The app is another tool for people looking for work, making it easier to search by location, save preferences and get information about vacancies, said Employment Minister Jim Knight.
Almost 1m people search for work through Jobcentre Plus every working day. Last month alone 60,000 people accessed the website from their mobile phones.
The app makes it easier for people to find jobs relevant to them, jobseekers will be able to enter their location, or select key areas where they are looking for work and see exactly where vacancies are with Google maps. Within a year, jobseekers will be able to use GPS to spot jobs around them, whether from home or on the move. The app will also be developed to automatically notify people of new vacancies matching their preferences.
Nurseries and local authorities must be able to operate 'flexibly' within the revised Code of Practice, a policy group of nursery providers said this week.
Private and voluntary providers should to be able to charge 'realistic supplements' for education and care outside the free entitlement hours for three-and four-year-olds, the Day Nursery Policy Group said, ahead of this month's publication of the revised Code of Practice.
The new rules will cover the extension of the free entitlement to a flexible 15 hours a week.
The Labour Party's female MPs have called for their childcare costs to be covered by the taxpayer, in response to the parliamentary review of government expenses.
In among around 2,500 responses posted by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority this weekend, the Parliamentary Labour Party Women's Committee called for more childcare support.
Consideration should be given to the high costs of childcare incurred by MPs because of the long and often unpredictable hours associated with the job.
A third of families rely on grandparents to provide childcare, according to a damning report on the effect of high childcare costs on older relatives.
The report by Grandparents Plus and the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that single-parent families and those on low incomes are among the most reliant on grandparents due to the "prohibitively expensive" cost of childcare.
The report, called Protect, Support, Provide, estimates that half of all single-parent families rely on grandparents for childcare.
The government has been urged to ensure childminders are more involved in the running of children's centres.
The call has been made by the National Childminding Association (NCMA) in response to a government consultation on new statutory guidance for children's centres.
The NCMA has criticised the guidance for not clearly referencing childminders as potential advisory board members and as stakeholders to be consulted on any key decisions.
AS Sure Start’s Children’s Centres grow in popularity, a Redditch mother talks of how the scheme turned her life around.
Sure Start brings together childcare, early education, health and family-support services for families with children under five years old. It is the cornerstone of the Government’s drive to tackle child poverty and social exclusion working with parents-to-be, parents, carers and children to promote the physical, intellectual and social development of babies and young children so that they can flourish at home and when they get to school.
A new taskforce set up to champion family-friendly jobs is to launch a viral video campaign designed to dispel the myth that employing parents on a flexible or part-time basis is bad for business.
The campaign, which will be launched by Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper during the last week of January, will highlight best practice by showing how small businesses can profit from employing parents on a part-time basis.
The taskforce also plans to run workshops for businesses to provide information on flexible working. The campaign and workshops are targeting London initially. If the scheme is successful there are plans to roll it out nationally.
The government has been urged to improve the pay and status of part-time work in its green paper on families and relationships.
The call to action has come from charity 4Children's Family Commission following a survey of 1,000 UK families in which 65 per cent said long working days put strain on their family relationships.
Meanwhile, 64 per cent said financial hardship was a contributing factor to family problems, and 55 per cent of fathers felt they did not spend enough time with their children.
Children's development and behaviour is not harmed if their mothers go back to work when they are babies, according to major new research.
The report, 'Does mothers' employment affect children's development?', said that 'despite public opinion to the contrary', there is 'little evidence' that mothers who return to work in the first year of their child's life damage the cognitive or behavioural development of school-age children.
Around a half of fathers are failing to take their full two-week paternity leave entitlement, according to a latest Equality and Human Rights Commission report.
The report, Working Better, Fathers, Families and Work, found that 45 per cent of men fail to take two weeks' paternity leave after the birth of their child.
The most common reason given was that they couldn't afford to take the time off.
Jobless single parents are being denied funding for childcare, which is excluding them from training opportunities, according to two leading charities.
Childcare charity Daycare Trust and lone-parent charity Gingerbread have written a joint letter to Children's Secretary Ed Balls, Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper and Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, voicing their concerns following a large increase in calls from distressed parents.
Findings are published today from the baseline stage of the ‘Work-focused services in children’s centre’ pilot. The pilot is operating in 30 children’s centres across ten local authority areas, running from January 2009 – March 2011, and will provide work-focused services through a dedicated Jobcentre Plus Personal Adviser, as well as activities and provision designed to support local parents into the labour market.
A comprehensive evaluation will assess the impact of providing work-focused services on parents’ preparations for and movement into work, as well as stakeholder experiences of implementing the pilot. The baseline stage included a visitor survey and familiarisation visits to all the children’s centres, plus a review of pilot bids and was supplemented by labour market and demographic statistics.
The Government is to review the meaning of childcare for 'reward' in the Childcare Act 2006 following Ofsted's ban on two working mothers from taking turns to look after each other's children.
Nursery World broke the story last week of how the two friends who went back to work part-time in a jobshare when their daughters were both one year old had been visited by Ofsted inspectors after a tip-off from a member of the public who believed they were running an illegal childminding business.
A petition was started on the Number 10 website in support of the women, calling for a change in the law to allow reciprocal childcare arrangements. By Monday it had been signed by 9,770 people.
Ofsted has asked ministers for clarification of childcare laws after two police officers who regularly babysit for each other were told they had to register as child minders.
The regulator has made the move after it emerged that detective constables Leanne Shepherd and Lucy Jarrett's arrangement to babysit each other's children during shifts contravened the 2006 Childcare Act.
Because the children were looked after by each other for more than two hours and not in their own home, the arrangement is considered childminding not babysitting under the act.
Plans to move 600,000 households off welfare and into work will be unveiled today (September 16) in a major new report from the think-tank set up by the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.
The 370-page report, the most far-reaching review of the welfare system in 60 years, estimates that the shake-up will boost the incomes of the lowest paid by nearly £5 billion.
It also calculates that its radical recasting of state support for the jobless and low-paid – built around measures to make work pay and increasing support for working couples - will lift more than 200,000 children out of poverty.
As part of the Government's commitment to give choice and flexibility to parents, we announced on 14th September our intention to introduce Additional Paternity leave for fathers of children due on or after 3 April 2011. This new right will give fathers a right to up to six months extra leave which can be taken once the mother has returned to work. Some of the leave may be paid if taken during the mother’s maternity pay period. This will be paid at the same standard rate as Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) which is currently £123.06.
This new provision will be available during the second six months of the child’s life, giving mums and dads with more choice in child care responsibilities and a more equitable sharing of leave entitlements. The scheme has been designed to minimise the administrative burdens on business whilst allowing fathers a greater opportunity to be involved in raising their child.
The government should help parents cover advance childcare costs with interest-free loans, according to childcare charity Daycare Trust.
The charity, which surveyed 202 parents in England, found 58 per cent of parents struggle to pay for the fees required to secure a place in a childcare setting, or even a place on that setting's waiting list. Costs can include advance fees, deposits, retainers and administration fees.
According to the report Childcare Advance, with typical weekly childcare costs currently at £167 per week, four weeks' fees in advance would mean that parents had to pay £668 when they took up a place.
Social enterprise, a form of business with primarily social or environmental objectives, can be a useful tool to alleviate poverty amongst the most marginalised in society and has a role to play in regenerating neighbourhoods and increasing community cohesion.
The Government recognises that increasing the representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women starting up social enterprises will potentially enable many groups of ethnic minority women, such as Pakistani and Bangladeshi women who are under represented in the workplace and in society, to become more economically independent and participate more fully in communities.
There are at least 55,000 social enterprises in the UK which contribute £8.4 billion pounds to the UK economy, but evidence suggests that BAME women are underrepresented as social enterprise owners.
Almost 2 million children now live in households where there is no working adult, according to official figures released today that lay bare the social effects of the recession.
The Office for National Statistics said the number of children in workless households rose by 170,000 to 1.9 million in April-June of this year, compared with the same period last year.
The Department for Work and Pensions has launched a new-look website. Benefits and services information for citizens has moved to Directgov. The new DWP site presents DWP’s vision, aims and values, DWP news stories and press releases, consultations and policy development, publications, research and statistics, and information for a range of professional partners and stakeholders.
The cost of living for those living on minimum household budgets is rising faster than inflation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has calculated.
It says that the costs for a single household on its low-income budget were up 5.3% this year, with rises of 5% for pensioners and couples with children
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The report is an attempt to raise the debate about the level of relative poverty in Britain beyond the government's official poverty line of 60% of average earnings - and as the government prepares to legislate to make legally binding its target of cutting child poverty in half by 2020.
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is committing to help parents from low-income families with a new £75m initiative. The Free Childcare for Training and Learning for Work scheme offers 50,000 eligible parents real help now through vital childcare support, while they train or learn, to support them into employment.
The nationwide scheme is open to half a million families in England with:
* One partner in work
* An annual household income of £20,000 or less per year
* A child or children aged 14 or under
* A child or children aged 18 or under with disabilities
Eligible parents can choose which course is going to give them the right skills to get back into work. Courses could range from a short refresher in maths or a more formal qualification in a range of subjects from social care to teaching. An advisor will help parents to enrol for their chosen course and will advise parents on the childcare options available to them. Parents have the choice from a range of Ofsted childcare, with the LSC paying up to £175 per child per week, or £215 in London. This ensures that parents have the means to make the best childcare choice for their family's needs.
The ten prototypes will run for two years, testing a range of different approaches in establishing local partnerships bringing together nextstep services, Jobcentre Plus, unionlearn, local authorities, housing associations, voluntary and community sector organisations, Connexions, Primary Care Trusts, the Citizen's Advice Bureau, Sure Start Children's Centres, and others.
NOTTINGHAM has been chosen for a Government pilot scheme aimed at helping the parents of children in poverty get into work.
Ten local authorities across the country have been selected for the scheme, which will run in children's centres from January 2009.
Jobcentre Plus personal advisers, based at the centres, will help parents access work-focused services.
A new pilot aimed at helping the parents of children in poverty get into work, was launched in ten Local Authorities today.
Parents will have access to Jobcentre Plus personal advisers in Children's Centres to help them access work focussed services. The pilot which will run in 30 children's centres from January 2009, was announced today by ministers, Kitty Ussher, Beverley Hughes and Stephen Timms.
Low-income families are to be given free childcare so they can go to training courses and get back in to work.
The £75m three-year programme, announced by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, will help 50,000 families where one parent is working and the second wants to go back in to work.
Families will get £205 a week to pay for childcare so parents can be trained to return to work.
10 local authorities will be running three year pilots linking children’s centres with Jobcentre Plus to tackle the problem of child poverty.
After only three years of living in the UK, a student at TyneMet has won an award in the ‘Achieving a New Skill’ category in the North Tyneside Adult Learners’ Week award for her study achievements.
“I decided it was time to start learning and getting some qualifications,” said Hajara and she enrolled on a course through TyneMet, delivered at Howdon Children’s Centre.
Outline of child benefit and child tax credits that can help to boost the family's income
Banks would also offer help to businesswomen faced with making deals like those seen on the BBC's Dragons' Den programme. Mothers using children's centres will be targeted with business advice
The Daycare Trust has launched a website to help parents work out their benefits entitlement and strategies for paying childcare costs.
Mothers using children's centres will be targeted with business advice. The scheme will be seen by the Government's critics as an attempt to force more new mothers back into work.
Research by Childcare Choice, has shown that only about one in a hundred working mothers and fathers employed by small or medium sized companies are claiming childcare vouchers. The vouchers could save those not claiming as much as £1,000 a year.
AN online survey among UK lone parents has shown that 67 per cent of respondents in the West Midlands who had experience of both working and caring for their children full time say that working made them feel more independent and 67 per cent also felt more confident.
For example, they can provide information on Sure Start's Children's Centres or their Children's Information Service. Alternatively, they can help you find work part-time, full time or jobshare and can advise you on training for the job you want."
Almost 90 per cent of Sure Start children's centres and childminders are working together to give parents greater choice about childcare, according to research published today by the National Childminding Association