Jessica Murray

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Jessica Murray

The housing ombudsman has warned “simmering anger at poor housing conditions” could boil over into social tension as his office recorded a 474% increase in complaints about substandard living conditions since 2019/20. Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman for England, said repairs were now the single biggest driver of complaints his office deals with, accounting for 45% of its workload.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Jessica Murray

The Labour government is spending less on youth work in England than the Conservatives did after a decade of cuts, despite the prime minister’s commitment to “backing young people”, analysis has found. The UK’s biggest youth work charity said “warm words won’t pay for youth workers” as it called on the government to urgently increase spending on a sector that has been “decimated” by austerity.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Jessica Murray

Victoria Bristow was devastated when she was forced to place her adopted son back into the care of social services, after years of struggling with little support. “It broke my heart. But my son’s behaviour was unmanageable. He was violent. He would attack his sister, he would attack me, he attacked his grandmother. He was running away, and I was having to report him as missing – at this point he was only 10 years old,” she said.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Jessica Murray

A growing number of adopted children are at risk of returning to the care system as funding cuts and lack of support pushes England’s families into crisis, charities have warned. Adoption UK said cuts to funding were already having a “devastating” effect on children who have been adopted, describing them as “morally and economically nonsensical”. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of families call our helpline or come along to events to express their concerns.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Jessica Murray

Labour will not hold back the rise of Reform UK if it fails to tackle poverty, the Big Issue co-founder John Bird has warned as he tables an amendment to the schools bill that would force governments to meet legally binding child poverty reduction targets. Lord Bird, who sits as a crossbench peer, said Nigel Farage’s party was “only going places because the major parties have lost their way”.