TWO NEW AREAS TO GET SCHOOL CHALLENGE FUNDING

Schools in deprived parts of Greater Manchester and the Black Country are to share a 160 million pound fund designed to raise standards. Half the money will also go to an extension of the London Challenge, which began work to step up school standards in 2003 and which is already credited with helping to achieve a dramatic improvement.

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ROLL OUT OF PARTNERSHIP IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME BEGINS

The Partnership Improvement Programme developed by the Improvement and Development Agency and the voluntary sector will be rolled out to three regions of England this year, beginning this week. The process starts on Wednesday in the North East and will then move on to London and to the North West later this year.

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This report from the Legal Services Research Centre confirms that debt problems make it difficult for people to live a normal life. Debt brings about ill-health, relationship breakdown, loss of employment, as well as distressing impacts on parents’ relationships with their children. It is currently estimated that 3.7 million people are having serious financial problems.The LSRC calculated that the average cost per debt problem to the public can be estimated at over 1000 pounds, with more serious problems involving costs of many times this amount. These costs can be set against the cost of advice, estimated at around 25 pounds in the case of National Debtline. This clearly shows the benefit that providing debt advice can have on society as a whole.

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