Seven Glasgow students will spend their summer gaining work experience as part of the Student Loans Company (SLC) internship programme, to help them gain valuable skills to enable their entry into the workplace. The internships are across a range of disciplines including Human Resources, Project Management, Marketing and Technology. The roles are based at one of SLC’s Glasgow city centre locations, where over 2,300 people are employed.

The 12 week internships are for third and fourth year students from Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow University or the University of Strathclyde, who are studying a course relevant to the role that they are interested in. The will be supported by a mentor who will help them gain valuable experience, skills and knowledge about the workplace before they graduate.

SLC plays a vital role in helping UK students fund their studies and, to do this, a broad range of roles and jobs are needed; from HR to Technology, Policy to Project Management, Communications & Marketing to Legal. Morven Spalding, SLC HR Director says: “This is the highest number of internships we have ever taken on and we are excited to provide work experience, knowledge and skills to students who will be the workforce of the future.

“SLC is a unique organisation in the role that it plays for the UK Government and to help us do this, we have a wide range of interesting and exciting careers. Our staff are extremely knowledgeable and have a wealth of experience in many disciplines that they are keen to share with our interns.”

University of Strathclyde student and marketing intern, Holly Davey added: “Having the opportunity to work in a large company like SLC lets me develop my skills in the workplace and give me an idea of the career opportunities that exist in larger companies. SLC really appealed to me as I can use my experience at university to help create marketing resources to help inform students about the funding they can access and I’m really enjoying getting stuck in.”

Thousands of children across the UK could be inspired to take up a career in maritime thanks to lessons being rolled out across the country.

Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani announced £40,000 of funding for expanding the Why Shipping Matters programme during a lesson at St Peter’s London Docks Primary School today (9 July 2019). The funding will allow the lessons to be developed for use in secondary schools.

The lessons, developed by the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, aim to raise awareness of the maritime sector and the importance of shipping, and will be available to primary and secondary schools.

Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani said:

Shipping is crucial to the vitality of the UK – bringing in the food and goods we buy as well as energy to power our homes.

I am always excited to see children’s enthusiasm for ships and maritime, and I hope this programme will inspire them to consider a future career in the industry.

Pupils will learn how to make a compass and be taught how they allow vessels to navigate around the world as well as understanding the values of commodities that are shipped across the globe.

Julie Lithgow, Director of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, said:

The Institute has, for more than 100 years, inspired new generations to develop their knowledge of the commercial maritime world, albeit young people at the start of their professional careers.

With this new project we’ll be developing an interest in our sector, and an understanding of its fundamental role in our world in the youngest of our society.

The enthusiastic curiosity and creativity of the primary school children who have been part of the project so far has inspired us to roll it out to the South Coast, Merseyside and the North East of England.

Today’s funding shows the government’s commitment to deliver the recommendations laid out in Maritime 2050.

This long-term strategy includes a vision for the future of the UK maritime sector. It recommends that more is done now to promote the maritime sector in schools so that we grow and nurture a skilled workforce for the future.

The Charity Commission is today announcing a class statutory inquiry into a group of charities alleged to be involved in money laundering, which had common trustees.

The charities are:

The Commission has been investigating the charities since June 2014 when it was notified of a Metropolitan Police investigation into the charities over concerns that they were being used to launder £10 million. The Commission assessed information and found a pattern of regulatory concerns across the charities; these included signs of fraud and mismanagement.

The Commission therefore opened a class statutory inquiry on 13 June 2014. It has been unable to announce the investigation until now so as to avoid prejudicing criminal proceedings, under which the inquiry has been working closely with the Metropolitan Police. On 26 June 2019 the administrator of Chabad UK was convicted of laundering money through the charities, as well as for supplying false information to the Commission. He was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on 4 July 2019.

Amy Spiller, Head of Investigations Team at the Charity Commission, said:

This case has involved a dishonest abuse of charity and we welcome the sentence. Charities exist to do good and strengthen society, so abuse of position of this kind has no place in charity. It is right that the individual has been held to account for his actions through the conviction.

The inquiry has included examining:

• the use of the charities for a non-charitable purpose and as a conduit to launder the proceeds of crime;
• the misapplication of charitable funds for an improper or criminal purpose;
• personal benefit to trustees in breach of trust;
• how the charities were set up;
• the supply of false or misleading information to the Commission.

The Commission will now progress the final stages of its inquiry and report on its findings and conclusions in due course. Reports of previous inquiries are available on GOV.UK.

Ends

Notes to Editors

1. The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work see the about us page on GOV.UK.
2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.

The Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and the High Representative express deep concern that Iran is pursuing activities inconsistent with its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA).

The IAEA has now confirmed that Iran has started enriching uranium above the maximum allowed limit stipulated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

We express deep concern that Iran is not meeting several of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Iran has stated that it wants to remain within the JCPoA. It must act accordingly by reversing these activities and returning to full JCPoA compliance without delay.

These compliance issues must be addressed within the framework of the JCPoA, and a Joint Commission should be convened urgently.

We call on all parties to act responsibly towards deescalating ongoing tensions regarding Iran’s nuclear activities.

Town halls should encourage the redevelopment of retail parks and large supermarkets into communities that include homes, shops and businesses, a wide-ranging report for the government has found. 

The new “mixed use” communities should be supported by new public transport to reduce reliance on cars – and are part of plans to revisit these ‘boxland’ developments.

The proposals are contained in the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’s interim report, ‘Creating space for beauty’, which has been published today (9 July 2019).

The report examines the fundamental reasons for ugly developments and public mistrust, and also calls for communities to be given an earlier say in the development process, encouraging greater use of master-planning – rather than communities engaging in town “planning by appeal”.

Interim Chairman of the Commission, Nicholas Boys Smith said:

Redeveloping abandoned out of town retail parks and ugly old supermarkets would deliver something much more beautiful in the form of thriving new communities where people can raise a family, work or settle down.

Our initial report sets many ways we can make our country more beautiful while fulfilling the needs of future generations who will need a roof over their head.

We need to move the democracy up-stream from development control to plan-making.

Beauty should not be just a property of the old buildings or protected landscapes but something we expect from new buildings, places and settlements. We need to deliver beauty for everyone, not just the wealthy. This will require, ultimately, some fundamental changes. Hopefully our report will start part of that important debate with the public and the professions.

These are draft proposals at this stage, and we would welcome further feedback before we put a final report to the government in the coming months.

Other interim recommendations to the government include:

• Councils to have confidence in “saying no to ugliness” – with authorities celebrating examples of bad schemes they have turned down and used as examples to encourage beautiful design.

• Any financial support from Homes England and local councils for a development should ‘aim for beauty’ with more work required to understand how this might be achieved and measured.

• Improved and earlier public and stakeholder engagement in the design standards councils set developers in local plans so they can demand better quality.

• High streets should be beautiful, walkable, well-connected places for people to live and work with a greater mix of buildings that includes smaller shops, businesses and homes.

• Urging different layers of local government to come together and set out a vision for development which reflects the local geography, culture and economic priorities.

Responding to the interim report, Communities Secretary Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said:

I am determined to reach our target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s, but it’s right that we do not do this at any expense – what is built must stand the test of time.

We owe it to the next generation to not just build more homes, but to build communities people can be proud of.

As a country, we should not shy away from talking about what building beautifully means – and this report is an important contribution to that discussion.

The Commission praises beautiful developments, including The Malings in Newcastle, which is a riverside development of 76 new homes built on brownfield land and in keeping with traditional terraced properties in the area.

The interim report has been published today and the commission intend to submit a final report to the government before the end of the year.

Commissioners want to receive further comments and evidence which will help them to prepare a final report.

A final report is due to be published by the end of the year (2019). Further comments and evidence can be submitted to commissioners by email: BBBBCommission@communities.gov.uk.

Established in November, the Commission has taken evidence from over 120 stakeholders involved in the delivery of homes, experts, residents and home buyer organisations. It has made 7 regional visits and held 9 evidence sessions and roundtables. It has also received evidence from over 70 bodies and individuals including members of the public.

The Commission was established in November 2018 by the Communities Secretary Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP.

The Commission is led by the interim-chairman Nicholas Boys-Smith (founding director of Create Streets), along with Gail Mayhew (advisor to Urban Catalyst and property consultant) and Mary Parsons (chair and trustee of the Town and Country Planning Association).

Experienced parliamentarian Sir John Hayes MP has also supported the Commission as have a wide range of advisors with many views, from many parts of the development and design professions.