Autumn statement budget october 2021 useful resources

Autumn Budget October 2021

 Live coverage on parliamentary TV channel

Transcripts will be made available later in the day on Hansard

LSE members can watch archived materials (since 1997) via the Box of Broadcasts

Read the full text papers on the UK Government website

 Office for Budget Responsibility will publish an accompanying economic outlook on its website. it also has an economic and fiscal outlook

The House of Commons Library also has a good background briefing. They also have some historic facts and figures giving a list of chancellors and lengths of speeches from 1968 onwards.

News reports

Budget 2021 - BBC News

Guardian

Independent 

FT

Analysis

More spending doesn’t mean there’s going to be more cash for everyone - Institute For Fiscal Studies - IFS

Deloitte

PWC

EY Club Budget

Grant Thornton

BDO

KPMG

Industry and think tank submissions to the Chancellor.

CBI

Institute Directors

Make UK manufacturers 

Federation of Small Businesses 

TUC

Shelter

National Housing Federation

Local Government Association

Health Foundation

Health and social care plans

an increase in National Insurance contributions (NICs) to pay for increased funding for health and social care.

Policy Paper Build Back Better: Our Plan for Health and Social Care

PM statement to the House of Commons on health and social care: 7 September 2021

UK Parliament research briefing August 2021- sets out background and key issues

Lords Library in focus paper 2nd September

IFS discussion- Pensioner families would provide ten times more of the revenue from an income tax rise than from a NICs rise

A caring tax rise? The impacts of a potential increase in National Insurance- resolution Foundation July 2021

 Hansard society discussion Health and Social care bill delegated powers

Kings fund blog - Fixing social care is not all about a cap on costs.
The Health and Care Bill: six key questions

A new deal for Social Care: A new deal for the workforce TUC proposals

Social care Funding Gap- Health Foundation

How to fund social care - Nuffield Trust July 2021

newspapers

Raising national insurance to fund social care is fraught with political risk- Guardian

Reaction

Labour Party

Libdem party

Green Party

Institute of Directors
Press release

Federation of Small Businesses
More criticism

British Chambers of Commerce

London Councils

TUC

GMB Union

UNISON

AgeUk 2nd September

Launch of Campaign

Nuffield Trust

Local Government Association - Future of Social care funding

CHPI Think tank

Foreign aid cuts - get some facts on humanitarian aid

This week there have been proposed cuts to the UK aid budget

For come background see these great House of Commons Library briefings

The 0.7 percent aid target – Commons Library briefing paper
Reducing the UK’s aid spending in 2021 – Commons Library briefing paper

Statistics on International Development: Provisional UK Aid Spend 2020

OECD has data comparing foreign aid in different OECD nations

this report compares changes in2020 as a result of the pandemic see which other nations have increased or reduced aid

Guardian news coverage of potential cuts

IFS briefing note on cuts - April 2021

ODI podcast on budget cuts

Oxfam reaction

Reliefweb

BOND - organisations

Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Why does web accessibility matter?
Version 1.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) launched on May 6, 1999. Recently AbilityNet reviewed them and what remains to be done.


The Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) Accessibility Maturity Model, created by AbilityNet and McNaught Consultancy, enables you to judge the maturity of your organisation's digital accessibility. He also recently produced a 4 part blog on how to get the maturity to evolve and develop at an organisation.


Some systems have built in tools you can use

Google Features
Microsoft


Useful websites for free training guides and webinars

JISC accessibility and inclusion guide  for post secondary education

Daisy Consortium guide to inclusive publishing

Daisy Consortium videos via youtube


AbilityNet webinars
How to promote digital accessibility great advice from University of Derby - is a good one

Freedom of speech on campus May 2021- useful links and comments

government’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill will be introduced in parliaent this week

Introduction in the Queen's speech 2021

UK government

Bill

UK government policy paper feb 2021

House of commons library briefing march 2021

Equality and Human Rights commission guidance

Wonkhe analysis proposals 16/02

Free Speech and Censorship on Campus Corey Stoughton-  HEPI paper 2019

Conversation  blog - discuss 

Independent coverage

Times higher coverage

UCU response to Queens speech

Russell Group response.    Previous statement on free speech April 2021

UUK

World Press Freedom Day - 3rd May 2021 - free resources

Each year World Press Freedom day is celebrated on 3rd May by the United Nations
the official website provides free access to related UN resolutions
These include those relating to safety of journalists and freedom of expression

Where are journalists most at risk?
Consult the UNESCO observatory of killed journalists information on the 1450 killed since 1993

Where is the press most free?
Look at the RSF press freedom ranking for 2021
Find out why Norway is at number 1!
at number 180 is Eritrea
archives are available from 2014 onwards.
Freedom House publishes regular media freedom and freedom on the net report with rankings.

What has been the effect of the pandemic on freedom?

According to International Press Institute  COVID-19 Press Freedom Tracker, nearly 200 violations linked to the pandemic were reported from the Asia-Pacific region, of which 107 were from four South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal. As many as 71 journalists faced arrests and charges for their coverage of the pandemic and its consequences, and 32 cases of physical attacks and verbal threats were reported from these countries.

The RSF index has regular updates each year
See this discussion from the European Parliament

and this paper from the European Parliament think tank

Article 19 briefing

Negative impact on Africa - relief web articles

Council of Europe reports 

Few winners, many losers: the COVID-19 pandemic’s dramatic and unequal impact on independent news media- Reuters 

Shakespeare day 23rd April- some great free resources

23rd April is celebrated as Shakespeare day
so here are some great free resources for researchers and students


Shakespeare Documented wonderful resource from the Folger Shakespeare library bringing together hundreds manuscript and print references to Shakespeare, his works, and additional references to his family, in his lifetime and later includes imges of legal documents, reviews and some first editions


The Internet Shakespeare Editions publishes high quality materials on:Shakespeare's works His plays, life and times.

It includes texts of plays and poens, details on his career and reviews of film performances

A digital facsimile of the Bodleian First Folio

The British Library Quartos
site contains 107 copies of the 21 plays by Shakespeare printed in quarto before the 1642 theatre closures. You will find background information and details of performance, but the site excels in allowing you to compare different quartos side-by-side using high quality page images.

Discovering literature Shakespeare and Renaissance
marvellous British library study resource containing essays and other materials which set the plays in context

The report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities and reaction

 

The report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Reaction NHS Providers - we disagree with the report

Runnymede Trust response

Institute of Race Relations

Black Lives Matter 

Hope not Hate

TUC reaction

International day of happiness- recommended academic resources

For International Day of Happiness


The World Happiness Report
The World Happiness Report is a urvey of the state of global happiness that ranks over 150
countries by how happy their citizens feel themselves to be. Read reports and download the data on the website. the blog discusses the impact of covid


Oecd also has a Better life index which examines objective and subjective feelings of happiness


What about the impact of Covid?

In July 2020 Imperial College released this report from the Covid 19 Behaviour Tracker
See the main website for regular updates of data on all forms of behaviour and responses. Methodology is supplied.

In terms of the UK the ONS is conducting regular personal wellbeing surveys.It also considers levels of anxiety.

The annual report covering up to March 2020 there was already significant worsening.

For a useful listing of UK surveys containing questions relating to the impact of Covid. See this handy guide from the UK Data Archive.Many of these are related to issues of wellbeing

Pancake day - historic recipes

This week was Shrove Tuesday so here are some great resources

Find out how to make a Sussex pancake using this recipe published in 1675! from the LSE Digital Library

The Wellcome Library has a great collection of historic recipe books. This example has how to cook a pancake next to how to source a capon in jelly!

BFI Player has on its free section the rather less exotic Findus crispy pancake adverts from the 1980s!

Alternatively try this Pancake song from the Full English Site from Vaughan Williams Memorial Library The Tippitoe pancake song was collected in 1908 is a fabulous bit of folk culture You can view more Shrove Tuesday resources there.

 

International Day of Women and Girls in Science, 11 February- why is it important?

Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science, 11 February

Here is some key data about why this is necessary

Stem Women quotes the following on its website

Core STEM subjects – Female students

2017/18
Number of female students - 112,720 – 35%
Since 2015, the number of women in STEM (women graduating in core STEM subjects) has grown from 22,020 to 24,705 in 2019. On the surface this would appear to show a linear increase, however, due to the more rapid growth in the number of men graduating in these subject areas, the percentage of women in STEM has fluctuated from 25%, down to 24%, and finally up to 26% where it has stalled in 2019.

The wise campaign also tracks progress

For support and an amazing archive on the history of Engineering see the Women in Engineering website which has the Woman Engineer journal from 1919-2004

Stemettes provides role models and offers events to encourage young women into STEM

For Data on the EU see Eurostat on number of graduates

For a broader picture the OECD 

there are stats for graduates in different  subject areas where gender can be compared. usually just binary 

Also papers discussing low levels of take up by girls of scientific subjects

Worldwide

According to the UNESCO Cracking the code: Girls’ and women’s education in STEM,  in 2017 only 35% of STEM students in higher education globally were female

Details of ongoing programmes can be found in the SAGA website

Burns Night - some free academic sites for Social Scientists

Today people in Scotland often hold a Burns supper isa celebration of the life and poetry of Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), the author of many Scots poems.

National Library of Scotland 1971 recording of a burns supper

National Records of Scotland has some text and images of official recordss relatng to him including baptism, his work as an exciseman and court cases !
'Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect'
was the first collection of Burns's work to appear in print. Published in Kilmarnock by John Wilson in 1786. The National Library of Scotland has an edition online . Look inside for the famous poem to a Mouse .
The National Library also has an online Broadsides of the Street Collection that includes some poems read at early Burns celebrations

and an exhibition of illustrations that appeared in his early printed editions

School meals - what are the facts sources for social scientists

This week school meals during lockdown have been controversial as lunch packs supplied for those receiving free school dinners were criticised.

These twitter references set the story in context
Footballer Marcus Rashford has led the meal campaign https://twitter.com/MarcusRashford

He posted and commented on poor standards of lunches provided on Twitter

Image of the meals included these sent in by parents

Chef Tom Kerridge also supported him
Prime Minister even agreed
Department of Education resumes lunch vouchers
commentary on child poverty and food from Food Foundation
CPAG

ChildrenNE

How many children get free school Meals?
Get the latest Uk data
What are the nutritional standards?

Uk House of Commons Library briefing on the recent debates and backgrounds
Uk government literature review of the importance of school food and its link with educational attainment
School Food Matters news and research reports on standards and their importance