Daily roundup: 3 November: Homelessness, child abuse inquiry, and education policy

The number of children living in temporary accommodation in Britain is at a three-year high, a charity's analysis of official figures suggests. More than 90,000 children in England, Scotland and Wales are without a permanent home, says Shelter. The equivalent figure for 2011 was 76,650, suggesting a rise of 13,919 children without permanent homes in three years, reports the BBC.


The independent government-commissioned inquiry into historical child abuse will begin work before a new chair is appointed, the Daily Mail reports. Although a shortlist of potential candidates to succeed Fiona Woolf as chair of the inquiry is reported to have been drawn up already, Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to tell MPs later that she will consult victims before making an appointment. Commons Leader William Hague has said the inquiry will continue its work while a new chairman is sought.


Schools minister David Laws has warned of the "corrosive impact" of self-interested political meddling in schools policy in England. He is calling for an independent body to set the curriculum content and measure whether standards in schools are really improving or declining. The schools minister, setting out Liberal Democrat ideas, said parents and teachers would have much greater confidence in an education system with less "political interference", reports the BBC.


More than 11 children a day go missing in South Yorkshire, latest data reveals. The new figures reported by The Star reveal South Yorkshire Police holds almost 7,000 missing person records for children under 18 from the past two-and-half years. More than 800 reports have been made in Sheffield alone since April.


A shortage of people willing to adopt more than one child mean some brothers and sisters are being split up. Each year in the UK some 6,000 children need adopting and nearly half of them have siblings, according to research by the British Association for Adoption & Fostering. But Sky News reports that more siblings are not adopted together because many prospective adopters get used to the idea of raising just one child.


A survey of more than 1,000 children aged five to 11, shows 80 per cent prefer to play outside as opposed to watching TV. They survey, carried out for Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, also found 59 per cent of children are confined to playing in their own garden, while a third of adults surveyed feel they don’t have enough time to play with their children.