Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, has said that the recovery in Britain is ‘in sight’ and that there has been ‘good progress’ made towards a new, sustainable economy, according to The Telegraph.
England and Wales face a shortfall of 256,000 new school places by next year, and the Department for Education has little understanding of where additional classes are needed or how much they will cost, according to a new report. Despite seeing a net increase of almost 81,500 primary school places in the last two years, the education secretary, Michael Gove, is going to experience a “real strain” on school places, according to the National Audit Office. While the government is pumping billions of pounds into establishing more school places, the report suggests that the Department for Education has failed to understand the costs that are involved and the impact funding is having in local areas. The criticisms contained in the 48-page document have sparked a row between Labour and the Tories over who is responsible for the shortfall and the problems of assessing and funding future places. According to the report, the heightened demand for primary school places is partly down to a rising birth rate. The increase in the number of children born in England between 2001 and 2011 was the biggest 10-year jump since the 1950s. The Guardian.
The Financial Times says that the Japanese parliament has approved the nominations for the top three jobs at the Bank of Japan, appointing Haruhiko Kuroda as Governor. The move “usher[s] in a new era of more aggressive monetary easing in the world’s third-largest economy”, the paper writes.
The Times reports that Jamie Dimon, the frontman of US banking giant JPMorgan Chase, allegedly lied to the US government and tried to hide trading losses from regulators. The paper says that the Senate Investigation Committee’s report into the “London Whale” losses places much of the blame on the Chief Executive, as the company “dodged federal regulators and misled the public by hiding losses, by mismarking credit derivatives’ values”.
Evidence from a “supergrass” is understood to have prompted today’s arrests of the former Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver and three other executives from the Mirror Group on suspicion of phone hacking. An insider with knowledge of the workings of a number of tabloid titles is thought to have handed the Metropolitan Police significant new information about the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World. Scotland Yard is also thought to have obtained evidence from a recent exchange of emails between a small group of current and former Mirror Group executives. Detectives have already drawn up a list of preliminary list of possible victims whose voicemails may have been illegally accessed by Mirror Group journalists. The disclosures have opened a new front in Scotland Yard’s inquiries into illegal news-gathering by tabloid journalists. The Independent.
Anschutz Entertainment Group, the owner of the O2 Arena in London, has pulled the venue off the market after receiving offers more than $1.0bn less than it expected, according to The Times.
The European Central Bank (ECB) needs 800 additional staff, raising its current workforce by more than half, to fulfil its new position as the supervisor of 6,000 banks in the Eurozone, writes The Telegraph.
HMRC is looking to shut down all 281 of its enquiry centres, replacing them with one-to-one tax advisory services, in an attempt to save £13m per annum, reports The Independent.. The move could put 1,300 jobs at risk.
