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Recent Blogs
How can we help children in care? Should we be sending them to boarding school?
Policy Exchange Director Neil O’Brien highlights the fact that, despite legal provisions giving children in care top priority for schools admissions, they are more likely to be in failing schools than other children. He then examines a scheme previously implemented by Andrew Adonis which placed children in care in boarding schools and the positive effects this had.
Foster Care Reforms Needed Alongside Focus On Adoption
Head of Economics & Social Policy Matthew Oakley sets out the reforms recommended for the foster care system in Policy Exchange report Fostering Aspirations, including boosting the number of carers, ensuring local authorities make better use of private and third sector providers and having the Secretary of State be more proactive where local authorities are failing.
What about the snobbery that despises vocational education?
Education Research Fellow Owen Corrigan calls for politicians to dispel the impression that vocational education is a second-class form of education, arguing that it is an important alternative to academic education. He cites highly successful vocational education systems in Germany and Austria which have led to some of the lowest youth unemployment rates in Europe.
Bend the twig to shape the tree – that’s the key to social mobility
Policy Exchange Director Neil O’Brien writes arguing that only a radical rethink of pre-school education will improve the life chances for some of the poorest in society.
Like father like son: how unemployment in one generation turns up again in the next
Policy Exchange Director Neil O’Brien highlights academic research showing that sons of unemployed fathers are up to 25% more likely to be unemployed for a year than the sons of working fathers.
How can we get childcare to be cheaper and better?
Policy Exchange Director Neil O’Brien shows how heavy, and often crude, regulation is driving up the cost of childcare. He highlights some particularly bizarre Ofsted childcare regulations.
Tory Modernisation Needs To Be Updated, Not Abandoned
David Skelton, Policy Exchange’s Deputy Director, argues that the recent selection of Jon Cruddas as head of Labour’s policy review could be a masterstroke for Ed Miliband if he’s able to translate his impressive, but often abstract, thinking into concrete policy. He shows how Cruddas’s views are supported by polling findings from our report Northern Lights.
Appointing Jon Cruddas was a masterstroke for Labour
David Skelton, Policy Exchange’s Deputy Director, argues that the recent selection of Jon Cruddas as head of Labour’s policy review could be a masterstroke for Ed Miliband if he’s able to translate his impressive, but often abstract, thinking into concrete policy. He shows how Cruddas’s views are supported by polling findings from our report Northern Lights.
Is the north really dependent on public sector jobs? Actually, it’s not so simple
Policy Exchange Director Neil O’Brien uses ONS data to show that the public/private sector job divide isn’t simply split by North and South but is actually spread more evenly than people assume. He argues that the biggest challenge for the government is to reduce the overall levels of local unemployment, especially outside the South East.
Fifteen years on incapacity benefit, then told you are fit to work. It’s a very big moment
With new figures revealing that huge numbers of people previously claiming Incapacity Benefit are now being deemed capable of some form of work Policy Exchange Director Neil O’Brien points out that this new influx of newly capable workers will be a big shock to jobcentres and the welfare system.
