Education Secretary Justine Greening visited Derby on Thursday 2 February, 1 of 12 opportunity areas aimed at boosting education, skills and opportunity in social mobility ‘cold spots’.

Ms Greening visited the Derby Moor Community Sports College to meet students, teachers and local education leaders who are benefiting from the Prince’s Trust Team programme, which helps unemployed 16- to 25-year-olds to get into work or training.

The opportunity areas will see DfE working with local organisations, including early years providers, schools, colleges, universities, the voluntary sector and businesses to help local children and young people get the best start in life, no matter what their background.

These areas will focus not just on what can be done inside schools to tackle social mobility, but also create the opportunities outside school that will help broaden horizons for young people.

Plans are being drawn up to put the £72 million funding for the 12 opportunity areas into action. Local organisations will have the opportunity to help shape these plans so that they are tailored to meet the different challenges that exist across England in regards to social mobility.

During the visit, the charity Teach First announced that it will increase the number of its teaching placements in Derby in 2017. That will see 8 more talented graduates teaching in schools in Derby by 2017 – up from the current 14 placements.

The charity will also be increasing the number of placements in 5 other opportunity areas by 40% in September 2017. Those areas are:

• Blackpool
• Norwich
• Oldham
• Scarborough
• West Somerset

Education Secretary Justine Greening said:

As Britain prepares for its future outside the EU, it’s never been more important that everyone in our country has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will take them.

On my previous visits to Derby as Education Secretary, I’ve seen the great work being done at the University of Derby, and just recently I met apprentices honing their skills at Bombardier.

Each visit reinforces to me just how crucial for our nation’s success it is that none of these talents are wasted, and especially the talent of young people growing up in Derby.

Whether it’s providing more good school places across Derby and the rest of England, investing in improving careers education, transforming the quality of further and technical education or opening up access to our world-class higher education system, working together I believe we can create more opportunities for future generations to go as far as their talents will take them. And I want to see Derby leading the way.

Brett Wigdortz, CEO and Founder of Teach First said:

The government’s recent commitment to investing funding and support into these opportunity areas has been unanimously welcomed by the education sector as a positive step forward in ensuring all our young people, no matter where they were born, are given the same opportunity to succeed.

We’re proud to work in partnership with the government in these areas, by placing more Teach First participants than ever before into these communities – working collaboratively to raise the attainment and achieve the aspirations of all our young people.

We want HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to be a safe and secure environment for all our users. To avoid delays, speed up entry, and to ensure people’s safety, the following articles should not be brought into HMCTS premises.

• ANY type of knife or bladed article – for example pen knives, key-ring knives, belt knives, craft knives, butter knives or other cutlery.
• ‘Sharps’ – for example, scissors, syringes (unless these are for medical purposes), craft needles.
• Replica guns – for example lighters or jewellery that looks like a gun or toy gun.
• Work tools – for example hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, nails.
• Alcohol.

Please also note that photography on court premises and recording by members of the public is not allowed.

By law, our security officers can search and remove the above items and any items that could be used as a weapon or may otherwise interfere with the maintenance of order or safety of persons in our buildings before you enter the building. If the security team have concerns about an item, they may refer this to a judge.

All bags are visually searched and you will be asked to go through a security arch or be scanned with a hand held detector before entering the building. You may also be asked to remove your coat, jacket, headgear, belt, gloves or footwear– this is similar to what happens when you check-in at an airport.

Any visitor who is in possession of any of the articles listed above will not be allowed in the court building.

In some circumstances, the security team will let you leave these articles in storage at your own risk. You will be given a receipt so that you can get your property back when leaving the building. Any knives or bladed articles taken, providing they are not an offensive weapon, will only be returned to you if you write to us within 28 days of attendance. Please ask for further information on how to make this request as certain information will need to be provided when making this request.

Offensive weapons found by our search procedures are confiscated and the holder reported to the police.

If a visitor refuses to be searched, they may be removed from, or not let in the building.

Please follow this advice when you come to a court or tribunal. Safety is important.

7 Feb 2017

A Scottish health board was forced to cancel a fifth of planned operations in December, new figures have revealed.

ISD Scotland data showed, in NHS Highland, 19 per cent of elective operations were called off.

Around half of those were due to capacity issues within hospitals in the area.

Nationwide, 10.1 per cent of operations were cancelled, the highest in almost a year.

It is the latest set of statistics illustrating the difficulties being faced by the NHS around Christmas.

Health boards are continually failing to hit the four-hour waiting time for accident and emergency patients, while delayed discharge continues to be a problem.

Other reasons set out by ISD Scotland for cancellations are hospitals scrapping procedures for clinical reasons, and patients themselves deciding against going under the knife.

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Donald Cameron said:

“Everyone appreciates the winter months are the toughest for health boards to deal with.

“But even so, for one in five planned operations to be cancelled is nothing short of dreadful.

“It’s a massive inconvenience for patients across the Highlands, many of whom are vulnerable and in need of care, and may well be coming a long distance.

“There will always be occasions when the patient wants to cancel the procedure, but this is clearly far too high a statistic.

“The SNP has been in sole charge of health for a decade now and this falls squarely at its door.

“NHS Highland has not had its problems to seek, and it’s essential these appalling figures are not repeated in future months.”

To see a spreadsheet of all cancelled procedures, visit:
http://www.scottishconservatives.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2017-02-07-Cancellations.xlsx