relief for childcare vouchers at the basic rate of tax will mean that the vast majority of parents will continue to receive the support they need to pay for quality childcare."
source: Joe Lepper, Children & Young People Now
3rd December
Tax Plans Hurt Childcare Sector
Leaked figures reveal plans to scrap tax relief on childcare vouchers could cost providers £100m a year.
Government plans to scrap tax relief on employer-supported childcare vouchers could cost the sector more than £100m a year, according to figures seen by CYP Now.
The leaked data from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) shows parents spent almost £722m on vouchers last year. But, according to the government's own costing, plans to offer free childcare for an extra 250,000 two-year-olds at the expense of the voucher scheme would only put £620m back into the sector, creating a shortfall of £102m.
Parents can currently sacrifice up to £243 a month of their salaries tax-free in exchange for childcare vouchers. The added incentive for employers to offer the vouchers is that they do not have to pay National Insurance on the money.
But childcare voucher providers fear employers will scrap the vouchers altogether from April 2011 when new employees will no longer be eligible for tax benefits.
Iain McMath, managing director of vouchers provider Sodexo Motivation Solutions, said: "Employers can still offer the scheme without tax relief but there is no incentive."
If employers turn their backs on the scheme it could potentially leave a £722m hole in childcare providers' income until 2015, when the government plans to deliver more places for two-year-olds.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans to scrap tax relief on vouchers at this year's Labour Party conference.
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said nursery owners are concerned that parents will turn to informal childcare without vouchers to cut costs. She said funding for free childcare is less reliable as it does not go directly to providers: "Unless money for two-year-olds is properly costed and ringfenced, nurseries will not have the same reassurance." Tanuku was one of four charity chiefs to write to the Chancellor this week, urging him not to remove the tax subsidy.
According to the government's updated childcare strategy, 23,000 places for two-year-olds costs £57m. This would equate to £620m for 250,000 places. But HMRC figures show the funding gained by the scheme in 2008 was £721.93m.
Conservative shadow minister for families Maria Miller told CYP Now: "The government is more interested in chasing headlines and creating dividing lines than building a sustainable childcare market."
The Treasury refused to comment on the figures.
source: Ross Watson, Children & Young People Now
1st December
Government Funds NCMA to Work with Local Authorities
The National Childminding Association (NCMA) has received government funding to help local authorities support childminders in their area.
The money has been awarded to the NCMA from the Children, Schools and Families Grant Programme. It will be used to provide free consultancy services to local authorities to help them support registered childminders and meet their sufficiency duties under the Childcare Act 2006.
The grant will fund two days of consultancy for each area. The consultancy will be based on four key themes: supporting families; developing a highly qualified workforce; narrowing the gap for disadvantaged and vulnerable families, and integrating childminding with other early years services.
"NCMA will tailor these consultancy sessions to the needs of every local authority," said Marian Pearson, NCMA's director of operations. "We will also help local authorities who have not previously worked closely with registered childminders to see how home-based childcare can fit into a wider family strategy."
The grant is part of a total of £1.49m that NCMA has received in government funding during this financial year. Every authority has been contacted by NCMA and consultancy sessions are already under way.
source: Ross Watson, Children & Young People Now