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How England became a democracy

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Magna Carta and the emergence of Parliament

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Find out more about the test
This life in the UK test is provided to familiarise you with the format of the official test. You are advised to study the learning material in the official handbook before attempting the test.

The test consists of 24 questions, and you need to answer at least 18 correctly to pass. Click the button below to start the test.

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Get ready for the Life in the UK Test online. Access over 45 practice tests, no registration required. Click here to get started.

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But I'm not a monster. Check out more awesome BuzzFeedYellow videos! http://bit.ly/YTbuzzfeedyellow MUSIC Innovative Technologies Licensed via Warner Chappell Production Music Inc. Made by BFMP www.buzzfeed.com/videoteam + Laura Gutierrez Hugo Nogueira Nick Asgill Chelsey Pippin Bomin Kim (Kimi) GET MORE BUZZFEED www.buzzfeed.com/videoteam www.facebook.com/buzzfeedvideo www.instagram.com/buzzfeedvideo www.buzzfeed.com/video www.youtube.com/buzzfeedvideo www.youtube.com/buzzfeedyellow www.youtube.com/buzzfeedblue www.youtube.com/buzzfeedviolet BUZZFEED YELLOW More fun, inspiring, interesting videos from the BuzzFeed crew.

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Obama: America is a nation of immigrants

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David Cameron 2011 discussing multiculturalism in the UK

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David Cameron 2011 discussing multiculturalism in the UK

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Cameron: State multiculturalism has failed

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Want to make this summer one you'll never forget? Register for NCS today and get ready to meet a bunch of new mates, learn life lessons, skills and hacks, get your voice out there, and push yourself to new limits...in the best way possible!

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NCS | No We Can | National Citizen Service

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Want to make this summer one you'll never forget? Register for NCS today and get ready to meet a bunch of new mates, learn life lessons, skills and hacks, get your voice out there, and push yourself to new limits...in the best way possible!

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Rights and Responsibilities of the media - case study

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Rights and Responsibilities of the media - case study

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Fed up with dull school dinners, Martha Payne decided to showcase them in a daily blog - with astonishing results. The budding writer was just ten whe...

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Rights and Responsibilities of the media

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Rights and Responsibilities of the media

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Phone hacking scandal - case study

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Story behind the phone-hacking conspiracy - BBC News

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Rights and responsibilities of the media

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Rights and responsibilities of the media

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Expenses scandal - case study

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Forty six MPs have claimed expenses for London rent or hotels despite owning a property in the capital, a Channel 4 News investigation has found.

Analysis shows the expenses claims cost the taxpayer more than £1.3m since 2012, write Guy Basnett and Paul McNamara.

Our investigation found many of the MPs bought their London properties with the help of the taxpayer when the previous expenses system allowed them to claim back mortgage payments.

But when those claims were banned following the expenses scandal they switched to letting out their properties, in some cases for up to £3,000 a month. They then started claiming expenses for rent and hotels in the capital.

MPs are permitted to claim more than £20,000 a year in London rent, and £150 a night for hotels. The practice is allowed under rules set by expenses watchdog, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), that oversees what MPs can claim. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of the 46 MPs.

Our investigation raises questions about whether the new Ipsa expenses system allows taxpayers' money to be used appropriately, and whether MPs can still gain. The list of 46 MPs include 25 Conservatives, 14 Labour, and four from the Liberal Democrats.

Labour's shadow culture minister Chris Bryant claimed expenses of £35,350 in 2012/13 and 2013/14 to rent a London flat - despite already owning a penthouse in the capital. He bought the property in 2005, claiming around £1,000 a month in mortgage claims. But when the rules changed he let it out. Estate agent brochures show the two-bed apartment with a private lift and porter has since been marketed for rent for around £3,000 a month.

Conservative MP and former health secretary Andrew Lansley jointly owns a flat in upmarket Pimlico with his wife, bought with help from mortgage claims. But since 2013 he's claimed £7,440 to stay in London hotels. The MP for South Cambridgeshire does not let his flat out, but has instead made room for his daughter who has used the property to launch a business.

Jim Murphy, the Labour party leader in Scotland, owns a property bought with help from the taxpayer just two miles from the Palace of Westminster, which he let out. Over two years from 2012/13 he claimed £39,372 to rent another London flat for himself.

Liberal Democrat former defence minister Sir Nick Harvey bought a house in Lambeth in 2002 and claimed expenses to help him pay his mortgage. However, after mortgage claims were banned he moved out and let the house to tenants. He then rented a separate flat in the same area, and has charged the taxpayer £39,772 in expenses claims in 2012/13 and 2013/14.

Scottish National Party MP Angus MacNeil jointly owns two properties with his wife in Scotland. He also owns a London flat in Lambeth, bought under the old expenses system, just a 15-minute walk from the houses of parliament. But in three years since 2012/13 he claimed £42,177 to stay in hotels in Westminster.

Former chairman of the Committee for Standards in Public Life, Sir Alistair Graham, said MPs should be seen by the public to be upholding the spirit of new expenses rules. The rules state MPs must not "exploit the system for personal financial advantage".

Sir Alistair told Channel 4 News: "It's not always just about exactly what the rules say. It is about you taking personal responsibility that public funds are used in a proper and appropriate way that your constituents would be comfortable with. I'm sure we will hear all sorts of sob stories about why it's justifiable to do what they've done. But they must know in their heart of hearts that the public will see this as MPs on the make."

Last night MPs said new Ipsa rules banning mortgage claims forced them to let out their second home to be able to afford mortgage and associated costs. Others said they switched to renting or staying in hotels to try to minimise costs.

Sir Nick Harvey said: "This situation is not of the MPs' choosing. MPs have been obliged to let out their own properties since 2010 because the new rules say they cannot claim mortgage interest - only rent. Letting income covers the mortgage and other outgoings and is of course taxed. It is not MPs' fault that the rules compel them to rent a separate flat to live in.

"In some cases this may even cost the taxpayer more than leaving them in their own home. Changes made with the best intentions sometimes have unintended consequences, as you have highlighted."

Mr MacNeil said current expenses rules were to blame and that MPs should be allowed to claim for flats they own, as they did in the past. He said: "Ipsa should stand up to media pressures and enable MPs to take up cheaper accommodation alternatives in London, something that they currently do not support in regard of own flats."

Mr Lansley said he normally commuted from his home in South Cambridgeshire and only stayed overnight in London hotel about once a month. He said he always sought to minimise costs to the taxpayer and his expenses claims are entirely within the rules.

He said: "My expense claims have always sought to minimise the cost to the taxpayer. My relatively few overnight stays in London (barely once a month in the last year) meant that my expenses claims would be lower for occasional hotel stays in sitting weeks than for the costs of maintaining a flat in Westminster. I have not claimed any expenses in relation to our London flat in either of the last two years. Its occupancy during this time is not therefore relevant to parliamentary expenses.

"I live in South Cambridgeshire and commute from there each day. I have only stayed in hotels during parliamentary sitting weeks when I was required to stay very late for business. By staying in a hotel only on the nights required, rather than maintaining a London flat, I have reduced my expenses claims for accommodation (to £5490 in 2013-14 and to £1950 in 2014-15).

"My claims are entirely in accordance with Ipsa rules. As you will have seen from Ipsa's statement, they have confirmed this to be the case. I have secured no personal financial gain from the Ipsa expenses arrangements. Any suggestion to the contrary is clearly false, unsubstantiated and therefore malicious."

Both Mr Bryant and Mr Murphy did not respond to a request for comment.

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MPs' expenses: 46 claim in London despite owning a property

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Forty six MPs have claimed expenses for London rent or hotels despite owning a property in the capital, a Channel 4 News investigation has found. Analysis shows the expenses claims cost the taxpayer more than £1.3m since 2012, write Guy Basnett and Paul McNamara.

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Rights and responsibilities of the media

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Rights and responsibilities of the media

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Expenses scandal - case study

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Should the internet be regulated?

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How should the internet be regulated? - BBC Newsnight

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Home to 2.4 billion citizens, The Commonwealth includes some of the world's largest, smallest, richest and poorest countries, spanning five regions.

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What is the European Union?  |  BBC Newsbeat

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Find out more about EU countries: their government and society, use of the euro, membership of border-free travel area.

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The 30 Countries that are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have been shaded on a map, can you name them all?

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The history of NATO - video timeline (2013; new version available)

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The United Nations: History and Functions

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It was Dag Hammarskjöld, the tragic second UN secretary general, who had it best. The United Nations, he said, "was created not to lead mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell".

The kind of hell Hammarskjöld had in mind was not hard to imagine in the wake of world war and Hitler's extermination camps, and with the atom bomb's shadow spreading across the globe.

How much of a part the UN played in holding nuclear armageddon at bay divides historians. But there is little doubt that in the lifetime that has passed since it was set up in 1945 it helped save millions from other kinds of hell. From the deepest of poverty. From watching their children die of treatable diseases. From starvation and exposure as they fled wars made in the cauldron of ideological rivalries between Washington and Moscow but fought on battlefields in Africa and Asia.

The UN's children's organisation, Unicef, provided an education and a path to a better life for millions, including the present UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. The UN's development programmes were instrumental in helping countries newly freed from colonial rule to govern themselves.

And yet. In its 70 years, the United Nations may have been hailed as the great hope for the future of mankind - but it has also been dismissed as a shameful den of dictatorships. It has infuriated with its numbing bureaucracy, its institutional cover-ups of corruption and the undemocratic politics of its security council. It goes to war in the name of peace but has been a bystander through genocide. It has spent more than half a trillion dollars in 70 years.

"Like everybody says, if you didn't have the UN you'd have to invent it," said David Shearer, who served the organisation in senior posts in Rwanda, Belgrade, Afghanistan, Iraq and Jerusalem. He is now New Zealand's shadow foreign minister. "But it's imperfect, of course it is, and everybody knows that it is," he said.

As the UN marks the 70th anniversary of its founding this autumn, those imperfections - and how the UN addresses them - have come to the fore as the organisation struggles to define its role in the 21st century.

Tensions between western governments, which see the UN as bloated and inefficient, and developing countries, which regard it as undemocratic and dominated by the rich, have rippled across the organisation as ballooning costs drive the push for reform.

Even accounting for inflation, annual UN expenditure is 40 times higher than it was in the early 1950s. The organisation now encompasses 17 specialised agencies, 14 funds and a secretariat with 17 departments employing 41,000 people.

Its regular budget, which is agreed every two years and goes to pay for the cost of administering the UN - including mouthwatering daily allowances which result in many of its bureaucrats being far better paid than American civil servants - has more than doubled over the past two decades to $5.4bn.

But that is just a small portion of the total spend. Peacekeeping costs another $9bn a year, with 120,000 peacekeepers deployed mostly in Africa. Some missions have lasted more than a decade. And then there are the voluntary contributions from individual governments that go to fund a large part of disaster relief, development work and agencies such as Unicef. They have risen sixfold over the past 25 years to $28.8bn. And yet even at that level, some agencies are warning that they are operating on the brink of bankruptcy.

Even with costs surging fourfold in the last 20 years, total UN spending this year is still only about half of New York City's $75bn budget.

"There is no single institution that I found more exhilarating at its best, yet more debilitatingly frustrating at its worst, than the United Nations," said Gareth Evans, a former foreign minister of Australia and strong critic of the way the UN is run. He said his efforts to advance reform of the UN "were about as quixotic and unproductive as anything I have ever tried to do".

That's a sentiment widely shared among diplomats and UN officials.

Valerie Amos, Britain's former international development minister, described the UN as a valuable ally in delivering UK aid but lamented its inefficiency.

"There were concerns about the UN being overly bureaucratic and slow in the way it dealt with development issues. I think that's one of the criticisms of the UN that remains until now, that since it was formed it has become bigger and bigger. Many organisations have overlapping mandates. It's become an organisation that's quite unwieldy in lots of respects," Lady Amos said.

Helen Clark, head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the most powerful woman at the UN, dealt with the organisation from the outside as prime minister of New Zealand. She said that as the leader of a small country she valued being able to use the UN's size and resources to deliver New Zealand's aid programme, such as emergency assistance to Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami.

But once she started work at the UNDP six years ago she was less impressed. "When I arrived, the organisation was a little over a year into its first ever strategic plan. What that tells you is that modern management and modern strategic planning was late coming to the UN," she said. Clark laughed as she said the plan she was presented with was so broad in its goals that it made no sense.

Shearer, who headed Save the Children in Somalia, Rwanda and Sri Lanka before joining the UN, said the organisation's strength lay in what he called its "gravitas". Governments may turn away NGOs but the UN cannot be ignored. Neither can the UN's huge logistical capabilities, such as the World Food Programme's airlifts, be matched by any private organisation.

But he said the UN was weighed down by "incompetence" and red tape. "It's a very heavily bureaucratic organisation. It hasn't changed in a lot of years. It's built systems on top of systems on top of systems," he said. "Getting the right people, that was the Rosetta Stone of the UN for me. Once I cracked that, it meant I could use the organisation how it was supposed to be used irrespective of the structure, because the structure will always protect the incompetent, in a sense."

A decade ago, the UN launched its most enduring report into reform. A panel - co-chaired by the prime ministers of Mozambique, Norway and Pakistan, and including the then British chancellor, Gordon Brown - wrote a devastating document. It ticked off criticisms which said the UN was badly failing those it was supposed to help. Its work on development was described as "often fragmented and weak"; its governance was called "inefficient and ineffective".

The report said the UN's taste for setting goals at the expense of delivering results failed the poorest and most vulnerable. It also criticised a system of funding for many UN programmes in which officials had to beg for money from governments year after year, making it difficult to plan.

"Cooperation between organisations has been hindered by competition for funding, mission creep and by outdated business practices," it said. "In some sectors, such as water and energy, more than 20 UN agencies are active and compete for limited resources without a clear collaborative framework. More than 30 UN agencies and programmes have a stake in environmental management."

The organisation has grown so big that at times it is working against itself. Critics point to large numbers of support staff doing ill-defined jobs. Staff costs account for two-thirds or more of some UN agencies' outgoings. "Performance management is a joke," said one official. "Almost everyone gets 'above average' in their assessment."

The UN is so fragmented that each agency has its own IT system.

The reform report noted that about one-third of the UN operations in 60 countries had a budget of less than $2m per agency, which meant that they could do little more than afford the cost of running the office.

The report proposed extensive changes to promote greater collaboration and efficiency under a programme called Delivering as One. This included myriad UN agencies in a single country coming under the authority of one official, and working more closely with the governments of those countries, which often had no idea what the UN was doing.

Ban, who recalls learning from books provided by Unicef as a child after his family was forced to flee during the first UN-led war in his native Korea in the 1950s, told the Guardian that rapid change was happening and that Delivering as One was at the heart of it.

"The United Nations of today is hugely different from the United Nations 70 years ago, and therefore it is very important the United Nations changes and adapts itself to changing circumstances," he said. "It's been changing, very drastically now. I have seen this kind of duplication between and among United Nations agencies, for example water issues. Delivering as One, working as one, in the United Nations, that's the main motor of my administration and I have been engaging with all different agencies and funds and programmes so that we can Deliver as One."

But that is not what others see. A pilot programme was rolled out in eight countries and was regarded as successful. But the broader reforms never came.

The executive director of the reform report was Adnan Amin, a Kenyan development economist who was head of the Chief Executives Board for Coordination, which represents all UN programmes as well as associated organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He said the changes proposed in the report were "fundamentally good ideas" but had not had the impact its authors had hoped for.

"It's led to reams of reports written in the UN, many of them impenetrable to the rest of the world because of the jargon used. I think there has been incremental progress but I don't think we can say there's been a fundamental change in the way the UN does business," he said.

Amin said the UN had set itself yet more goals but failed to heed the report's warning about lack of results.

"What we have now is another multiplication of targets and goals which are an extraordinarily comprehensive assessment of what's needed to be done but there's no operational clarity around them. Who's going to do it? Who's going to monitor it? Who's accountable for it? The goals themselves are pretty impressive but it doesn't say anything to the UN about what they should be doing," he said.

"We still have a lot of fragmentation. There are about 1,200 country offices of the UN around the world. There are 100 countries with more than 10 UN country offices in each country. You have country offices with a budget of eight or nine million [dollars] and a staff of five people. Half the money goes for the operational expenses of the office, leaving what is actually a minuscule amount of money for programming or key activities. In the context of what's happening today, a few million is not going to make any difference."

The drag on reform comes from different directions. Some UN agencies resist it.

Clark chairs the UN Development Group, an umbrella of major agencies, where she is responsible for implementing Delivering as One. "When I started learning about the arcane intricacies of Delivering as One, there were criticisms that it was very bureaucratic and process oriented. I have to say I believe there was some truth in those criticisms," she said.

She introduced a system, known as standard operating procedures, which she said was aimed at "not having the whole working together effort drowned in process". "It hasn't been easy because there are many different agencies involved and they have all developed over the years their own procedures and ways of working. It has required long and patient negotiation to get to the point of having standard operating procedures. It couldn't just be decreed because no one has the power to decree it," she said.

But the bigger obstacle to reform perhaps comes from the UN members states themselves.

After she left the British government, Amos became the UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs.

"I don't think people give enough weight to the fact that the United Nations is a body made up of its member states of 193 nations. You have member states coming at the reform agenda with very, very different perspectives," she said. "One of the things I saw close up was that if, for example, you had a UN entity based in a particular country and you are seeking to reform and streamline and so on, very often that country will argue strenuously against taking away any resources.

"Even if you're saying you want to cut a few staff because it makes sense to have them somewhere else, there will be really serious lobbying against that."

Amin was confronted with this when the panel drawing up the reform report attempted to get agreement on some of the changes it recommended.

"You can hardly touch any mandate, as minuscule as it might be, that doesn't have one or two strong advocates from member states behind it," he said. "Through a very bruising one-year consultation process it became very evident that there was not that much that could be done that could fly politically and we ended up getting rid of two small gender outfits and creating a much bigger gender agency."

One diplomat points to the saga of the UN print shop in New York, a growing anachronism in the digital age. After it was flooded during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, officials seized the opportunity to shut it down and shed 60 jobs. Even though those affected were promised work elsewhere in the UN, there was strong resistance from a grouping of developing countries opposed to the cutting of any posts.

Reformers are pushing for the 80 separate locations where UN payrolls are processed to be whittled down considerably, but have again run into resistance. They question the need to have large numbers of routine administrative jobs in high-cost cities such as New York and Geneva. They ask why foreign nationals on expensive expat packages, which pay for benefits such as private education for their children, are recruited to do them.

There is a tendency by the countries which pay most of the bills to portray the poorer ones, grouped in the G77 of 134 nations, as a drag on modernisation and the principal obstacle to reform.

But G77 countries say that behind claims of greater efficiency and modern management methods, wealthier nations are tightening their grip on the UN.

India is a leading member of the G77. Its ambassador to the UN, Asoke Kumar Mukerji, said the rich countries took the high-level jobs in the name of efficiency.

"If you look at the secretariat of the United Nations it is dominated by industrialised economies because they are the ones who contribute the bulk of the budget and they get the bulk of the positions in the secretariat, managerial positions," he said. "The point that the G77 is an obstacle isn't fair because the G77 is marginalised in the overall secretariat of the United Nations."

Clark has been praised for her reforms of the UNDP. She is touted as a potential successor to Ban and the UN's first female secretary general, although the politics of the appointment, which moves between regions, is a big obstacle. The New Zealander is lauded by some western diplomats for forcing through reforms, which they say are making the UNDP more efficient.

The G77 sees it differently. It has criticised what it says are the diminishing number of managerial jobs inside the UNDP for people from the developing countries the programme is supposed to be serving. Mukerji said it was an issue increasingly raised at UNDP board meetings.

"If you do not have developing country people inside the structure of the UNDP at managerial level up to the senior management, then you do have an agency which doesn't understand the ethos of the countries where it operates," he said.

The divvying up of jobs is a source of perpetual tension within the UN. "There's an enormous amount of lobbying by member states for particular jobs," said Amos. "I was rather taken aback at the amount of lobbying that goes on and that does not just go on for senior jobs, it goes on for jobs across the system.

"How you reflect in a 193-member state organisation the diversity of the member states and retain a merit-based system is a huge challenge for the UN. We have to move away from this idea that it's about having people who can somehow run an agenda for that particular country."

One senior UN official said politics continued to play a major part in the allocations of jobs.

"Appointments should be on merit but the truth is that if a particular country, one you need to keep on side for political or financial reasons, wants you to put one of its own in to a particular job, then sometimes you do it if it's not going to mess things up too much. Sometimes that person is very competent. If they're not you just end up working around them," he said.

"It does mean that there are people who don't seem to be particularly good or work very hard at what they do. But there are other people who are very good and they carry the rest."

Although the major powers complain about developing nations insisting on what one official called "jobs for the boys", they behave little differently. "The permanent members of the security council all expect to have a senior person from their country around the UN table," said Amos.

The US gets Unicef and the World Food Programme. China runs the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Russia is in charge of crime.

Amos's former job as head of humanitarian affairs is regarded as a British fiefdom. Her predecessor was British; so was her successor. That appointment laid bare the entitlement felt by the UK.

The prime minister, David Cameron, put forward just one name to the UN for the post - his former health minister Andrew Lansley. Ban demanded he submit at least three and eventually a former minister at the Department for International Development, Stephen O'Brien, was appointed. Although Cameron did not get his first choice, the post remained in British hands.

The sharpest confrontations over money and cuts come in what is known as the UN's fifth committee, which oversees budget and administration. Because it is open to all member states and makes decisions by a simple majority, the committee is where the G77 exerts its greatest influence.

"There are massive fights," said one official who described the US, EU, Japan and Australia on the side of cutting budgets, inefficiency and jobs while the G77 was painted as wanting more spending and more jobs for their nations.

The UN's largest contributors have a caustic view of the committee, regarding it as run by countries who make a minimal contribution to the cost of the UN but decide both the secretariat and peacekeeping budgets.

Officials and diplomats of all kinds bemoan a lack of assertive leadership. They have one eye on the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, but he is a product of the permanent members of UN security council.

"It would be great to see what difference a strong secretary general would make," said one top official. "We all say it knowing that it is unlikely that we will ever get one because the stronger member states have such an interest in not having a strong secretary general. They want a secretary general they are able to influence, lobby."

Which raises what many consider the real obstacle to remaking the UN for the 21st century - that its most powerful body is still locked in 1945.

The five permanent members, the victors over Germany and Japan, hold the whip hand through vetoes. For all the noise from the US, Britain and France in particular about modernising the UN, they show no willingness to give up the power they wield sometimes in ways governed entirely by political interest. Since 1982, the US has used its security council veto to block resolutions critical of Israel 35 times. The total number of resolutions blocked by other permanent members over the same period is 27. More recently, Russia and China have used their vetoes to block UN intervention in Syria.

India, the world's second most populous nation, is pushing for expansion of the security council to include six more permanent members with the right of veto, as well as several more non-permanent members. Mukerji, the Indian ambassador to the UN, said his country had been pressing for several years for agreement on a document that will be the basis of negotiations.

"It's incredible that in the United Nations, which produces negotiating texts on every other area it deals with, in the area of security council reform it has just not been able to put a text on the table," he said.

Appetite for broader reform seems just as tepid.

"Where is the conversation happening which says that, in 2015 and beyond, what is the United Nations there for?" Amos asked. "What should be the core activities of the UN that should receive a significant proportion of the regular funding of the UN?"

This article was amended on 9 September 2015. An earlier version said that the US had exercised its security council veto to protect Israel from criticism more times than the total number of vetoes cast by the other permanent members combined. That has been corrected to say that since 1982, the US has used its veto to block resolutions critical of Israel 35 times, while the total number of resolutions blocked by other permanent members over the same period is 27. The article was further amended on 18 September 2015 to correct an editing error that left iy saying that Dag Hammarskjöld was the third UN secretary general.

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70 years and half a trillion dollars later: what has the UN achieved?

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It was Dag Hammarskjöld, the tragic second UN secretary general, who had it best. The United Nations, he said, "was created not to lead mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell". The kind of hell Hammarskjöld had in mind was not hard to imagine in the wake of world war and Hitler's extermination camps, and with the atom bomb's shadow spreading across the globe.

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The World Trade Organization (WTO) Explained in One Minute

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International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

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What are the Rules of War? | The Laws of War  | ICRC

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NGO - case study

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The British Red Cross is providing vital services to help people in Syria. We are also working with our partners to reach Syrian refugees in Lebanon and nearby countries.

Syria: 10 years of unrelenting conflict

After 10 years of war, Syrian people are exhausted.

Every single person has been affected - many in multiple ways.

These numbers are hard to imagine, but if Syria was 100 people in 2021:

83 people now live in poverty

77 need access to healthcare

54 don't have access to enough food

70 have no regular access to clean water

12 children are out of school

But Syria is not 100 people. It's 17 million.

The British Red Cross has been there for people in Syria since the start of the crisis ten years ago. We are still supporting Syrians today, and we will continue to be there for as long as we're needed.

How is the British Red Cross helping Syrian people?

The British Red Cross has supported over six million Syrians through our Syria Crisis Appeal, alongside the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

We have provided lifesaving support such as food, blankets, mattresses and other aid. Many more have been reached because of training we have given to Red Cross volunteers.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross are among the only major humanitarian agencies able to work across front lines in Syria - providing vital aid to people in areas that others cannot reach.

How is Covid-19 affecting Syria?

Coronavirus is now a serious problem in Syria, especially among the 100,000 people still living in camps. Social distancing is practically impossible here.

Unable to access the most basic items, such as food, clean water, shelter or soap, millions are left unprotected against the coronavirus.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Red Cross has been supporting Syrians by providing face masks, hygiene kits and food parcels so that families are able to meet their urgent needs and protect themselves against the virus.

In addition, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent has more than 8,300 staff and volunteers directly involved in the Covid-19 response.

How is the Red Cross helping families in Lebanon?

Of the 5 million people who live in Lebanon, more than 1 million are Syrian refugees.

Together with the Lebanese Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross, we have supported over 1,800 people in Lebanon to start their own businesses.

The money they earn will enable refugees and host communities to buy what they need most. It also puts more money into the local economy.

How to help Syrian people

Your support of the Syria Crisis Appeal will help the Red Cross and our partner the Syrian Arab Red Crescent provide food, mattresses, blankets and vital services. We will also work with our partners to reach Syrian refugees living in nearby countries.

Together with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, we can deliver emergency aid across front lines to reach people most in need.

Syria: ongoing aid in numbers

With the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, we have helped over 5 million people since the conflict began.

This includes providing over 580,000 food items.

People have received over 1.5 million other items such as blankets and mattresses.

We're also helping thousands of people to learn new skills and earn a living by growing vegetables and farming sheep.

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The British Red Cross support work and aid in Syria

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The British Red Cross is providing vital services to help people in Syria. We are also working with our partners to reach Syrian refugees in Lebanon and nearby countries. After 10 years of war, Syrian people are exhausted. Every single person has been affected - many in multiple ways.

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What is a pressure group? - Greenpeace example

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How One Woman Made Upskirting A Sexual Offense - Newsweek Meets Gina Martin

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Stop and Search

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stop and search - case study

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Willesden, north-west London, 2.30am. A passer-by has seen a man try to break into some vehicles, chased him away and called 999. Minutes later, PC Paul Jones reaches the area and begins searching through bins, down alleyways and behind fences until he spots someone fitting the description. Jones is not convinced by the 19-year-old's account of why he's there, and soon discovers what he thinks might be a tool for breaking windows nearby. This gives Jones the grounds he needs to search him, and he begins running his hands down the man's legs, through the seams of his jacket and the turn-ups of his trousers.

As one suspect admitted to me - immediately after Jones had unloaded a spare watch and a wallet containing someone else's ID card from his jacket - Jones is "one of the good guys. Other officers, certain CID, unmarked cars, they're the worst."

Earlier this year, a police watchdog suggested there could be quite a few of these "other officers". A review by HMIC (Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary) found police had carried out a stop and search without reasonable grounds in 27% of cases. Under the law, the power should be used when based on specific and objective information that a person is in possession of a stolen or prohibited item. The home secretary Theresa May resolved that it was "time to get stop and search right", launching a public consultation that closed in September with 4,000 responses. Keenly aware of the fact that stop and search is a major issue for ethnic minority voters, May will announce the outcome before the end of the year.

Denise Richards, the chair of a stop-and-search scrutiny group for Brent police (where Jones works), believes the large response to the consultation indicates the widespread distrust and resentment created in communities by "negative" searches - those in which stolen or prohibited items are not found. "Stop and search doesn't just have an impact on the young person. It impacts on their family, their mothers, their fathers, their grandmas. It impacts on the community," she says.

Police officers arrest a suspect in a still from Ben Ferguson's video Photograph: Ben Ferguson

It's perhaps no coincidence that the Metropolitan police suggested we see how stop and search works in the London borough of Brent; it has a better record than most, with 21% of searches resulting in arrest, considerably more than the national average of 9%. To the general public, this figure makes stop and search look at best like a waste of police time and at worst like the result of incompetence. But there's a second, more disturbing reason why the power has become discredited: in England and Wales, black people are searched seven times as often as white. For Richards, the only explanation is institutional racism. "It's linked in with the perception that the police have of young black men. I don't have a problem with stop and search. I have a problem with the disproportionate number of young black men who are being searched."

The recent political attention has left many officers worried that the power might even be taken away. "I think stop and search is one of my best tools to prevent crime and solve it," says Jones, a 33-year-old who worked as an estate agent before joining the police. "If I'm going to a call with suspects on the premises, I'm looking for that person as I approach. I might not catch them in the house, but if I can catch them coming out of the house with stolen property, stop and search is the only way I can get my hands in their pockets."

Other officers from Wembley police station share Jones's view, recounting successes that range from the discovery of a meat cleaver strapped to a penis to a rock of crack cocaine the size of a bar of soap up someone's backside. Tales of unsuccessful searches are not so common, yet despite Brent's good record, officers are still statistically more likely to have a negative stop and search.

A few days later we accompany 23-year-old PC Rob Farriello on patrol in one of Brent's three large social housing estates, Church End. Farriello, who joined the force at 18, is on the look-out for two suspects described as mixed-race teenagers with large afros, who local residents have witnessed committing a street robbery. As we drive, he says that from his point of view even negative stop and searches are useful, as a deterrent, because gang members need to bear in mind that they could be frisked. "People you know are actively involved in drug dealing, in carrying weapons - they're the right people to search," he says. "If you don't find something, there's a good chance you've disrupted them from doing something."

Stop and search on the streets of Brent - a still from the video

Most people will be reassured to learn that the police have a pretty good idea who all the gang members are, as well as other people involved in crime. This information is kept on an extensive "CrimInt" (criminal intelligence) database, alongside updates on gang rivalries and what to look out for while on patrol. But a known face or previous convictions do not constitute reasonable grounds for a search, and it's here that the practical application of the power risks veering beyond the margins of legality. Putting aside the philosophical problems - Is the friend of a gang member also a gang member? Is a gang member a gang member when he's with his mother? - a negative search leaves those who have been frisked feeling like victims of harassment. The result, one resident says, is that people who would be quite useful sources of information put up walls of silence. On a more prosaic level, the "right" people know they are the "right" people; they are used to being searched and the boy (usually a boy) just gives his knife or drugs to someone less likely to get searched - a girl or a white friend - instead.

During our time with the Brent officers, we witness Jones and Farriello uncover drugs, weapons and stolen items from suspects; they also dodge left hooks, dress stab wounds, and do other things that seem quite noble and heroic. Yet in spite of all this, members of the public continue to peer into the police car as if there is a huge rubber hand on the roof giving every passer-by the middle finger. With every scowling face I'm reminded of a brilliant interview with a Bronx police chief called Tony Bouza in the 1977 documentary The Police Tapes. "You look at the average policeman ... he goes to the police academy and he's told he's going to be helping people ... and then he gets out there and he suddenly discovers he is bitterly resented and he's shocked ... the policeman has great difficulty assimilating this knowledge and he becomes hardened. The insularity grows, the parochialism grows and they become an island." For any officer who might want to step off this island to go fishing, stop and search would act as quite a good rod.

During our time with the officers, the only white person we see searched is a 50-year-old man with mental health problems in the leafy northern part of the borough. Our days and nights are mainly spent responding to emergency calls on the built-up south side, where non-white faces are much more common. On a day off we meet Roy Croasdaile, a local resident and member of an independent police advisory group. He explains that the geography of policing is associated with inadequate housing, poor education, high rates of unemployment and cultural perceptions. Together these things become inextricably linked to the disproportionate number of young black men searched. He adds that quoting disproportionality figures - as Theresa May has done this conference season - is misleading.

"If you have people reporting crimes involving black people fighting black people, it's understandable that you should have police officers targeting black people under section 60," he says, referring to a provision of the Police and Public Order Act allowing officers to perform stop and search in exceptional circumstances in response to specific gang violence. But he makes a key distinction: "That's not the same as discrimination, when you don't have that kind of intelligence but you're still stopping lots of black people."Since 2011, when stop and search was found to have been a major source of discontent among those who took part in the riots, broad changes have occurred in the use of the power. Across London, Pace (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) searches for drugs, weapons and stolen items - which have a broad profile of offenders - have dropped from over half a million to 356,567. Brent has halved its figure from 33,331 to 16,556. According to Farriello and Jones's boss, Borough Detective Superintendent Simon Rose, "Officers have to be more selective, to use the power with more consideration and measure outcome rate not usage." Consideration, it seems, includes not searching people based on the colour of their skin, since the proportion of black people searched has also fallen since 2011.

Midnight. A 21-year-old Somali man is stopped near Church End after the Audi A3 hire car he is driving triggers Farriello's automatic number-plate reading system. The display says: "Involved in the supply of drugs". This on its own isn't enough to justify searching the driver, but a waft of weed smoke, along with flakes of cannabis on the car floor, torn off Rizla packets and broken cigarettes, give Farriello the reasonable grounds he needs.

"You're just picking on me right now. That's how it feels," sighs the driver, who was on his way to eat. The street search is negative so the hungry motorist is taken back to Harlesden police station, where a strip search also turns up nothing. Earlier that week I'd witnessed Jones tell two boys sharing a joint that Brent are too busy to arrest for cannabis, so later I ask Farriello whether the intelligence on this man's car meant he was treated differently. "No," says Farriello. "His previous convictions or anything he was known for had nothing to do with the reason he was strip searched," adding that "often a positive search comes down to luck."

Metropolitan police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe accepts that it is difficult to eliminate the "luck" factor in stop and search, and tells me that commanders of forces need to work on teaching their officers how to stand down in situations where they have got it wrong. One resident we meet, Kevin Noel, acquired a criminal record at the age of 18 when a negative search turned into a charge of assault on two police officers. He argues that people who live on housing estates that have become synonymous with crime get targeted by surveillance and disruption powers far more frequently than anyone else. "We're all just poor around here, but not everyone is a criminal. When officers use stop and search as a deterrent, we're going to see it as harassment."

Jones concedes that others members of the force might be less professional than him. "I guess when you get 30,000 officers you're going to get 30,000 different ways of doing something." He thinks the focus needs to be on conversion figures - the ratio of stops to arrests - for specific officers: an officer with a poor conversion rate should spend time alongside officers with a better record.

Back in Willesden, a police van arrives to collect the 19-year-old who Jones has now arrested. The suspect finishes his cigarette and climbs in. I manage to get a word with him before he gets in the cage. Whatever comes of the consultation on stop and search, the teenager says, it will take at least 10 years of good policing for everyone to have faith once again.

This article was amended on 22 October 2013. An earlier version said that black people are searched seven times as often as white people without clarifying that those figures refer to England and Wales, not Brent.

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Stop and search: on the streets with the police

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Willesden, north-west London, 2.30am. A passer-by has seen a man try to break into some vehicles, chased him away and called 999. Minutes later, PC Paul Jones reaches the area and begins searching through bins, down alleyways and behind fences until he spots someone fitting the description.

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The basic difference

The basic difference between barristers and solicitors is that a barrister mainly provides the advocacy at the tribunal as well as providing specialist advice and a solicitor mainly performs legal work preparation work in preparation for the tribunal. However, there are exceptions in both cases.

Solicitor

Solicitors can work for a big range of organizations, including commercial or non-commercial law firms, the government, private businesses, banks, and corporations. They have specialist knowledge of different areas of the law including employment.

Most of the time solicitors advise clients, undertake negotiations and draft legal documents and run the case up to the employment tribunal. It is primarily a desk job but does involve travelling to see clients and sometimes representing them in the tribunal.

Barrister

Barristers can be distinguished from a solicitor because they provide mainly advocacy work at the tribunal and only get involved either for providing specialist advice or at the court itself. They work at higher levels of court than solicitors and their main role is to act as advocates in legal hearings, which means they stand in court and plead the case on behalf of their clients in front of a judge. They also have specialist knowledge of the law and so are often called on to give legal advice.

Most barristers are self-employed and work in Chambers with other barristers so they can share costs of accommodation and administrators. They can also be employed in-house as advisors by banks, corporations, and solicitors firms.

Training

Both barristers and solicitors start off doing the same training: they either complete an undergraduate course in law or take another degree and follow it with the one-year Common Professional Exam or Post-Graduate Diploma in Law. After that, solicitors do a one-year Legal Practice Course followed by a two-year training contract.

A barrister must take a one-year Bar Professional Training Course in place of the Legal Practice Course, and then they are 'called to bar' at one of the four Inns where they do a year's pupillage shadowing a senior barrister and undertaking some court work. They can then join a set of Chambers as a fully-fledged self-employed barrister

Expert employment barrister Nick Singer explains the difference between a barrister and solicitor.

Video transcript

Hello, my name is Mark Ferron MD of Castle Associates, if you like to know the difference between a solicitor and barrister, then please watch this short video and expert barrister Nick Singer will explain.

The difference is becoming a narrower and narrower but traditionally what would happen, is you firstly go to a solicitor about the problem. The solicitor would go through it and they would run the case and then they would go to the barrister for specialist advice service, perhaps a specialist opinion, perhaps to draft court documents or tribunal documents and obviously the barrister would mainly do the advocacy. Now that has changed in recent years solicitors are doing more advocacy, barristers now can do have actually since nineteen ninety been able to do but it's becoming bigger something called public access, where members of the public can go straight to a barrister without going to a solicitor. So as I say the roles are becoming less defined but broadly barristers do advocacy and specialist advice and solicitors run the case and get it ready for a tribunal.

Thank you for watching, I really hope you enjoyed this short video and if you did please share it on Facebook or Google+ and we put out a new video every Monday and if you haven't subscribed already and what are you waiting for, thanks again for watching.

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What is the difference between a barrister and solicitor

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The basic difference The basic difference between barristers and solicitors is that a barrister mainly provides the advocacy at the tribunal as well as providing specialist advice and a solicitor mainly performs legal work preparation work in preparation for the tribunal. However, there are exceptions in both cases.

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Alternative ways of dealing with disputes

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Alternative ways of dealing with disputes

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Ombudsman

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Find out who we are and how we help consumers and businesses resolve disputes; learn more about why we exist and how we operate.

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Alternative ways of dealing with disputes

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Alternative ways of dealing with disputes

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Mediation

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Family mediation is a process in which an independent, professionally trained mediator helps you work out arrangements for children and finances following separation.

Mediation can also be helpful when arrangements you've made before need to change, particularly as your children grow up.

Mediation helps you stay in control. No-one will make you do anything against your wishes.

The mediator will help you find a solution which works for you both and will explain what needs to happen to make an agreement between you legally binding.

FMC Registered Mediators have helped hundreds of thousands of families to agree on financial arrangements after separation, and to find a way to parent their children co-operatively after separation.

The process is less stressful and significantly quicker than going to court, and can save you money. Legal aid is available if you are financially eligible.

Mediators work with separating couples in ways that are flexible and tailor-made for your situation. You do not have to be in the same space as your ex if you or the mediator decides that working with you in separate spaces would be preferable.

You can find an FMC Registered Mediator here.

You can find out more about the cost of mediation here.

You can find about more about the mediation process by reading about Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings (MIAMs) and mediation sessions or by watching this video produced by the University of Exeter.

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What is Family Mediation? - Family Mediation Council

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Family mediation is a process in which an independent, professionally trained mediator helps you work out arrangements for children and finances following separation. Mediation can also be helpful when arrangements you've made before need to change, particularly as your children grow up. Mediation helps you stay in control.

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Alternative ways of dealing with disputes

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Alternative ways of dealing with disputes

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Arbitration

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Skip to main content

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What your student's will learn

Encourage students to consider how Magna Carta still affects our rights and responsibilities today and which rights and freedoms they feel are important enough to be enshrined in their own 'Magna Carta for the 21st century'.

Magna Carta for the 21st century

Curriculum links

England

Citizenship - Democracy, government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens

English - Spoken English

History - The development of Church, state and society in medieval Britain (1066-1509)

Northern Ireland

History - The development of Church, state and society in medieval Britain (1066-1509)

Learning for Life and Work - Local and Global Citizenship

Scotland

Social Studies - People, past events and societies

Wales

Citizenship Studies - Democracy and Government

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Magna Carta for the 21st century, video - Parliament UK Education

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Skip to main content Find out more about how we use cookies. Otherwise by continuing to use the site you agree to the use of the cookies as they are currently set. Encourage students to consider how Magna Carta still affects our rights and responsibilities today and which rights and freedoms they feel are important enough to be enshrined in their own 'Magna Carta for the 21st century'.

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Case study

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Margaret Thatcher speaking about the miners strike on its 258th day

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On 4 August 2011 Mark Duggan was shot and killed by police in Tottenham, north London, sparking the largest civil unrest the UK has seen for a generation. We retell the story of how events unfolded using first-hand accounts from police and rioters who took part, as well as people who defended their businesses and denounced the violence

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England's riots five years on: 'It was off the scale' - video

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On 4 August 2011 Mark Duggan was shot and killed by police in Tottenham, north London, sparking the largest civil unrest the UK has seen for a generation.

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The Youth Custody Service (YCS) is a specialist service within Her Majesty's Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS).

We focus on the care and rehabilitation of children and young people aged 12 to 18 in custody.

Reduced numbers of young people and children are now kept in youth custody so the children and young people you are working with will be among the most challenging and vulnerable in our society.
We are changing the way we work
We're at the start of our journey, and this is your chance to be a part of that change.

From March 2019, all staff must undertake specialist training to gain qualifications for working with young people and children. This is part of supporting the further professionalisation of our staff within our service.

We have increased staff levels, introduced new job descriptions to acknowledge the different challenges and approaches needed to support children and young people.

All Band 3 youth justice workers must complete modules 1 & 2 to progress to Band 4 youth justice worker specialist.

There is an expectation that everyone working in a youth custody location will be a Band 4 youth justice worker specialist.

As a youth justice worker, you will:

support children and young people in custody to live positive and crime-free lives

reduce the numbers of young people released from our care who reoffend

create an environment that is educational, safe and decent

improve safety and maximise opportunities for personal growth

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion
We welcome and encourage applications from everyone irrespective of background, identity, experience or circumstance, and particularly those underrepresented in our workforce. We strive for a workforce that is representative of our society and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice.

When people come to work for us we want them to feel safe and that they belong, are treated with empathy and respect, and have the support and solidarity of their colleagues and managers, so we can all deliver our services fairly and in response to individual needs. In joining us, you join an organisation which is committed to the values of humanity, openness, together and purpose.

Find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

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Working in youth custody | HM Prison & Probation Service

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The Youth Custody Service (YCS) is a specialist service within Her Majesty's Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS). We focus on the care and rehabilitation of children and young people aged 12 to 18 in custody.

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(ENG) ECHR - European Convention on Human Rights (English Version)

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Magistrates are volunteers who hear cases in courts in their community. They can hear cases in the criminal court, the family court, or both.

Each case is usually heard by 3 magistrates, including a magistrate who is trained to act as a chairperson.

A legal adviser in the court gives advice on the law and makes sure the magistrates follow the right procedures.

Criminal cases

All criminal cases begin in a magistrates' court.

Magistrates pass the most serious crimes (for example murder, rape and robbery) to the Crown Court. Magistrates decide if the defendant should be:

kept in custody - for example in a police or court cell

let out on strict conditions - for example to keep away from named places or people

Magistrates deal with crimes like:

minor assaults

motoring offences

theft

handling stolen goods

TV licence evasion

Magistrates can give punishments such as:

fines

unpaid work in the community

prison for up to 6 months (or up to 12 months for more than 1 crime)

Family cases

Magistrates can also hear cases at a family court.

These magistrates deal with cases about children. They can:

arrange for a child to be taken into care or put up for adoption

help separated parents make arrangements for their children

enforce child maintenance orders

make court orders to prevent domestic abuse

These magistrates can get advice from the child's guardian or a family court adviser during the case.

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Magistrates are volunteers who hear cases in courts in their community. They can hear cases in the criminal court, the family court, or both. Each case is usually heard by 3 magistrates, including a magistrate who is trained to act as a chairperson.

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You must do jury service when you're sent a jury summons form, unless you're allowed to delay it.

You must complete and return the form within 7 days.

You can be fined up to £1,000 if you don't return the form or turn up for your jury service.

The jury service will be as close as possible to where you live.

The court won't pay you to do jury service, but you can claim expenses such as food, drink and travel. You can also claim for loss of earnings if your employer doesn't pay you during your jury service.

You can watch a video about jury service.

When you aren't allowed to do jury service

In some circumstances you can't be on a jury, for example if you've been in prison in the last 10 years. These are listed in the guide to jury summons which is sent to you with the form.

How long jury service lasts

Jury service usually lasts up to 10 working days but can be longer.

You may be on a jury for more than one trial during your service.

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You must do jury service when you're sent a jury summons form, unless you're allowed to delay it. You must complete and return the form within 7 days. You can be fined up to £1,000 if you don't return the form or turn up for your jury service.

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Tribunals considering cases are made up of three tribunal members. At least one of the tribunal must be medically qualified and at least one must be a lay member. A lay member is someone that has never held a medical qualification. In most cases the chair will be legally qualified .

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Home | Neighbourhood Watch | National network | Local Watch areas | Community crime prevention groups

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The Neighbourhood Watch Network supports individuals and groups to create safer, stronger and active communities. We believe in a caring society that is focused on trust and respect, in which people are safe from crime and enjoy a good quality of life

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Going to court as a witness: 7. The trial - what to expect

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Hillsborough - case study

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Hillsborough Disaster: How it Happened in 1989

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Hillsborough - case study

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The 96 people who died at the Hillsborough football stadium disaster in 1989 were unlawfully killed and a catalogue of failings by police and the ambulance services contributed to their deaths, the jury at the new inquests into the disaster has determined.

The verdict, which came shortly after the 27th anniversary of the lethal crush at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, vindicated the bereaved families, who have campaigned tirelessly against the police's efforts to blame supporters for the tragedy.

The jury of six women and three men answered 14 questions relating to the events in Sheffield of 15 April 1989, including one concerning the behaviour of supporters.

Barristers for police officers at the new inquests had repeatedly emphasised allegations of drunkenness and misbehaviour, while the families' lawyers denounced them as "perpetuating the cover-up".

On Tuesday, the jury rejected those police claims, ruling unanimously that the fans did not contribute to the dangerous situation at Hillsborough that day.

The Hillsborough victims. Photograph: Hillsborough Inquests/PA

Families of the 96 victims, who ranged in age from 10 to 67, packed the courtroom in Birchwood Park, Warrington, to hear the jury deliver its decisions at the end of the two-year inquests - the longest jury case in British legal history. Many of the relatives had attended almost every day of the inquests, which began on 1 April 2014.

Once the jury had delivered its unlawful killing verdict and its exoneration of the supporters, those in court and in an overspill annexe cheered, applauded, hugged and burst into tears. Someone shouted "God bless the jury" and the jurors were given a round of applause as they left. Outside, the relatives gathered and spontaneously sang Liverpool football club's anthem, You'll Never Walk Alone.

Of those who died, 37 were teenagers, most still at school. Three pairs of brothers, one pair of sisters and one father and son died together. Twenty-six of the dead were parents.

The jury's answers about how they died were comprehensively damning of South Yorkshire police's planning and handling of the match, at which they had been responsible for the safety of 54,000 people.

Earlier, the jurors had been told they could only reach the determination of unlawful killing if they were sure of four essential matters concerning the deaths.

They had to be convinced that overall match commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield owed a duty of care to those who died, and that he was in breach of that duty.

They also needed to be satisfied that this breach of duty caused the deaths and that it amounted to "gross negligence". The jury reached their verdict of unlawful killing by a 7-2 majority.

The Crown Prosecution Service, meanwhile, said it was cooperating with two investigations into possible criminal offences committed by police officers and others leading to the Hillsborough deaths, and the alleged police cover-up afterwards.

That could lead to a prosecution of Duckenfield, who was appointed only 19 days before the game, replacing an experienced match commander.

Duckenfield opened a large gate to allow 2,000 supporters trapped in a crush outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles into the ground. The jury found he should have ordered the closure of the tunnel that led to central "pens" three and four, but he did not, and the incoming supporters went into those pens where the overcrowding caused the crush that killed 96 people and caused more than 400 others to be taken to hospital.

In its verdicts, the jury concluded:

Planning errors "caused or contributed to'' the dangerous situation that developed on the day of the disaster.

Senior officers failed to issue specific instructions on how crowds were to be managed at the Leppings Lane end of the stadium.

The response to a build-up of fans at the Leppings Lane end was "slow and uncoordinated".

Commanding officers failed to appreciate that ordering the opening of a gate would increase pressure in the terraces.

Police and the ambulance service caused or contributed to the loss of lives by an error or omission after the crush in the west terrace had begun to develop.

Fans were not to blame for the dangerous situation.

The design of the stadium, home to Sheffield Wednesday football club, contributed to the tragedy.

Club officials should have requested the match to be delayed when they became aware of the huge number of fans still outside the Leppings Lane turnstiles.

David Cameron's spokeswoman said the government would respond to the verdicts in a written ministerial statement on Tuesday, followed by a statement on Wednesday. She said: "Clearly, this has been one of the longest running legal cases in British history and we are going to need to take time to digest the verdict."

The prime minister tweeted:

I would like to pay tribute to the extraordinary courage of #Hillsborough campaigners in their long search for the truth.
- David Cameron (@David_Cameron) April 26, 2016

After the verdicts, relatives of the victims criticised the adversarial approach to the inquests taken by the police and ambulance service. Some called for the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, David Crompton, to resign immediately. He is stepping down in November.

Solicitors Elkan Abrahamson and Marcia Stewart, from the law firms representing the Hillsborough Justice Campaign (HJC) and Hillsborough Family Support Group, said in a statement that the verdicts "completely vindicate the families' long fight for justice".

"It is therefore all the more shameful that, rather than focusing on the search for truth and despite having made public apologies, the approach to the inquests taken by South Yorkshire police and the Yorkshire ambulance service was to fight tooth and nail to avoid adverse findings by the jury; this turned the inquests into an adversarial battle that probably doubled the length of time it might otherwise have [taken]."

Margaret Aspinall, chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 18-year-old son James died in the disaster, said on Tuesday that she had refused in 1991 to pick up her son's death certificate showing the original inquest's verdict of accidental death.

She paid tribute to Liverpool supporters and survivors of the disaster, many of whom gave harrowing evidence during the inquests, almost all saying they saw no evidence of drunken or unusually rowdy behaviour outside the ground.

"The fans should go home and be proud of themselves, they are the heroes," Aspinall said. "They did nothing wrong that day, and we did this for all of them, too. Our city always gets brought down, but yet again it's the tough people of Liverpool who have had to fight a cause that was so unjust and so unfair."

The Labour shadow home secretary, Andy Burnham, whose call for the disclosure of all Hillsborough documents in 2009 led to the 2012 independent panel report and quashing of the first inquest, described the police campaign against supporters as "the greatest miscarriage of justice of our times".

He said repeated allegations of misbehaviour made by Duckenfield's barristers at the new inquests were "disgraceful", adding it "put the families through hell once again". He also accused South Yorkshire police of going back on the full apology they made in 2012.

Burnham called for prosecutions to follow from the two major investigations, overseen by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The investigations said on Tuesday they intended to send files to the CPS by the end of the year.

Photo showing overcrowding at the 1989 FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough. Photograph: David Giles/PA

Crompton, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, admitted the force got the policing of the Hillsborough match "catastrophically wrong", as he accepted the unlawful killing verdicts and apologised to the families. Crompton said relatives of those who died had been failed, and that officers "will now take time to carefully reflect on the implications of the verdicts".

The verdicts came a day after the coroner, Sir John Goldring, had directed the jury that it could reach a majority decision on the unlawful killing question. He was told last week that the jury was unanimous on the 13 other questions.

Sheffield Wednesday FC faced a number of criticisms from the inquest jury over its Hillsborough stadium and its management at the ground before the match. Among its conclusions, the jury found that a lack of dedicated turnstiles for individual pens meant capacities could not be monitored, while signage to side pens was inadequate and there were insufficient turnstiles for a capacity crowd. These facts, along with the removal of a barrier and the design and layout of crush barriers, caused or contributed to the disaster, the jury decided.

Following the verdict, Sheffield Wednesday said it "recognised the tireless dedication of the families" and that the club's thoughts were with all those affected. It added: "Since the disaster, football has evolved immeasurably, with all stadia and associated safety procedures changing beyond recognition in the intervening years. Both the ownership and leadership of Sheffield Wednesday has also changed in this time."

Later in the afternoon the coroner, addressing the jurors, said: "You have devoted over two years of your lives to these inquests. Your commitment and diligence has been remarkable ... I thank you very much indeed."The families stood and applauded the coroner's words.

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Hillsborough inquests jury rules 96 victims were unlawfully killed

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The 96 people who died at the Hillsborough football stadium disaster in 1989 were unlawfully killed and a catalogue of failings by police and the ambulance services contributed to their deaths, the jury at the new inquests into the disaster has determined.

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The Guildford Four - Case study

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The Guildford Four - case study

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Paull Hill of the Guildford Four is released from prison

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Victoria Gillick - case study

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Victoria Gillick, campaigner on sexual morality, talks to Allison Webster of the Sex Education Forum

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Joanna Lumley and the Gurkhas - case study

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Gurkha Protest - Joanna Lumley Speaks Out

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What is the difference  between Parliament and Government

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What is the difference  between Parliament and Government

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What is the difference between parliament and government?

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How to become a local government councillor

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How to become a local government councillor

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What is a local government councillor?

A councillor is someone elected to the council to represent the local community and help secure better services and quality of life for residents.

There are many reasons for choosing to become a councillor but the most common include:

· You want to make a difference and care about the local community
· You want to represent the views and concerns of local people
· You have your own political beliefs you want to convey
· You have professional or personal skills you feel could benefit the local community.

There are no formal skills required to become a councillor but most people draw on skills acquired from professional or personal experiences. This could include communication, team working, problem solving or time keeping.

Under the Electoral Administration Act 2006, anyone over the age of 18 may be a candidate for their local council. While councillors do not have to live in the district or ward they are standing for, candidates must be on the electoral register or be employed in the area. In general, those living in the local area are more likely to be elected.

How do I become a local councillor?

Firstly candidates must decide if they wish to run as a member of a political party or as an independent councillor. Unlike parliamentary elections, no deposit is required to run for council elections.

It is necessary for a small number of supporters (currently 10 people) who are registered to vote to sign the your nomination papers. These in turn must be submitted to the council's electoral officer 19 days before the election.

Councillors do not receive a salary although they do get a basic allowance to cover time and expenses incurred while on council business. The amount will vary from council to council.

Click here to find out what a councillor does.

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LocalGov.co.uk - Your authority on UK local government - How to become a local government councillor

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A councillor is someone elected to the council to represent the local community and help secure better services and quality of life for residents.

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How To Encourage Young People To Vote | Shout Out UK

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Young people do vote. Don't let the title of this blog fool you into thinking that they don't, or that they're apathetic or need to be rousted up and shown the way. What we need to think about, though, is that not enough young people vote, so it's crucial that we engage them and think of ways to help them get to the polls.

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Early evidence from 2020 suggests that this is not going to change this year. Youth turnout in the first states to hold primaries and caucuses has ranged from 10 percent in Alabama to 24 percent in Iowa. Fewer young people are voting in 2020, while older citizens are voting at higher rates.
Continuing a Long-Running Pattern
Why don't more young people vote? And what might solve this problem? In our new book, Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Civic Action, we seek to answer those questions.
Getting Interested
Many people argue that younger Americans fail to vote because they are apathetic about politics. You might have heard that millennials or Generation Z are too cynical, too disinterested, and too self-absorbed to cast a ballot.

But this claim simply isn't true. In the 2016 general election, for example, a full three out of four of Americans between the age of 18 and 29 said they were interested in politics.

Though many young people intend to vote, they are much more likely to be derailed by obstacles that get in their way. For instance, young people often are confused by complex and unclear voter registration rules. Moreover, youth are especially unlikely to know where they should vote and to be negatively affected when polling places get moved.

In interviews with dozens of young people, we found that many of them lacked confidence in themselves and their ability to navigate the voting process for the first time. Many told us that in their busy, hectic, and ever-changing schedules, voting often simply falls by the wayside.

Simply put, many young people want to participate, care about what happens in the political arena, and plan to participate. But they find doing so too difficult to actually follow through on their good intentions.
Closing the Gap
What can be done to increase youth turnout? Electoral reforms that reduce the complexity of the voting process help encourage young people to follow through and vote.

This suggests that reforms that work to make voting easier and expand the electorate have great potential to meaningfully increase the turnout for young voters.
Studying Civics
Civics, taught in many but not all public schools, also plays a vital role.

Proponents for high-quality civics - from the Founding Fathers down to public officials today - have long advocated for an approach that gets young people more politically engaged.

Instead, many schools favor what we call "bubble sheet civics." They focus on rote memorization of facts and figures about politics, government and history - the types of things that can be measured on multiple-choice exams.

It doesn't have to be this way.

We've observed that some schools do go beyond bubble sheet civics. They get teens and tweens to discuss contemporary political issues, encourage students to become involved in civic and political action - such as by having them help eligible citizens to register and to vote - and help their classmates register or preregister. They follow the principles advocated by the All In Challenge. Going this route can make a big difference.
Low Youth Turnout is not Inevitable, But There's Work to be Done
To make young voters, we need to do more than we're already doing. Youth voter turnout is at crisis levels in the United States.

Much is at stake. Young people face many vitally important issues-from climate change to income inequality to gun violence-that will require them to be actively involved in politics. Whether or not they are equipped to do so, however, depends vitally on whether policymakers make voting easier and improve the quality of civics education in the United States.
More than 620 colleges and universities currently participate in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. Learn more about the Challenge and donate to advance our work .
... Read More

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Civic Nation BrandVoice: Young People Want To Vote. So How Do We Get Them To The Polls?

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Early evidence from 2020 suggests that this is not going to change this year. Youth turnout in the first states to hold primaries and caucuses has ranged from 10 percent in Alabama to 24 percent in Iowa. Fewer young people are voting in 2020, while older citizens are voting at higher rates.

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"Stop voting. Stop pretending. Wake up. Be in reality now. Why vote? We know it's not going to make any difference," ranted Russell Brand. The comedian's appeal, less a call to apathy and instead "absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class in the UK" hit a nerve.

Young people don't vote. According to the Electoral Commission, the past four general elections have recorded the lowest ever voter registration rates, with millions staying away from the polls and young people especially absent from the voters' register. According to 2014 commission figures, 70.2 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds registered to vote compared with more than 95 per cent of those over retirement age.

In 2010, only 44 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the general election compared with 76 per cent of people aged 65 and over. Sharp rises in student fees, cuts to youth services and uncertainties over housing and jobs have left young people feeling overlooked and ignored by the political climate.

Fears are mounting this election that still fewer young people will make the effort to register before 20 April. A slew of schemes have been launched to encourage young people to become engaged in politics. Initiatives include smartphone apps, vlogging and social media campaigns aiming to revolutionise how young people think about politics.

Jazza John, digital manager at Bite the Ballot, a not-for-profit movement encouraging young people to vote, said: "The youth vote makes up over five million people. If all of these people went out to vote it could make for a real change. It is a fallacy that young people aren't bothered about politics. They care about lots of different issues such as the NHS, tuition fees and immigration, but often politics seems like a closed game."

Campaigning for youth engagement
1. National Union of Students (NUS)
The NUS is running a national competition involving the nation's 600 student unions to find ideas to get their members to vote. The best will receive up to £10,000 to fund events and projects. Student volunteers will also be knocking on doors and inviting their peers to get themselves on the electoral register.
2. Rock Enrol!
A government learning resource to introduce registering and voting to school classes and youth organisations. The games and materials in the resource aim to inspire young people to discuss and debate what they care about whilst considering why they should register to vote.
3. Electoral Commission
The Commission is working in partnership with Facebook so that young users of the social networking site can now add a "Registered to Vote" life event to their timeline, which can be shared with their friends. The Commission launched a nationwide public-awareness campaign on 16 March.
4. Bite the Ballot
A not-for-profit group campaigning for schools and colleges to encourage young voter registration. Their Verto smart phone app aims to rebrand politics in an interesting, engaging way and help young people decide who to vote for. Their Democracy Day on 15 April will encourage young people to organise registration rallies and voter-engagement sessions.
5. Youth Counts! Democracy Challenge
A programme for young people developed by UK Youth and members of UK Youth Voice, a national steering group of young people from all over the UK. It uses a range of imaginative activities to engage participants in discussions about democracy, registering to vote and their role as active citizens.
6. VInspired
This charity are running a #SwingtheVote campaign in which 10 YouTubers discuss 10 different issues that appeal to young voters over 10 weeks until 20 April. The videos aim to steer clear of party-political jargon and give young people straight answers to their voting queries.
7. The League of Young Voters
A UK-wide campaign to get young people voting, The League of Young Voters is helping people decide who to vote for through a "Vote Match" quiz. It is also training and supporting Young Voter Champions to campaign and mobilise people locally, as well as encouraging young people to share political messages, stories and ideas in creative ways.
8. Votes@16
A national campaign aimed at changing UK law to allow teenagers to vote at 16. Young people are encouraged to email and lobby their MPs, organise debates and run their own campaigns either locally, through their schools or at university.

1. Gary Patterson, 25, student at Strathclyde: "I think there need to be more powers given to the Scottish parliament; another concern is tackling poverty which I don't think is being debated enough at a UK level. The work by Bite the Ballot, NUS and student unions in encouraging voter registration has been brilliant."
2. Jack D'Arcy 24, Kidderminster
"I've voted at every single opportunity since I turned 18. I will be voting for an independent candidate for the Health Concern Party. I think voter campaigns are a great idea, especially the BBC Three forums where you can see the differences in party policy."
3. Jazmin Kapotsha
"I don't know who I'll be voting for just yet. I don't have a clear enough understanding of each party's policies. I know that there's a big push to get young people to vote, but I haven't really had any involvement with any of the campaigns - I would have voted anyway."
4. Grant Costello 22, student at Aberdeen University
"I'll be voting for the SNP. I think it is the only party which is willing to fight for more Scottish powers at Westminster. I was heavily involved with the 'Votes at 16' campaign, and the SNP was one of the first parties to get behind it."
5. Alex Taylor 22, Stone, Staffordshire
"My entire family has always voted Labour and I don't expect that will change. I haven't heard of any of the campaigns that are going on, but anything that gets young people voting is a good thing."
6. Daisy Henderson 22, Bournemouth
"I've decided not to vote because I don't feel as though I know enough about politics and the different parties. It's confusing. I haven't heard about any of the campaigns, but I think campaigns over Facebook are ridiculous and patronising."
7. Emily Packer
"I don't really have an answer to why I'm not voting other than I don't understand any of it. I've not heard about any campaigns and never really paid attention to the news or to politics. It doesn't interest me."
8. Sian Hughes 21, Irvine, Perthshire
"I will be voting SNP as I don't feel properly represented at Westminster. The referendum really got young people engaged and there was a real effort made through youth organisations and campaigns to let them know they have a say and are important."
9. Lizzi Curle 23, Tunbridge Wells
"I'm largely undecided ... I'm not particularly convinced by any of the larger parties. I voted Lib Dem last time and feel let down. I've heard of some of the young voter campaigns but I haven't really had any personal experience."
10. Tom Scott 19, Sheffield
"I will be voting but I'm torn between the Greens and Labour. I've heard of some of the campaigns. I think their needs to be more focus on getting young people to vote. As we become more independent we really need to start thinking more about our future."

Alexandra Sims

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Election 2015: How to encourage young people to vote

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"Stop voting. Stop pretending. Wake up. Be in reality now. Why vote? We know it's not going to make any difference," ranted Russell Brand. The comedian's appeal, less a call to apathy and instead "absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class in the UK" hit a nerve.

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We wanted to make a video that gives a sense of the scale of government spending and introduces some of the biggest spending categories. It's short, lighthearted (we hope) and you can watch it above.

In brief: the government spent about £750 billion in 2015/16. It's set to spend closer to £800 billion this year and next year, according to forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The biggest spending categories were healthcare, benefits, pensions, and education.

So how do you slice up government spending?

It could have been called Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2016, Table 5.2... The Movie .

As with all adaptations, we expect some fans will complain that the movie wasn't faithful to its source or missed out their favourite bits from the original.

Using COFOG means that the statistics can easily be compared with other countries. But it doesn't always present spending in a way that's easy to understand.

So we had to make some decisions about how to represent spending in the video.

1. How to start...

There's other ways to split up government spending than by looking at what kinds of things the government tries to do with it (i.e. the way COFOG does it).

For example, you could divide up government spending according to who benefits, like different social classes or age groups.

Or you could look as which department does the spending, like the Ministry of Justice or the Department of Health.

We decided that splitting up government spending by function was a good starting point.

It's also partly because you have to start somewhere and PESA 5.2 is the closest thing we could find to a single-source overview of government spending, including both central and local government.

2. When to start

An alternative would have been to use "nowcast" figures for 2016/17 or forecast figures for 2017/18.

3. Benefits and tax credits

The benefits budget is a large part of government spending. It includes different types of payments aimed at different people.

But first we need to communicate that it's a very big area of government spending.

We decided only to list the overall 'benefits and tax credit' spend to keep that message clear.

We also listed some of the different categories in COFOG to show how many different areas 'benefits' spending covered, including sickness and disability, housing and unemployment.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a breakdown of welfare spending in a different way, according to who gets the benefit .

4. Personal Social Services

We decided to leave spending items listed as 'personal social services' in PESA 5.2 out of our total for benefits spending.

5. Pensions

We also listed pensions separately. That's because they are a much bigger item of spending than anything else that PESA 5.2 lists under the heading 'Social Protection'.

Public sector pensions are only paid to ex-public sector employees. They're part of the pay package for public sector workers.

The Treasury told us that the rest of the £110 billion was for things like pensions credits, winter fuel payments and Northern Ireland old age benefits.

But we also gave a figure for the cost of state pensions. It's the largest single item and it's probably what many people think about in the context of government spending on pensions.

6. Foreign Aid

But only £8 billion of UK government spending gets listed under 'Foreign Economic Aid' in PESA 5.2 for 2015/16.

That's because there's overlap between some of the spending which the UK counts as foreign aid and other COFOG categories. For example, some bits of foreign military aid could be counted towards our foreign aid budget but would be listed under 'Defence' in the COFOG accounting system.

A bigger example of a department's spending that does count as overseas development assistance (ODA) but doesn't count as foreign economic aid is the Home Office. It spent around £220 million on ODA in 2015, but PESA doesn't count any Home Office spending in the foreign economic aid category for 2015/16. The Home Office spend made up 1.8% of ODA, while the Ministry of Defence's spending made up 0.1%.

We listed overseas aid in the video because it's an important and widely-debated item of government spending and quoted the figure so that it was consistent with PESA 5.2.

7. General Public Services

We called it 'running government'.

8. Transport

The government also spends money on what PESA 5.2 calls 'economic affairs'. That covers a whole range of industry and infrastructure spending.

We picked out Transport as an individual category, on the basis that it was substantially bigger than any other item of spending under that heading and left everything else in a group that was easier to explain. We grouped other 'economic affairs' into a category called 'business and industry'.

9. EU payments

The UK pays money to the EU. It also gets money back in the form of grants.

We included the figure for EU payments because it's an important and widely debated item. We used the figure for net payments so that we were talking about it in a way that was consistent with the rest of our breakdown and our total figure for public spending in 2015/16.

10. Rounding it off...

To keep things clear we rounded any figure in the video that was over £10 billion to the nearest £5 billion. We rounded all percentages to the nearest 1%.

The pie chart at the end shows spending items as a percentage of 'Total Managed Expenditure' because that's the bottom line of government spending.

Any category we mentioned that was worth over £25 billion is given its own category in the pie chart, except "accounting adjustments" which are put in with 'other spending'.

That means our figures are slightly different from the ones in the Treasury's tax summary. The Treasury gives spending as a percentage of government expenditure on services.

Our way of doing it makes 'other spending' seem larger relative to the biggest spending items, compared to the Treasury's method.

But the biggest spending items are still pretty much the same. So the basic story we wanted to tell with the video doesn't change.

There's always a next time

As we say in the video and say again here: there's lots of ways to slice up government spending.

What we want to do in this instance is just give more people a rough sense of scale.

How to get the figures we used

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The many ingredients of government spending - Full Fact

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We wanted to make a video that gives a sense of the scale of government spending and introduces some of the biggest spending categories. It's short, lighthearted (we hope) and you can watch it above. In brief: the government spent about £750 billion in 2015/16.

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Voters across West Yorkshire will go to the polls to elect the region's first ever mayor on 6 May.

The new mayor will be given extra money for the region and have powers over transport, adult education, policing and housing.

BBC Yorkshire political editor James Vincent explains what it means for the region.

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The West Yorkshire mayoral election explained

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Voters across West Yorkshire will go to the polls to elect the region's first ever mayor on 6 May. The new mayor will be given extra money for the region and have powers over transport, adult education, policing and housing. BBC Yorkshire political editor James Vincent explains what it means for the region.

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UK voting system

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In Ontario, we elect our Members of Provincial Parliament using a system called "First Past the Post," but how does this system work?

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Alternative voting system

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Voting for Dummies - Proportional Representation System

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Skip to main content

Find out more about how we use cookies. Otherwise by continuing to use the site you agree to the use of the cookies as they are currently set.

Challenge your students to survive a week in politics and keep their party, their voters and the media happy.

The game gives young people a virtual taste of life as an MP. Highlighting the range and value of MPs' work, the game builds students' understanding of the role of a Member of Parliament.

MP for a Week is an ideal activity for pairs, individuals or incorporated into whole class and flip learning. It can be used on desktops, tablets or mobile devices.

Curriculum links

England

Citizenship - Democracy, government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens

SMSC - British Values

Citizenship Studies - Democracy, government and the rights and responsibilities of citizens

Northern Ireland

Citizenship Studies KS4 - Democracy at work in the UK

Citizenship Studies KS4 - Law and Justice

Government and Politics KS4 - Democracy in Action

Scotland

Social Studies - Political decision making

Wales

Citizenship Studies KS4 - Democracy and Government

Citizenship Studies KS4 - Democracy at work in the UK

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MP For A Week, online game - Parliament UK Education

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Skip to main content Find out more about how we use cookies. Otherwise by continuing to use the site you agree to the use of the cookies as they are currently set. Challenge your students to survive a week in politics and keep their party, their voters and the media happy.

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Read biographies and responsibilities of Cabinet ministers and all ministers by department, as well as the whips who help co-ordinate parliamentary business.

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How does the House of Lords work? Jump Start

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Reasons given for opposing the monarchy
Remember this video is biased to show you a different point of view

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The British Monarchy Explained - A Republican Perspective

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June 2019 past paper

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June 2019 Citizenship Paper 2 mark scheme

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Online lessons you can watch and complete at home

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Online lessons you can watch and complete at home

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Citizenship lessons for Key Stage 4 students - Oak National Academy

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Free online Citizenship lessons for Key Stage 4 students

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Questions and Answers about the UK legal system and constitution

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Questions and Answers about the UK legal system and constitution

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Legal systems in the UK (England and Wales): overview | Practical Law

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The scope of judicial review of prerogative powers has been the subject of significant litigation in the context of the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

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Active Citizenship practice questions, mark scheme and model answers

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Active Citizenship practice questions, mark scheme and model answers

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Taking citizenship action - model exam answers

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05 what are the different methods of campaign

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Employment rights and responsibilities - Video - GCSE Learning for Life and Work (CCEA) - BBC Bitesize

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Employers and employees both have rights and responsibilities in the workplace.

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We follow the story of a young offender called Adam (played by an actor), who interacts with real professionals in the Metropolitan Police to illustrate what happens after a person is arrested. We meet DC Shane O'Neill, the investigating officer, whose role is to interview the young person to try to establish if he is indeed the culprit, and if there is enough evidence to charge him with an offence.

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Adam's case - arrest for robbery and questioning by police (pt 1/4) - GCSE PSHE and Citizenship - BBC Bitesize

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We follow the story of a young offender called Adam (played by an actor), who interacts with real professionals in the Metropolitan Police to illustrate what happens after a person is arrested.

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Adam’s case - appearing before a district judge court (pt 2/4) - GCSE PSHE and Citizenship - BBC Bitesize

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A young offender charged with robbery appears before a district judge.

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Adam’s case - meeting the Youth Offending Team worker (pt 3/4) - GCSE PSHE and Citizenship - BBC Bitesize

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A young offender who has received a referral order meets the Youth Offending Team worker.

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Adam is a young offender (played by an actor) who has received a referral order for robbery. He goes to meet a Youth Offender Panel who questions him on his feelings about the robbery, his understanding of who it affected and whether he has any empathy for those who suffered as a result. At the end of the meeting they agree on the number of hours of community reparation and the amount of contact he will have with the Youth Offending Team worker.

The class could discuss: "What are the benefits of volunteers from the community being involved in the Youth Offender Panel? If you were the chair of the Youth Offender Panel, what conditions would you recommend for the referral order? How do you think crime can impact on victims and witnesses? What are the consequences of Adam's crime for himself and others?"

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Adam's case - appearing before a youth offender panel (pt 4/4) - GCSE PSHE and Citizenship - BBC Bitesize

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Adam is a young offender (played by an actor) who has received a referral order for robbery. He goes to meet a Youth Offender Panel who questions him on his feelings about the robbery, his understanding of who it affected and whether he has any empathy for those who suffered as a result.