All posts tagged: crackdown

CEOs of big trusts ‘escape scrutiny’ under pay crackdown

CEOs of big trusts ‘escape scrutiny’ under pay crackdown

Published by skeptic

The government’s new CEO pay crackdown has allowed the biggest chains to escape scrutiny as the method used to identify “outliers” appears to be loaded against smaller trusts. Schools Week analysis of Department for Education data used to name and shame 37 leaders over high wages reveals it held some “to a different standard” based on size. We can also reveal that bungling officials used the wrong figures in their analysis for the country’s best-paid CEO – Harris Federation’s Sir Dan Moynihan. The figure used was £150,000 off his actual salary, fuelling more uncertainty over officials’ workings. The news comes as the government confirmed it is working on another clampdown – which will again publish the names of trusts deemed to be “outliers” on pay. ‘Unfair’ analysis To calculate the outliers, the Education and Skills Funding Agency initially grouped trusts into bands by type and pupil numbers “to minimise bias”. Trust CEOs were deemed to be outliers if they fell into the top 5 per cent in their band for having both the highest pay in …

37 trusts named and shamed in new CEO pay crackdown

37 trusts named and shamed in new CEO pay crackdown

Published by skeptic

But the MAT with England’s best-paid CEO – who earns almost £500k a year – isn’t one of them But the MAT with England’s best-paid CEO – who earns almost £500k a year – isn’t one of them More from this theme Recent articles Thirty-seven academy trusts have been named as part of the government’s new ‘outlier’ CEO pay crackdown – but the MAT whose boss earns almost £500,000 a year isn’t one of them. Schools Week revealed earlier this year that Department for Education would resume its policy of naming and shaming the chains under scrutiny over high wages. Officials have today released the list of academy trusts written to by the Education and Skills Funding Agency, last November, for having the “highest executive pay”. Letters were sent under the previous government. They used to write letters to to trusts paying staff more than £150,000, but this has been in limbo since mid-2020. The new approach instead compares CEOs’ pay with organisations of a “similar size and type”. To calculate the outliers, the ESFA …

Council crackdown after school spa day gifts

Council crackdown after school spa day gifts

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles Kent council has outlawed its schools from buying flowers as a thank-you for departing staff after an audit found public funds were spent on gifts, including spa days.  An internal audit in 2022 found “irregularities involving inappropriate use of school funds” to buy “gifts and hospitality, as well as payments to staff” at its maintained schools.  This included alcohol, spa days and transport to and from schools, a schools forum heard.  The council refused to release the full findings of the audit because legal action is ongoing.  It introduced a new policy this month outlawing spend on gifts for staff unless there were exceptional circumstances. It has told employees to do whip-rounds instead, raising concerns that recruitment and retention could be impacted. ‘Ongoing legal action’    Kent told Schools Week “some anomalies in spending were identified through our regular budget monitoring processes and we recognised a need to strengthen our guidance”. Minutes from a schools forum about a 2022 audit say the fraud team found school funds had been “used for …

Germany tightens controls at all borders in immigration crackdown

Germany tightens controls at all borders in immigration crackdown

Published by Sam

Berlin last year also announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. Those, and controls on the border with Austria, had allowed it to return 30,000 migrants since October 2023, it said on Monday. Ms Faeser said a new model would enable the government to turn back many more – but it could not talk about the model before confidential negotiations with the conservatives. The controls could test European unity if they lead to German authorities requesting other countries to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants. Under EU rules, countries in the Schengen area, which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland, are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy. Germany shares its more than 3,700-km-long (2,300 miles) land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not take in any …

‘We refuse to disappear’: the Hong Kong 47 facing life in jail after crackdown | Hong Kong

‘We refuse to disappear’: the Hong Kong 47 facing life in jail after crackdown | Hong Kong

Published by skeptic

The verdict wasn’t surprising but outside room no 2 of the West Kowloon courthouse, people still wept. The panel of Hong Kong national security judges had set down two days for the hearing but dispensed with the core business in about 15 minutes. In the city’s largest ever national security trial – involving the prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners and activists from a group known as the “Hong Kong 47” – almost all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion. Their crime was trying to win an election, holding unofficial primaries in 2020 attended by an estimated 600,000 residents. The plan was devised by organiser and academic Benny Tai, who had previously been jailed over his involvement in the 2014 “umbrella movement”, and whom Beijing has labelled a “vicious traitor”. Tai’s plan began with primaries to select the best candidates to win a legislative majority. They would then block government budgets to potentially force a dissolution and the resignation of the chief executive, Carrie Lam, in an effort to have the government answer …

Budget airlines face crackdown on charging for hand luggage

Budget airlines face crackdown on charging for hand luggage

Published by Sam

Budget airlines in the EU are facing a crackdown on hand luggage fees after a court issued €150 million (£128 million) in fines over the practice. Four airlines have been penalised by Spain for “abusive practices” towards their passengers, including charging extra for carry-on baggage and guaranteeing seats next to family and friends. Ryanair, EasyJet and Spain’s Vueling and Volotea were all fined by the country’s consumer rights ministry yesterday. The fines will be seen as a challenge to budget airlines’ business models, which hinge on charging rock-bottom fees for tickets and adding supplements for things such as larger carry-on bags. Flag-carrier airlines tend to include these in their fares, arguing their generally higher prices are simpler for consumers to understand. The ruling has caused a wave of potential lawsuits across the bloc that could result in add-on fees being banned on EU-registered airlines. Test Achats, a Belgian consumer campaign group, said on Friday that it had filed a complaint with the country’s authorities “against several airlines which charge extra prices for reasonably sized hand …

Reform Calls For Crackdown On ‘Money-Laundering’ Barber Shops

Reform Calls For Crackdown On ‘Money-Laundering’ Barber Shops

Published by Sam

Nigel Farage and Richard Tice announced how Reform UK would crackdown an excess of barber shops across the country. The honorary president and leader of the far-right party launched their election campaign today by honing in on immigration, “cheap overseas labour” – and the long list of places where people can get their hair cut. LBC reporter Henry Riley asked the pair: “What is the issue with barber shops? “You said you’d investigate them, are we going to see Detective Chief Inspector Farage or who is …” Farage replied: “Do you ever actually get out of London? “You need to go out more, sunshine! You really do! You can see high streets with five, six, seven barber shops in them. “Thousands of new barber shops.” “i’m just wondering what the accusation against them, I’m just curious,” the journalist asked again. While Farage just chuckled knowingly, Tice said: “You go to towns, and people are saying shop, after shop after shop – I don’t know, maybe it was Covid. “Maybe our hair is growing faster. Seriously.” …

The Download: Mapping the human brain, and a Hong Kong protest anthem crackdown

The Download: Mapping the human brain, and a Hong Kong protest anthem crackdown

Published by skeptic

The news: A team led by scientists from Harvard and Google has created a 3D, nanoscale-resolution map of a single cubic millimeter of the human brain. Although the map covers just a fraction of the organ, it is currently the highest-resolution picture of the human brain ever created. How they did it: To make a map this finely detailed, the team had to cut the tissue sample into 5,000 slices and scan them with a high-speed electron microscope. Then they used a machine-learning model to help electronically stitch the slices back together and label the features. Why it matters: Many other brain atlases exist, but most provide much lower-resolution data. At the nanoscale, researchers can trace the brain’s wiring one neuron at a time to the synapses, the places where they connect. And scientists hope it could help them to really understand how the human brain works, processes information, and stores memories. Read the full story. —Cassandra Willyard To learn more about the burgeoning field of brain mapping, check out the latest edition of The …

‘They hear a bang at the door and it’s the Home Office’: threat of being ‘disappeared’ haunts asylum seekers amid Rwanda crackdown | Immigration and asylum

‘They hear a bang at the door and it’s the Home Office’: threat of being ‘disappeared’ haunts asylum seekers amid Rwanda crackdown | Immigration and asylum

Published by skeptic

At 2.37pm on Thursday, news that a man had “disappeared” rippled through London’s raid-resistance WhatsApp groups. The asylum seeker had walked into the Home Office immigration reporting centre in Hounslow, west London, for a routine appointment, as many people seeking refuge in Britain are required to do. His brother waited outside. But the man did not come out. Ten minutes passed, then 20, then an hour, then three. The brother waiting outside went in, and came out with bad news: his sibling had been detained and told he faced being deported to Rwanda. Calls for help went out on social media. “URGENT! Eaton House has news someone is detained so a van will be trying to leave WE NEED NUMBERS NOW!!” one person wrote. If they were going to stop the man being taken to an immigration removal centre – where he could be held for months before being placed on a deportation flight – protesters were needed urgently. At at hotel housing asylum seekers in Peckham, south-east London, hundreds had already gathered with a …

Alliance DAO is attracting fewer US founders amid crypto crackdown

Alliance DAO is attracting fewer US founders amid crypto crackdown

Published by skeptic

The graduates of Alliance DAO are often useful indicators of investor appetite and user adaption trends within the crypto space. The latest batch of the stage-agnostic crypto accelerator, unveiled today, comes at a moment of great excitement for the recovering market. Just two months ago, Bitcoin hit its all-time high; though the value of the largest cryptocurrency has since declined, it continues to trade at much higher levels than during the market downturn following FTX’s implosion in late 2022. Venture investors are responding and plowing money into web3 startups, sending total fundraising in the space to roughly $1.9 billion in Q1, a sharp 58% jump from the quarter before, according to Crunchbase data. The renewed enthusiasm among web3 believers is evidenced by catchphrases like “we are so back” that have filled crypto X/Twitter. In the meantime, regulatory efforts to rein in the industry have not waned. In the U.S., Binance’s Canadian founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is set to become the richest person to ever face imprisonment. Uniswap, which has been vocal about its decentralized approach …