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Daily roundup 24 May: Troubled Families, live-streaming, and forced marriage

1 min read
Former Work and Pensions Secretary reveals concerns over Troubled Families programme; charity calls for action to protect children who live stream content on social media; and mother jailed for forcing daughter to marry a relative, all in the news today.

Former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith had "issues" with the government's flagship Troubled Families programme, he has told MPs. The BBC reports that Duncan Smith said he thought it was "a distraction" and that other ministers shared his concerns at the time. Most of its targets were "slightly nebulous" and should be more "focused", he said.


Children's charity Barnardo's has called for action from social media companies to protect children after finding that more than half of 12-year-olds have posted live videos on apps and websites meant for older children and adults. A survey by Barnardo's found that 57 per cent of 12-year-olds and more than one-in-four children aged 10 (28 per cent) have admitted live-streaming content over the internet.


A mother who forced her daughter to marry a relative almost twice her age has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. The BBC reports that the woman from Birmingham, who is in her 40s, duped the then 17-year-old into going to Pakistan in September 2016 to wed the man. The girl became pregnant by him when she was 13 and he was 29, which her mother saw as a "marriage contract".


Childline must be given more funding from government, 130 MPs have said in an open letter as the helpline sees demand from suicidal children almost treble. The Telegraph reports that the NSPCC helpline is struggling to cope with a growing number of complex cases, a rising number of which come in overnight as children are more likely to have access to tablets and mobile phones.


Some schools rated outstanding may no longer be as good as their rating suggests, Ofsted has said amid official criticism of its work in England. The BBC reports that a National Audit Office report found 1,620 schools, mostly outstanding, had not been inspected for six years or more, and 290 for a decade or more. Outstanding schools were decreed exempt from routine inspections in 2011. 

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