Sarah Furness (61) is a philosopher and ethicist who recently served the County as High Sheriff. She has worked for many years in the voluntary sector, including for Macmillan Cancer Support for Rutland (supporting those with life-limiting illnesses) and Warning Zone (introducing children to the dangers of modern life). She is a member of the steering committee for Women in Philanthropy, which supports charities across Rutland and Leicestershire; a trustee for the Sustainable Land Trust, supporting those at risk of being expelled from school; and a trustee for Rutland Grants, helping local people in need. She is a member of the Court of Leicester University.

Dr Furness lives in Whissendine with her husband, Peter, a former President of the Royal College of Pathologists. They have an adult daughter.

A Global Threat Assessment, commissioned by the WePROTECT Global Alliance against child sexual exploitation, has highlighted the growing dangers posed to children by the growth of smart phone technology and an expanding online community of tech offenders.

It found that technology is allowing offender communities to organise at an unprecedented scale using the dark net and anonymous communication software.

The Threat Assessment will be presented by Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins on Wednesday afternoon at the Agenda 2030 for Children: End Violence Solutions Summit (‘the Solutions Summit’) in Stockholm, which is co-hosted by the WePROTECT Global Alliance, the Partnership to End Violence Against Children’ and the Swedish Government.

The Minister said:

Online child sexual exploitation is heinous crime which has a truly devastating impact on its victims. We cannot allow any corner of the internet to be looked upon as a safe space for these despicable predators to gather, share indecent images or prey on our children.

The NCA continues to lead operations against dark net criminals, including joint operations with international law enforcement and industry. We have committed £20 million over the spending review period to the NCA, plus additional funding of £10 million for specialist teams. This has led to near doubling of their investigative capability which will lead to more children being protected and more offenders brought out of the shadows and to justice.

The UK continues to lead international action on online child sexual exploitation through the WePROTECT Global Alliance, in addition to committing £40million over four years to the End Violence Against Children Fund, as well as investing in new technology to find and remove more illegal imagery of children than ever before.

The report also found that the growing ownership of mobile devices, expansion of high speed internet and ubiquity of encrypted communications technology is allowing offenders from anywhere in the world to target children.

The Threat Assessment, which brought together existing research as well as data from such sources as the US Department of Justice and INTERPOL, also found that:

• Individual dark net sites are hosting up to 1million paedophiles, who regularly meet to plan and encourage online abuse and share up to 1.6m files.

• Increasingly offending is now committed entirely online, with offenders coercing and extorting children into producing indecent images of themselves via webcams.

• As our children get older, their access and competence in the use of technology increases – as do the range of threats they face.

• The presence of a video camera on every device and computer has seen peer to peer image sharing make way for the increasing threat of live streaming.

Launched by the UK Government in 2014, the WePROTECT Global Alliance is a global movement that brings together the influence, expertise and resources required to transform how online child sexual exploitation is dealt with worldwide.

Read the report

Everyone is now entitled to Universal Credit from the first day they claim, removing 7 days some had to wait.

This change was announced as part of a wider £1.5 billion package of improvements to Universal Credit in the Autumn Budget 2017.

Work and Pensions Secretary of State Esther McVey said:

It can be a worrying time looking for work and our priorities are to help people find employment quickly and to improve lives. Our package of support affords better help for people as soon as they make a claim to Universal Credit.

We will be removing the 7 waiting days, which means no one has to wait 6 weeks for their first Universal Credit payment and this will benefit the average household by around £160.

Advance payments

The comprehensive package also includes an increase in advance payments to 100% of the expected Universal Credit payment. This means anyone who needs help before their first Universal Credit payment can receive up to their full expected Universal Credit within 5 days, or on the same day if in urgent need. The repayment period has also been extended to a year

Housing Benefit

From April 2018, anyone in receipt of Housing Benefit who moves onto Universal Credit will continue to have their rent paid for 2 weeks during the wait for their first payment, and that payment is non recoverable.

Personalised support

Under Universal Credit, people get more personalised support that meets their individual needs and we are seeing jobseekers moving into work faster and staying in work longer than compared to the old system.

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International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt has called upon the international community to step up alongside the UK to drive up safeguarding standards so that we can stamp out “horrifying” sexual abuse and exploitation from the aid sector.

Speaking at the first ever End Violence Solutions Summit in Stockholm, alongside Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Queen Silvia of Sweden, Penny Mordaunt issued a call to action to the whole international development community to bring about an urgent culture change and exhibit the moral leadership and transparency required to protect the most vulnerable – or face losing the UK’s partnership and support.

This follows Ms Mordaunt’s announcement earlier this week that the UK is taking urgent action to review safeguarding across all of its work and with all its partners. This includes introducing tough sanctions so that she can have absolute assurance that all partners are maintaining the high standards on safeguarding and protection that the UK requires.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said:

The sexual exploitation of vulnerable people, vulnerable children, is never acceptable. But when it is perpetrated by people in positions of power, people we entrust to help and protect, it rightly sickens and disgusts. And it should compel us to take action. […] This past week has to be a wake up call. If we don’t want the actions of a minority of individuals to tarnish and endanger all the good work that we do, then we must all respond quickly and appropriately.

We must regain the trust of the public. We must make staff aware of their moral responsibilities as well as their legal duties.

But above all else, we must strive to ensure that no child, no one, is harmed by the people who are supposed to be there to help.

At the summit, Ms Mordaunt also announced her support (£5 million) to the End Violence Against Children partnership, which will see the UK teaming up with the biggest group of stakeholders in the world to investigate and implement solutions that work to keep children safe. Over a million children across the world face some form of violence in their everyday lives – including modern slavery, child marriage, child labour and violence in schools.