Would you like one of the best jobs in employment law?

We're hiring a Principal Legal Officer to run the FRU employment law service. Transfer your #EmpLaw expertise to the next generation of lawyers.

www.thefru.org.uk/vacancies

Salary £51,622, permanent, full time. Closing date 10 March.

Such good news. In recent times (and well late to the party) I’ve become literally obsessive about The Rest is History because of the pace and flair with which the stories are told. It is absolute gold dust.

A word of warning to any of you considering going ‘outside’. I have just been ‘outside’ and it turns out that ‘outside’ is very cold. I recommend that you do *not* go ‘outside’.

#ThatIsAll

🌡️ The NHS warns this could be one of the worst flu seasons ever, with flu cases quadrupling in a month

Vaccines for flu, Covid & RSV are still available—it’s not too late! Protect yourself & ease pressure on hospitals. Find out more: www.nhs.uk/nhs-services...

I agree. The timeline is also ominous - the chances of passing a hugely difficult but necessary reform in 2028, one year at most before an election, don’t seem great. And if a Lab govt with 400 plus seats can’t reform social care, it’s hard to see how we will ever reform it.

The IPL is a fantastic charity that not only follows the noble pursuit of overturning wrongful convictions but also inspires and develops the skills of the lawyers of the future.

Any lawyers able to volunteer their time can double their impact in that way by supporting some casework coaching.

NEW: The number of homeless children living in temporary accommodation in England has risen AGAIN to 159,380 - up 15% in a year.

Transient lives in temporary homes, defined by uncertainly, doing untold damage.

It is a scandal. But it’s not new. And it’s not going away.

Every single school should have a library & a librarian, to help every single child find the books that will make them readers, and give them all the lifelong benefits of literacy. Libraries & librarians change children's lives FOREVER!
#literacy #libraries #librarians

Discovered recently: if you’re on Universal Credit and looking to save, you can’t do better than opening a Help to Save account.

Save up the max £50 per month over 4 years and you can get £1200 in tax free interest (50%!). You won’t find that from a bank!

www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/savings/t...

Okay, well, it’s been fun while it lasted..

The minimum wage will increase by 6.7% next year

The state pension will increase by 4.1%

But benefit rates, which already fall the furthest from ensuring people can afford the essentials, will only increase by 1.7% due to being pegged to September's inflation rate, which was anomalously low

DWP figures show the average time to process applications for pension credit – the benefit paid to poorer pensioners – lengthened from 25 working days in late September, to 52 working days in late October.

That means claims are now taking over 10 weeks to process – around two and a half months

NEW: Waiting times for Pension Credit claims have doubled in the space of just one month, amid fears the government can't process applications fast enough ahead of imminent cuts to winter fuel payments.

By me, for the Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

While it should come as a no surprise that more children are being pushed into poverty in the last decade (no matter how you define it), it couldn’t be clearer that half of the families effected could have their lives transformed by scrapping the #TwoChildBenefitCap.

Concerning news for low income households. #Energydebt is one of the most common issues we see at #CitizensAdvice. What makes it worse is that each rise in the #energypricecap compounds the existing debt people are living with.

Often worth seeing what hardship support your energy company provides.

Fascinating thread.

The Autumn / Winter stats for those migrating from tax credits last year were worryingly low but good explainer for potential reasons below.

It should reassure those working in the advice sector that clients are managing to make the leap from other legacy benefits.

So helpful starting out afresh!

Pleased to learn this morning that #theBudget will reduce the overall cap for Universal Credit deductions from the 25% of the standard allowance to 15% from April 2025.

Actions like this help people on low incomes who've slid into debt that we see often at #CitizensAdvice in RBKC.

bit.ly/4fnecO0

My first post on @bsky.app.

“If all you can do is crawl, then start crawling”.