All posts tagged: reporting

DfE seeks to ‘improve’ school spend reporting

DfE seeks to ‘improve’ school spend reporting

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles The government is seeking to “improve” the way schools report on pupil premium spending, as an influential committee demanded officials follow up with settings that fail to do so. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the public accounts committee, warned today that “for too many schools, the government is not sighted on how money that ought to be spent on helping disadvantaged children overcome their circumstances is actually being used”. It comes after a National Audit Office report last year found the Department for Education “cannot demonstrate it is achieving value for money” in the way it uses £9.2 billion a year to narrow the disadvantage gap. It warned the DfE had “limited evidence” on how well almost half of its disadvantage funding is spent. Geoffrey Clifton Brown It also found that one in five schools had failed to meet their duty to report how they spend the pupil premium – which makes up £2.9 billion of disadvantage funding – in 2023. The committee has now recommended the DfE introduces …

Humanists UK welcomes Government plans for mandatory reporting of child sex abuse 

Humanists UK welcomes Government plans for mandatory reporting of child sex abuse 

Published by skeptic

Yesterday the UK Government announced its intention to introduce mandatory reporting of child sex abuse, including making it a criminal offence to fail to report such abuse. Humanists UK, which leads the campaign to close illegal faith schools, welcomes this as a significant step forward in safeguarding children and young people, including those trapped in unregistered schools. In 2021 the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found widespread instances of sexual abuse in illegal schools. Humanists UK responded to the previous Conservative Government’s consultation on mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, warning that religious groups must not be exempted from legislation. IICSA’s Chair, Professor Alexis Jay, recommended that all adults working with children, or in a position of trust with children in either a faith or sports setting, and members of the Police, should be subjected to the new duty. Action is long overdue to protect victims of child sexual abuse. The first consultation on legislation to introduce mandatory reporting by the Government was held back in 2016. In her statement to MPs the …

Ex-Computer Weekly journalist given OBE for Post Office reporting

Ex-Computer Weekly journalist given OBE for Post Office reporting

Published by Sam

Mr Bates vs the Post Office promo photo. Picture: ITV A former Computer Weekly journalist who helped kick off the title’s reporting on the Post Office scandal has been recognised in the King’s New Year honours list for 2025. Rebecca Thomson has been awarded an OBE for services to justice because of her early work on the scandal that saw hundreds of subpostmasters wrongly prosecuted because of the Horizon IT system. Computer Weekly won the Campaign of the Year prize at the British Journalism Awards last month in recognition of its 15-year long reporting on the Post Office scandal. The judges said: “Sometimes, campaigning journalism takes time to have an impact. For this title it has taken 15 years and 450 stories. They prove that you don’t have to be big to make a massive impact and have led the way on one of the biggest stories of the century so far, playing a crucial role in finally securing justice for victims.” The story finally received widespread public attention – and anger – last year …

NSS calls for mandatory reporting law after CofE abuse coverup

NSS calls for mandatory reporting law after CofE abuse coverup

Published by skeptic

The National Secular Society has called on the justice secretary to introduce a mandatory duty to report known or suspected child abuse. The NSS, which has long supported mandatory reporting (MR), wrote to Shabana Mahmood in the wake of the Makin review, which was published earlier this month. The review revealed sadistic abuse perpetrated by CofE lay reader John Smyth against over 100 boys and young men in the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Senior officials in the Church were made of aware of the abuse in the 1980s, but buried the report instead of alerting police. The archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who resigned following the publication of the review, was made aware of the abuse in 2013. Welby failed to ensure the abuse was formally reported to police. The review said senior CofE clergy showed “a distinct lack of curiosity” and a “tendency towards minimisation of the matter”. A police investigation of Smyth only began when the abuse was revealed by Channel 4 News four years later. Crossbench peer Tanni Grey-Thompson introduced a …

News Outlets Are Falsely Reporting That a NASA Astronaut Is Still in the Hospital

News Outlets Are Falsely Reporting That a NASA Astronaut Is Still in the Hospital

Published by José

Despite ample reporting to the contrary, multiple news outlets are still running misleading new articles claiming that a NASA astronaut is still in the hospital after returning from the International Space Station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. If you take it from headlines seen in the Daily Mail, Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV, or the random Argentinian news site El Diario 24, the unnamed ISS crew member who was rushed along with their three crewmates to a Pensacola hospital on October 25 is still there. The problem? NASA itself announced just a day after those initial reports that the astronaut returned home to Houston after just one day, with a clean bill of health and the ability to “resume normal post-flight reconditioning with other crew members.” Soon after, outlets like The Guardian, Space.com, and Ars Technica all picked up the stories in a timely manner — but for whatever reason, those headlines came up much lower on Google News than this wave of far sketchier ones. This issue not only happened on Google Search, but also — albeit to a somewhat lesser …

Nottingham Post vindicated over reporting of police attack briefing

Nottingham Post vindicated over reporting of police attack briefing

Published by Sam

Nottinghamshire Live’s homepage coverage of the IPSO decision Update 18 October 2024: The Nottingham branch of the NUJ has issued an open letter hailing the Nottingham Post’s IPSO win over Nottinghamshire Police as “a victory for the free press”. The letter, addressed to Nottingham Post editor Natalie Fahy, can be found in full at the bottom of this article. Original story, 19 September 2024: The Nottingham Post has been vindicated after publishing articles about a “non-disclosable” police briefing relating to a stabbing attack that rocked the city last year. The Reach-owned title reported in February and March that Nottinghamshire Police had held a “non-disclosable briefing” for press about contact they had with Valdo Calocane before he committed a triple murder spree. In June last year Calocane stabbed to death two university students, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley, and school caretaker Ian Coates. Thanks for subscribing. Close The Nottingham Post and its website Nottinghamshire Live published the headline: “Police don’t want us to tell whole story of attacks investigation / Police ask Post not to publish details …

Expert on abuse law: mandatory reporting proposals “lack teeth”

Expert on abuse law: mandatory reporting proposals “lack teeth”

Published by skeptic

Government proposals to introduce mandatory reporting (MR) of child sexual abuse “lack teeth” and should be abandoned and replaced with much stronger laws, an expert on abuse law has said. Richard Scorer, head of abuse law and public inquiries at Slater Gordon and vice president of the National Secular Society, said the lack of criminal penalties for non-reporting meant the proposals were not MR “in any meaningful sense”. Organisations which had covered up abuse – including religious groups – are “unlikely to be troubled” by the proposed law, he said, although he welcomed the fact there was “no confessional exemption for religious groups”. Scorer said the proposals should be replaced with a law that “can prevent cover up of the kind we have seen happen so extensively in religious settings”. Lobbying for religious exemptions to mandatory reporting The government published legislative proposals to introduce MR earlier this week following a public consultation last year. In its response to the consultation, the NSS said there should be no religious exemptions to MR, including abuse revealed during …

Matter 1.3 Specification Adds Energy Reporting, Electric Vehicle Charging, Water Management Support and More

Matter 1.3 Specification Adds Energy Reporting, Electric Vehicle Charging, Water Management Support and More

Published by skeptic

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) today announced the debut of a new Matter 1.3 specification that’s available for device makers and platforms. Matter is a smart home protocol that allows smart devices to work across multiple platforms, including HomeKit. Matter 1.3 adds support for a range of new device types and features, including water management devices, electric vehicle chargers, kitchen and laundry appliances, and TVs. For smart plugs and other devices, the update includes energy management reporting, allowing users to see actual and estimated measurements of power, voltage, and current, both in-real time and over time. EV Charging manufacturers are able to include Matter-based features such as manually starting and stopping charging, adjusting charging rate, and optimizing charging times. Water management devices like leak and freeze detectors, rain sensors, and controllable water valves are supported in Matter 1.3, as are several new appliance types including microwave ovens, ovens, cooktops, extractor hoods, and dryers. For TVs, Matter 1.3 improves casting initialization and search, plus it adds support for push messages and dialog for ambient experiences, expanded …

Campaign for first UK memorial to journalists killed while reporting

Campaign for first UK memorial to journalists killed while reporting

Published by skeptic

Existing memorials at the National Memorial Arboretum. Clockwise from top left, memorials to: Burma railway, armed forces, Cheshire Yeomanry, Naval Service, and World War Two evacuation of children. Pictures: National Memorial Arboretum A new campaign is aiming to create the UK’s first memorial to journalists killed while doing their jobs in conflict zones. Press Gazette is spearheading the On the Record: The National Memorial to Journalists on the Frontline campaign along with Andrew Baud of communications agency TALA. It has been launched today (Friday 3 May) to mark World Press Freedom Day. The aim is for a sculpture to be commissioned for and placed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire as a place where families, colleagues and friends can reflect and remember those we have lost. It would also be available for visiting by schoolchildren and other members of the public to learn about the sacrifices made by those reporting in the public interest. It is intended that the memorial will be complemented by a digital database containing the stories of fallen UK-based journalists …