Displaying items by tag: report

Children are generally making progress to recover the learning they lost during the pandemic following action taken by the Department for Education, but disadvantaged pupils are further behind the expected level of attainment than other pupils, according to a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO). Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said, ‘The DofE needed to take action to support pupils to make up for the learning they lost during the Covid-19 pandemic and reach children who had been disproportionately affected by the disruption to schooling. Despite the progress that is being made, it is concerning that learning loss for disadvantaged pupils remains greater than for other pupils. It is vital that the Department maintains its focus on education recovery in the coming years to help all children to catch up and to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged and other pupils.’

On 25 May Sue Gray’s report on the behaviour of' Downing Street staff during lockdown was published. The senior civil servant, who described how staff partied while the rest of the country was in lockdown, said many events 'should not have been allowed', and that the PM and his officials 'must bear responsibility for this culture'. Warnings about parties breaking Covid rules were ignored, the report says. Boris Johnson told MPs he took 'full responsibility for everything that took place on my watch'. He said he had been 'humbled by the whole experience' and had learned lessons.' Sue Gray said she learned of multiple examples of 'unacceptable' treatment of security and cleaning staff during her partygate investigation. Mr Johnson’s remarks are also being scrutinised by the Commons privileges committee, which must decide whether he knowingly misled Parliament, particularly when he categorically denied knowledge of rule-breaking parties. If he is found to have knowingly misled parliament, he would be in breach of the ministerial code and would in theory be expected to resign.

Rt Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Church of England’s first black female bishop, is concerned that a Government’s report on race and ethnic disparities said that the success of the ethnic minority population in education and economy is a model for other white-majority countries. The Bishop said that we will be an example when black people are not just sweeping floors, cleaning, and catering in establishments, but sitting around every table and in leadership in all walks of life. ‘There are serious issues around that report if it is telling us we are now a model country.’ The report, commissioned after the Black Lives Matter movement began, said there was no evidence of institutional racism in the UK: rather, geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture, and religion all impact life chances more than racism. Many say the report was culturally deaf and out of step with public opinion.

In many places, police not only fail to protect people in poverty from violence, but they are violent predators themselves. Millions of the most vulnerable people in the world live in fear of police who extort bribes and brutalise innocent citizens. This has increased during coronavirus curfews. In Kenya it is easy for a corrupt or incompetent police officer to falsely accuse and imprison or even kill an innocent person. As measures have been put in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus, there has been a spike in police abuse while enforcing the night curfew. The government’s independent policing oversight authority has documented at least 35 cases of police brutality in connection to the curfew enforcement, including twelve deaths. Other agencies report at least one death a night in the communities which the justice centres monitor.

A damning report, prepared last year, has been released. It detailed Israel’s lack of preparation for a major epidemic. A pre-coronavirus scenario in the report (based on an influenza epidemic) expected about 2,250,000 infected residents (25% of the population) with an increase in morbidity spread over eight weeks, about 150,000 more hospitalised, 25,000 in intensive care, and 12,500 needing ventilation. The report stated that the health system was greatly burdened all year round, with many departments overcrowded, and there was a shortage of ICUs. Now there is a lack of protective medical gear, and problems with infection testing. Netanyahu said nobody was ready for corona.

A plural, sustainable and diverse media is vital for a healthy democracy, but the UK has just three companies dominating 83% of national newspaper circulation. Last year a survey of 250 political articles and news segments from the largest (online and television) providers revealed that the anchors made 29 false statements or claims, a further 66 clear instances of misleading or distorted coverage including misquotations, reliance on single source accounts, omission of essential facts or right of reply, and repeated value-based assumptions made by broadcasters without evidence or qualification. In total, a quarter of the sample contained at least one documented inaccuracy or distortion. At this time of election media fervour, please pray for an end to the overwhelming imbalance of news reporting that this survey reveals. Pray for improvements and changes to be made in reporting so that the UK communications environment functions in the public interest. See also the next article, Christians in media.

Human Rights Watch reported on 4 November that important social reforms enacted under Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman have been accompanied by deepening repression and abusive practices meant to silence dissidents and critics. The 62-page report documents ongoing arbitrary and abusive practices by Saudi authorities targeting dissidents and activists since mid-2017 and a total lack of accountability for those responsible for abuses. Despite landmark reforms for Saudi women and youth, ongoing abuses demonstrate that the rule of law remains weak and can be undermined at will by political leadership. The authorities have locked away many leading reformist thinkers and activists. HRW said that detaining citizens for peaceful criticism of the government’s policies or human rights advocacy is not new in Saudi Arabia, but what has made the post-2017 arrest waves notable is the sheer number and range of people targeted over a short period, and new repressive practices.

Pervasive persecution of Christians, sometimes amounting to genocide, is ongoing in the Middle East, according to a report commissioned by the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt. ‘The report finds an ‘inconvenient truth’; 80% of persecuted religious believers are Christians. Some of the report’s findings will make difficult reading for Middle East leaders who are accused of tolerating or instigating persecution. The Turkish AK party is highlighted for denigrating Christians. Hunt, an Anglican, has made the issue of Christian persecution one of the major themes of his foreign secretaryship. ‘I think we have shied away from talking about Christian persecution because we are a Christian country and we have a colonial past, so sometimes there’s a nervousness there. But we have to recognise that Christians are the most persecuted religious group.’ The interim report sets out the scale of the persecution. A final report in the summer will state how the Foreign Office can raise awareness of the issue.

Christian Concern for our Nation asks, ‘Is the widespread availability of halal products an example of Islamic religious freedom? Or does halal have a deeper effect on society?’ Its new report shows how halal spreads through supply chains impacting laws and economics, and recommends how to deal with the deepening roots of sharia. The report states, ‘The aim of Islam is to create a supreme worldview, whereby all other laws come under Islamic law. Halal food markets, Islamic dress markets, sharia-compliant finance and banking, Islamic education, sharia courts.’ See also article 1 in the Europe section, on sharia law.

Disturbing cases of bullying and sexual harassment have ‘long been tolerated and concealed’ in the House of Commons, according to a report by Dame Laura Cox QC, who said there was a culture of ‘deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence’. She said the procedures for protecting staff were inadequate, and that ‘broad cultural change’ was needed. The inquiry was commissioned following a BBC investigation earlier this year. Dame Laura described the House of Commons as a ‘stark reminder of how bad things used to be. No workplace is immune, but the culture in which it has been able to take hold in the House of Commons and the ineffective mechanisms for dealing with it make this a particularly serious case.’ Now that the nature and extent of the problem is exposed we can pray that all alleged sexual harassment by members of parliament is fairly dealt with according to new policies, procedures and personnel.