Low-paid self-employed workers were unable to shift to home working during lockdown, unlike higher paid freelancers in professional services like consultancy or tutoring.
Around six in 10 Conservative councillors said police, health services and schools had been put under extra pressure by reduced spending on children’s services.
Total school spending per pupil fell by eight per cent in real terms between 2009–10 and 2017, and spending on Sure Start children’s centres fell by 67 per cent.
As many as 1,000 Sure Start centres across the country have closed since 2009 – twice as many as the government has reported – according to a major new analysis published by the Sutton Trust.
The day before he became Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby spoke at an evangelical church in Nottingham. His comments were summarised by the Daily Telegraph thus; ‘The welfare state cannot go on doing the job it has for the past 70 years and the Church should step in to fill the void, according to the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury’.
Parents and carers across the country are outraged by government-forced cuts in 'early intervention' services and Sure Start, says Simon Barrow. Rhetoric on family support is not being matched by funding decisions.
Plans by the Conservative Party to scrap Sure Start outreach workers are misguided and potentially damaging to hard-to-reach families, according to children's charity, Spurgeons.