By John Bynner, Peter Elias, Abigail McKnight, Huiqi Pan and Gaelle Pierre. Substantial changes in the British labour market over the past twenty-five years, including transformations driven by technology, education, training, and recruitment have had a significant impact on 16 – 24 year olds. The authors chart theses changes and the impact on the lives of young people. They reveal a growing gap between the better and the worse off and a rise in depression among the marginalized group of early school leavers. They call for a re-think of initiatives for supporting young people.

A survey by MORI, commissioned by the National College for School Leadership, found that 52 per cent of those asked thought head teachers provided particularly good examples of leadership. The next best leaders according to the survey are officers in the armed forces – 37 per cent said they provide a good leadership example, closely followed by doctors and the police with 33 per cent each. Those with the lowest scores were local politicians 4 per cent, health service managers 4 per cent and civil servants 3 per cent.But despite ranking heads as the country’s best leaders, ironically the survey revealed respect for heads and the job they do is not as high as for doctors. 58 per cent said they had a great deal of respect for doctors while only 38 per cent said the same of head teachers. Amongst the lowest scoring were politicians, journalists and council officials.

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A critical report by the National Audit Office has prompted Health Minister John Hutton to announce tougher measures to counter violence against NHS staff. The NAO found that violence against doctors, nurses, ambulance crews and other health staff has risen 13% in the last two years. A much more serious problem is that it is estimated that the recorded figures under estimate the reality and that two in five incidents go un-reported. The NAO found that in 2001 – 2002 there were 95,500 incidents of violence. In the last eight months, following the introduction of tougher measures, there were only 50 prosecutions. The rise in violence continued despite the adoption by the NHS of a zero tolerance zone campaign.NHS Trusts are criticized for their response to the problem. Four fifths of Trusts failed to meet the Department of Health’s national improvement target of a 20% reduction by April 2002. Some Trusts do not provide adequate support to staff wishing to pursue civil actions. Trusts are also criticized for failure to work in partnership with the police and other agencies. Criticism of Trusts is supported by a survey from the Royal College of Nursing which suggests that in four out of five cases no action arises from an incident being reported.

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