Daily roundup: Children's reading habits, tooth decay, and school finances

Children are reading less because their lives are becoming more crowded, research by the National Literacy Trust has claimed. The study found that only three out of ten children read in their own time every day, compared to four out of ten in 2005. Meanwhile more than a fifth of children rarely or never read in their own time and more than half prefer watching TV to reading. Nearly a fifth would be embarrassed if their friends saw them reading.

Nearly half of children have tooth decay and 17 per cent of children aged between two and 12 have at least three fillings, a study has found. The research, conducted by Aquafresh, also found that six per cent of children have never visited a dentist. Two per cent of mums in the study confessed that their child never brushes their teeth.

Giving schools control of their finances risks increasing levels of corruption, the president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has warned. Hank Roberts argued that a small minority of head teachers mismanage schools' finances for personal gain. He called on Education Secretary Michael Gove to abandon plans for every academy and free school to be financially autonomous, and for government to strengthen its auditing and oversight procedures of funding for schools.

More than £600,000 gathered from dormant bank and building society accounts is to be shared among projects that prepare young people in Scotland for employment. Successful bidders for the Young Start funding, which is administered by the Big Lottery Fund, include initiatives that will provide young people with nationally recognised IT qualifications, work placements, enterprising opportunities to sell their own produce and support with job searches.

Blackpool Council is calling for national action to improve youth employment prospects. The authority has signed up to a youth charter, which asks that all public bodies, and the government, take on five measures to help improve youth unemployment. It includes a call for guaranteed paid work or training for every young person who has been out of work for six months or more.

Youth homelessness charity Depaul has appointed a new chief executive. Martin Houghton-Brown is to join the charity from Missing People where he has been chief executive for three years. Prior to Missing People, he was a deputy director at The Children’s Society, where he worked on young runaways. He is also a member of the panel conducting the Office of the Children's Commissioner's ongoing enquiry into sexual exploitation.