Updated guidance is now available on the civil means testing page. This includes:
Keycard 54 April 2018
Guide to determining financial eligibility for controlled work and family mediation
Guide to determining financial eligibility for certificated work
There is a small change in the dependant allowances to reflect a 365-day calendar year.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has today (16 April 2018) announced new appointments to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) council.
Susan Jordan, Jayne Haines and Anne Davies have been appointed as new non-executive board members for a 3 year term from 16 April 2018.
Anne Davies joins the council as an independent member and Susan Jordan and Jayne Haines as employer representatives.
Sally Hunt has also been reappointed for an additional 3 years.
Sir Brendan Barber, Acas Chair, said:
I’m delighted that Anne, Susan and Jayne are joining the Acas council alongside Sally who has been reappointed for another three years. Their wealth of experience in employment relations will be invaluable in our role as independent, impartial and trusted workplace experts.
I look forward to working with them to maintain our reputation as Britain’s leading advisory service on workplace relations.
Acas is an independent body that provides impartial advice on workplace relations to employers and employees. Its services help to contribute to BEIS’ vision of delivering a competitive, efficient and effective labour market as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy.
During 2016 to 2017, Acas helped to settle 9 out of 10 collective disputes, answered 887,000 calls and dealt with 1.4 million questions from 500,000 users with Acas’ automated online helpline advice service.
Professor Davies is currently Dean of the Oxford Law Faculty, and has been Professor of Law and Public Policy since 2015. She studied at Oxford, completing her BA and D.Phil. degrees. She was a Prize Fellow at All Souls College from 1995 to 2001, and the Garrick Fellow and Tutor in Law at Brasenose College from 2001 to 2015, and remains a professorial fellow of Brasenose College. Professor Davies is the author of five books and numerous articles in the fields of public law and labour law. She joins Acas as an independent member.
Susan is currently Vice president HR – Retail UK and Ireland. Prior to this she was HR Director Employee Relations and Employee Engagement Europe from 2012 to 2014. Susan joins Acas as an employer representative.
Jayne is currently Senior Vice President Talent Leadership, Learning and Organisation Development at GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to this she was Chief Learning Officer at the same company from 2014 to 2016. Jayne joins Acas as an employer representative.
Sally Hunt is the general secretary of the University and College Union. She has two decades’ experience as a senior trade union official has been general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), since 2007. Since 2015 she has been serving on the Acas as an employee representative and has agreed to stay in post for another 3 years until February 2021.
Malawi has successfully eliminated trachoma. Photo credit: The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust
Millions of people across the Commonwealth will be free of blinding trachoma as the UK steps up its support to tackle this ancient and avoidable disease, the International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt will announce today.
Trachoma, a bacterial infection that can lead to permanent loss of sight, affects more than 52 million people across 21 Commonwealth countries. If left untreated, the painful disease, which is the world’s main infectious cause of blindness, can cause eyelids to turn inward, or eyelashes to grow towards the eye scratching the cornea.
To help eliminate the disease, UK aid will provide additional support to 10 Commonwealth countries over the next two years, providing antibiotics to millions, surgery and education programmes to teach people how to stop the spread of this infection.
International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said:
British research, NGOs and pharmaceutical companies have been at the forefront of the global fight to eliminate blinding trachoma that causes debilitating pain for its victims.
UK aid has already made a huge difference to vulnerable people in countries including Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda, freeing families trapped in a cycle of poverty as the disease passes from one generation to the next. In Malawi for example, four years ago eight million people were at risk of trachoma and now no-one is.
This further commitment will mean millions of people across the Commonwealth will receive vital sight-saving treatment and we will be on course to eliminate this ancient and avoidable disease.
This new package of UK support will:
Today’s support is part of the UK’s £360 million commitment made in April 2017 to provide a billion treatments for people at risk of neglected tropical diseases like trachoma and guinea worm. Neglected tropical diseases affect over a billion people in the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world, stopping children going to school and parents going to work – costing developing economies billions of dollars every year in lost productivity and reducing overall global prosperity.
The International Development Secretary will highlight the results of UK aid at an event this evening organised by The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust (QEDJT) to celebrate work to eliminate trachoma across the Commonwealth.
Dr Astrid Bonfield CBE, chief executive of The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust, said:
At the Trust, thanks to support from DFID and our partners from across the Commonwealth, we have seen how the elimination of trachoma transforms lives for the better.
It is wonderful news that more citizens, communities and countries across the Commonwealth can now look forward to a future free of the scourge of this ancient, painful, blinding disease.
Through our partners, Sightsavers and the QEDJT, UK aid has made huge progress in fighting avoidable blindness. UK aid has helped to train more than 10,000 people to look for the final trachoma cases around the world. These trained specialists have provided crucial advice to those affected by the disease, helping them to get surgery and teach them on how to stop the spread of the infection itself.
Dr Caroline Harper CBE, CEO of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind – more commonly known as Sightsavers – welcomed the announcement:
Blinding trachoma is a horribly painful disease that has devastating effects on the people it affects and their communities.
This new investment the Commonwealth 2018-20 Fund will help us make huge strides towards eliminating this ancient scourge from the Commonwealth and will also encourage other donors to step forward.
Pupils across the country will find out today (Monday 16 April) which primary school they will be going to in September, amid rising education standards in England.
Figures show 97.2 per cent of pupils were offered one of their top three primary schools in 2017 and follows the creation of 825,000 new school places since 2010.
Families will receive their offers as standards continue to rise thanks to the government’s reforms and the hard work of teachers, with 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010 and nine out of ten schools awarded this rating at their last inspection.
School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said:
This morning, thousands of pupils and their parents will find out which primary school they will be going to this September. Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers, academic standards in our primary schools are rising across the country. Our young readers are among the best in the world, the proportion of primary school pupils reaching the expected standards in reading, writing and maths standards went up 8 percentage points last year and the attainment gap between children from wealthier and poorer backgrounds has narrowed by 10.5% since 2011.
A good primary school education lays the foundations for success at secondary school and beyond, so it is right that we help make sure every child reaches their potential from the moment they start their education. That’s why we’re investing £5.8 billion to create even more good schools and good school places – building on the 825,000 we’ve created since 2010 – resulting in 9 out of 10 pupils securing one of their top three choices of schools.
Academic standards are rising following the introduction of a more rigorous primary school curriculum to match the best education systems in the world, with latest performance data showing:
The gap between disadvantaged pupils and others in a combined measure of English, reading and mathematics has decreased in each of the last six years, narrowing by 1.3% in the latest year and 10.5% since 2011;
There are now 154,000 more six-year-olds on track to become fluent readers than in 2012, with England’s recent rise up the international PIRLS rankings putting the success of the government’s reforms on a global scale; and
In 2017 72% met the expected standard in reading, 75% in maths and 77% in grammar, punctuation and spelling.
On top of this, the government has invested in programmes to help raise standards in these crucial early years of education, including a £26 million network of specialist English Hubs around the country to improve pupils’ literacy and £41 million to follow the same approach to teaching maths as world leading countries through the Shanghai Mastery for Maths programme. This is on top of wider changes to the primary assessment system which will reduce unnecessary workload for teachers so they can focus on what really matters in the classroom.
Already accounting for one fifth of global trade, with intra-Commonwealth trade valued at $560billion and estimated to rise to $700billion by 2020, the organisation holds vast potential for future growth. New initiatives announced today will help make this happen.
As Commonwealth partners, we have a lot to offer each other. And at home there is a gain by tapping into new markets and new talents.
Speaking ahead of the Heads of Government Meeting, the Prime Minister will also call for the Commonwealth to be a beacon of free and inclusive trade at a time of fragile growth and continuing protectionism.
To help make the most of the Commonwealth’s potential, Prime Minister Theresa May will unveil new programmes to free up trade, boost women’s participation in business and to upskill young people whom make up two thirds of the Commonwealth’s 2.4 billion citizens.
The new SheTrades programme will offer £7million in Commonwealth-wide support to increasing the presence of women-owned businesses to operate internationally from countries where being female is a professional barrier.
Indeed, it has been estimated that if women played the same role as men in labour markets, as much as $28 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025.
The UK will work with the International Trade Centre (ITC) to deliver this, while also compiling the world’s first ‘Global Outlook’ on trade and gender in the Commonwealth. This will provide information needed to help Commonwealth countries implement more inclusive trade policy.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May said:
Our Commonwealth family already accounts for one-fifth of global trade, and we must continue to work together to build further upon this solid foundation by building on our existing trade links and establishing new ones.
I firmly believe that regardless of which corner of the Commonwealth you are from, we all will benefit from the jobs created by doing so. Every one of those new jobs will mean another family seeing their hard work rewarded, and the spread of greater opportunity.
The initiatives I have announced will see the Commonwealth being better able to respond to its youth, rise to the challenges they face and answer their ambitions for a better life. In taking decisive action today, we have begun a positive change which will echo through the generations.
I am also proud that important action taken at this summit will mean that more women will be able to overcome barriers which keep them from participating in trade.
The Prime Minister will also announce UK funding for a new Commonwealth Standards Network which helps harness the benefits of existing international standards. These will be a shared language for trading partners across the globe to enhance trust and create innovation.
This will boost intra-Commonwealth trade and support developing countries to produce goods and services to internationally recognised standards and access new markets. The effective use of existing international standards will reduce trade costs between members.
International common standards act as a common language that will help the UK forge new, and deepen existing trading relationships with our Commonwealth partners, which will bring benefit to both businesses and consumers in the UK.
While this action will help, to truly tap into the Commonwealth’s potential there needs to be dedicated programmes for its young. The issue of youth unemployment has been raised as a key issue at this year’s summit, which is why Theresa May will announce action to help.
Boosting trade will in turn boost jobs; tackling the youth unemployment which the Commonwealth knows is a real problem for its youngest citizens. Of the organisation’s 2.4 billion citizens, 60% are under 30.
And young people looking to move into the workplace will benefit from a new £3.4million apprenticeship and training programme in the Commonwealth, which will help promote and share best practice across the Commonwealth.