Daily roundup: Vocational qualifications, local government powers, and youth unemployment

Six in ten schools are planning to cut or have already stopped providing vocational qualifications, research has found. Interviews with more than 250 school leaders in revealed this was in spite of 85 per cent saying vocational qualifications were valuable for students. Jan Hodges, chief executive of education charity the Edge Foundation, which published the study, suggested the results were caused by the government’s removal of GCSE-equivalent vocational qualifications from school league tables. “Schools are now being forced to drop valuable technical, practical and work-related courses or risk getting no credit for the provision," she said.

Local authorities should be separated from central government jurisdiction and given greater financial independence, according to a report. The recommendations from the political and constitutional reform select committee also suggest that some taxes currently collected centrally should be redistributed to local councils. “The committee's draft code would clarify at what level of government power and accountability lie and provide a framework within which local councils would have the freedom to meet local needs and priorities,” said MP Graham Allen, chair of the committee.