Daily roundup 3 April: Child poverty, football abuse, and school funding

Benefit changes coming into force this week could push 200,000 more children into poverty, campaigners have warned. The Guardian reports that, from Thursday, payments for some benefits will be limited to the first two children in a family. The Child Poverty Action Group and Institute for Public Policy Research said some families will be almost £3,000 a year worse off under the new rules.


The specialist police unit investigating the sexual abuse of children in football has received a number of reports about incidents within the current sport. The Observer reports that there have been 187 reported incidents from 1996 onwards and 23 relating to 2011 or later. Every year from 2005 to 2016 has been named in the police reports and one of the leading child-abuse lawyers involved in the process has warned that the number relating to those years is likely to be considerably higher.


Schools in England are to receive £2.4bn for extra places and building repairs. The BBC reports that the funding, announced by Education Secretary Justine Greening, is intended to help to create 600,000 more places by 2021. However, head teachers have said the money for buildings does nothing for the "black hole" in day-to-day running costs.


Police tasers have been fired or drawn on more than 1,000 children in two years. The Mirror reports that figures obtained from a Freedom of Information request show that 528 children were tasered or had weapons drawn on them by officers in 2014. A further 503 were shot, threatened or had a red dot target light aimed at them in 2015. The youngest to be tasered was a 12-year-old boy in Durham.


A surge in child refugees returning to Calais and Dunkirk in a bid to reach the UK is generating a new "consumer base" for smugglers and people traffickers in the region, it has been claimed. The Independent reports that charities are warning that the closure of legal routes to Britain and an absence of child safeguarding services in the region have provided smuggling networks with a "terrifying new market" that involves coercing children into taking illegal routes involving large debts or exploitation.


Officials have begun to tackle the weaknesses within Norfolk County Council's troubled children's services department, Ofsted inspectors have said. The Lynn News reports that inspectors conducting a monitoring visit to the authority praised the "clear sense of purpose and direction" provided by the department's new leadership team and the measures taken to improve monitoring of children believed to be at risk of sexual exploitation.