According to the Social Market Foundation (SMF), fraud is now the most common crime in England and Wales. It costs the UK economy £137bn a year and generates countless amounts of misery for its victims. What’s more, it’s growing rapidly, largely due to our increased collective presence online – which is where the majority of fraud takes place.

Irrespective of common stereotypes, fraud affects all age groups and most demographics fairly evenly. Younger people are slightly more likely to be victims of fraud than older people.

Despite the growth of fraud, and its cost to society, very limited police resource is dedicated to tackling the problem. According to official statistics on the police workforce in England & Wales, just 1,753 officers and staff in 2021 were primarily focused on economic crimes such as fraud – amounting to just 0.8% of the total police workforce. This proportion has seen very little movement in recent years, despite the surge in such crime that has taken place.

Additionally, it is not just individuals who are subject to fraud.  Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) has been subject to recent criticism for failing to tackle fraud related to fake businesses claims and Covid loan fraud to the tune of £4.9bn.

A Guardian article discussing this can be found via this link.  The SMT news commentary can be found here, while a full House of Commons Treasury Committee report on Economic Crime can be accessed here .

While there is no golden number that will guarantee success, the reality of job hunting may come as a surprise to many people and shows how hard it really can be for young people looking for their first role.

Recent stats show that it takes about 100-200+ applications to receive one job offer!  In a further breakdown, you have an 8.3% chance of getting a job interview from a single job application.  That means it takes 10-20 applications to get one interview and 10-15 interviews to get one job offer.

For an average online job posting, 1,000 individuals will see the job post, 200 will begin the application process, 100 will complete the application, 75 of those 100 resumes will be screened out by either an Applicant Tracking System or by a recruiter, 25 resumes will be seen by the hiring manager, 4 to 6 will be invited for an interview, 1 to 3 of them will be invited back for final interview, 1 will be offered that job and 80 percent of those receiving an offer will accept it.

To read the full article click here.  To look at other evidence on the same subject click here.

According to Speakers for Schools, scaling up the number of work experience placements delivered virtually can meet the government’s objective of spreading opportunity more fairly. The social mobility charity is calling on the government to include work experience in its “Levelling Up Agenda” and asks employers to step forward and commit to delivering more opportunities.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw in-person work experience significantly reduce, necessitating a rapid migration to virtual opportunities. The move to online placements caused numbers to skyrocket. The charity offered 56,000 virtual placements alone in the academic year of 2020/21, much higher than ever possible when delivered in-person before the pandemic.

Speakers for Schools is now calling on businesses and government to increase the roll-out of virtual work placements across the UK as a way of reaching a broader pool of young people with diverse social-economic backgrounds.

Traditionally, young people often rely on the networks of parents or family members to access work placement opportunities, and they are often concentrated in major cities. However, virtual placements remove geographical barriers, meaning young people in rural or disadvantaged parts of the UK can engage with leading employers based anywhere.

The top three regions of the UK which have seen the biggest uptick in work experience placements between 2019/20 and 2020/21 are the West of England, followed by the North West and East of England. However, Speakers for Schools wants to see young people from all regions in England have increased access to employers like Spotify, the Bank of England, British Airways and the NHS.

To read the full article please access the following link here.

According to the Independent Children’s Home Association (ICHA) children in care are too often treated as criminals by society rather than victims of circumstances.  This sometimes manifests itself in objections when applications to build new care homes creates hostility in nearby communities.

Since 2017 the number of children’s homes in England has risen by at least a quarter, to more than 2,700, but opposition to applications is often based on the perceived premise that house prices in the local area will drop rather than people showing concern for the welfare of children.

The view of ICHA is that children in public care have almost inevitably experienced early life trauma so the task of children’s homes is to address the consequences of such experiences and help children achieve their true potential in life.  Social Services also have their part to play by identifying a safe space for children to be placed within a foster family, which in some cases, is not always possible.

At present, the number of foster carers is not keeping up with demand which may mean that the long-term life chances of children in care could be adversely effected.  As residential homes play an important part in children’s social care by providing support for those who cannot live with their families, there is a wider risk associated with knock-on effects when objections are raised at a local level.

To read the full news article please click here.

The Department for Education (DfE) has launched the biggest expansion to date of the skills bootcamps scheme – with £60 million up for grabs for training providers.

Skills bootcamps are one part of the National Skills Fund, a £2.5 billion initiative to help adults train and gain skills quickly to improve their job prospects.

The bootcamps offer free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks for adults aged 19 or over who are either in work, self-employed, recently unemployed or returning to work after a break.

The full news feature providing details can be accessed here.

In addition, DfE has also launched 4 major campaigns as part of the skills revolution drive.  Each of these campaigns has a different focus.

The links to the Campaign Toolkits can be found below.

• ‘Get the Jump’ Skills for Life: young people’s campaign toolkit
• Join the Skills Revolution: employer skills campaign toolkit
• Skills for Life: adult skills campaign toolkit
• Share your Skills: FE teacher recruitment campaign toolkit

Jobseekers on Universal Credit will have to look for jobs outside their chosen field more quickly under government plans to get more people into work.

From Thursday 27^th January 2022, people will have to look outside their sectors after just four weeks, rather than three months, or face sanctions.

Ministers want 500,000 jobseekers in work by the end of June.

Job vacancies hit a record high of 1.22 million between September and November and as part of the jobs push – called “Way to Work” – claimants will have to widen their job search outside their previous occupation or sector after four weeks, rather than three months.

A percentage of their benefits could be cut if they are deemed to not be making reasonable efforts to get a job, or if they turn down a job offer.

The move is intended to target those who are able to work but either do not have a job or are earning low amounts.

A link to the news article can be found here: Jobseekers Must Widen their job Search.

More than half of black children in the UK are now growing up in poverty, a new analysis of official data has revealed.

Black children are also now more than twice as likely to be growing up poor as white children, according to the research, which was based on government figures for households that have a “relative low income” – defined as being below 60% of the median, the standard definition for poverty.

The research also found that over the last decade the total number of black children in poor households more than doubled – although that increase is partly explained by the overall size of the cohort increasing too. The proportion of black children living in poverty went up from 42% in 2010-11 to 53% in 2019-20, the most recent year for which the data is available.

The link to the full newspaper article can be found here.