Policy Statements and Initiatives
CLG: Housing Minister Yvette Cooper has announced a new £70m expansion of the Government's drive to help rough sleepers make a permanent move away from the streets. The investment will fund more than 100 new or upgraded hostels with training facilities to help some of the most vulnerable people in society move on to independence.
The new types of hostels provides on-site training for residents to learn practical vocational skills from catering to sound engineering. Other projects include social enterprises, where the skills needed to successfully run businesses are learnt - examples include a cafe in Newcastle and a scheme to grow & deliver organic fruit & vegetables to local restaurants. Homeless Link, the national umbrella agency for the homelessness sector will be administering the scheme.
Press release ~ 'Places of Change' programme ~ Homeless Link – Changing places ~ Homeless Link 'Changing Places' : a guide to transforming hostels into places of change ~ CLG – Homelessness
DCSF: Minister for Schools and Learners Jim Knight has announced the three-year school funding settlement for every local authority in England for 2008-11. The revenue funding settlement is intended to target key priority areas, including closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.
Total revenue schools funding will be:
* £38bn in 2008-09
* £39.8bn in 2009-10
* £41.9bn in 2010-11
Home Office: Immigration, customs and visa checks will be united in a new UK Border Agency, it has been announced. At the same time the Government announced a £1.2bn programme to strengthen the UK's offshore border controls with new passenger screening technology.
The government claims that by integrating the work of Customs, the Border and Immigration Agency and UKVisas, overseas and at the main points of entry to the UK, the UK Border Agency will have in place both the resources & remit to strengthen the UK's security through strong border controls beginning before travellers start for Britain.
The £1.2b programme includes a £650m contract with consortia Trusted Borders for a passenger screening system, which will work alongside the global rollout of fingerprint visas to keep the UK's border secure. The electronic border security system will screen all passengers before they travel to the UK against immigration, customs and police watch lists.
Press release ~ Security in a global hub: establishing the UK's new border arrangements ~ e-Borders pilot - Project Semaphore ~ Border and Immigration Agency ~ IRIS - Iris recognition immigration system
Defra: The framework that will allow a small number of local authorities in England to pilot incentives for people to reduce, reuse & recycle waste has been set out by the government. Under the powers, included in the Climate Change Bill, a maximum of five local authorities will be granted permission to pilot the schemes.
Local authorities will have to pay back to residents overall any money they collect from them as part of the pilots. Those throwing away the least would receive a rebate and those throwing away the most could pay more. The schemes will then be reviewed to ascertain their success before a decision is made on whether they can be introduced more widely.
Details of the pilots were set out by Waste & Recycling Minister Joan Ruddock in a written Parliamentary statement and the relevant clauses are included in the Climate Change Bill, which has just been published.
