Nicola Gilham

Today in the UK House of Lords the Communications and Digital Select Committee had an opportunity to quiz Melanie Dawes and Mark Bunting of Ofcom on the Online Safety Act. Specifically, the session focused on the consultation on new safety measures to be included in both the illegal harms codes of practice and the protection of children’s codes of practice. While there is much to welcome - and the committee found evidence of "a more robust and confident approach to dealing with the impact of harm on users" there are also concerns that the iterative nature of the response is "cumbersome and time-consuming". The gap between the originals and the coming into force of the revised versions will be significant - measures are unlikely to be implemented for at least another 12 months - leaving users unprotected from known risks for an unacceptably long period of time. Meanwhile, new evidence of harm continues to emerge, leaving the regulator in a permanent state of “catch-up” rather than putting the onus for proactive risk mitigation onto the platforms. Questions about enforcement are also in mind following the first penalty issued under the new regime yesterday, with Ofcom fining 4chan £20,000 for failing to respond to legally-binding information requests about its compliance with the Act. I built upon a question asked by my colleague Jim Knight to try and understand a little more about the regulator's thinking on the detail of 'age appropriate' content. Greater nuance and a more sophisticated understanding of the impact of particular harms on different age groups is an obvious area of interest. 

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We need to build businesses that can say 'No.' Culture-war debates are seeping into boardrooms and threatening to reshape corporate decision-making. And leaders must decide whether to let the loudest voices define the narrative... Or, to defend purpose as a business imperative. The UK charity sector accounts for just 1% of GDP, but its impact is immense. Organisations like mine lack the resources to fight cultural battles in the media while also delivering programmes with outsized impact... Yet that is exactly what we are being drawn into. The consequences of cultural battles are already measurable. Over our 2023/24 cycle, 80% of employers renewed their funding commitments from the year before; this year, renewals fell to 73%. Likewise, the proportion of firms fulfilling their pledge to hire dropped from 75% in 2023/24 to 70% in 2024/25. These are strong numbers in a volatile environment, but the trend is clear. If open hostility in public discourse continues to grow, more well-meaning businesses will pull back from purposeful initiatives, fearing reputational risk. That would be a mistake. Purpose is not a distraction from business; it is central to a company’s ability to thrive in a changing world: To successfully attract and develop talent To weather crises To fortify and enhance its long-term reputation. Walking away from initiatives that broaden opportunity would not only harm underserved communities... It will shrink the talent pipeline, erode trust and brand credibility, and weaken the corporate sector’s competitive edge and licence to operate. The 10,000 Interns Foundation and organisations like it were never set up to wage political battles. They were created to remove systemic barriers to opportunity. The challenge now is ensuring that such work is not derailed by noise. For UK businesses, the choice is clear: stand firm in support of purposeful initiatives, or risk allowing divisive rhetoric to undermine both fairness and long-term competitiveness. If leaders step back now, the cost will not only be borne by underserved communities, but by companies themselves. So, we need to build businesses that can say 'No.' And we need leaders who are up for exercising that when the time comes. If corporate Britain retreats on purpose, it will not just be the most disadvantaged who lose out; it will be all of us. Read my full op-ed at Financial News: https://lnkd.in/evz6pvHF (Huge thanks always to Montfort Communications, Catherine Winterton, and Gay Collins)

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Where has all the money gone? A powerful new report from Resolution Foundation explains economic trends over the last 20 years, and why Britain feels so much poorer today. It’s a sobering picture. In the decade before the financial crisis, median household incomes grew at around 3% a year. Since then, growth has collapsed to just 0.3% a year. To put that in perspective: if incomes had carried on at their earlier pace, the average household would now be £20,000 a year better off. Why has this happened? The root cause is productivity. Our output per hour is now 24% lower than the US and 20% lower than Germany – a gap that has widened over the last three decades. And a key driver is chronic underinvestment. Across public and private sectors, Britain has invested around £100bn a year less than the OECD average for the past 20 years. That’s a staggering £2 trillion investment gap – money that could have delivered the factories, medical scanners, railways, housing, technology, and more needed to keep us competitive. In a situation where the overall pie is not growing, there have been winners and losers: Pensioners have seen their real incomes rise by 21% over the last two decades, compared to just 7% for working-age households. Families with children have fared badly, with child poverty rising and many households with kids now worse off than retired people. While the minimum wage has boosted pay for the lowest earners by 37% in real terms, cuts to benefits mean the poorest 10% of households are still worse off than they were twenty years ago. Meanwhile, wealth has grown even as earnings stagnated. Low interest rates fuelled asset price rises, pushing up the value of housing. That has entrenched inequality and made it far harder for young people to get on the property ladder unless they can rely on the bank of mum and dad. If house prices had tracked earnings since the mid-90s, the average home would now cost half what it does today. The international comparisons are equally sobering. In peer countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands, middle incomes are on average 24% – or £8,000 per year – higher than in Britain. And because the UK is more unequal, the poorest households here are 40% worse off than their equivalents abroad. The bottom line is stark. Decades of low investment have produced weak productivity, leaving us poorer. And choices in government spending have worsened the squeeze on the poorest and families with children – something we see every day at The Sutton Trust, where child poverty undermines education, limits opportunity, and locks in inequality across generations. Turning this around will take decades of sustained investment and different choices about where government spends. But if we want a fairer, more prosperous Britain, there is no alternative. Credit to Ruth Curtice and the team at Resolution Foundation for pulling together such a compelling – if depressing – analysis.

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This new DfE video is well worth a watch - first time I've seen the government be more transparent and properly set out the difference between the apprenticeship levy, the apprenticeship programme budget and explaining the difference between programme underspend and funds in levy payers' accounts. Interesting narrative at (2.06) which explains that investment (the DfE's budget) will remain the same "even if levy receipts fall" - worth noting that the levy receipts have increased (significantly) every year since 2017... read into that what you will. Interesting breakdown for Financial Year 23/24 (April 23 to March 24) - 69.7% spent on levy payers - 27.6% spent on non-levy payers - 2.1% DfE support costs - 0.6% underspend was returned to HMT Final thought - not a single mention of the Growth and Skills Levy or the Growth and Skills Budget. Watch the video here: https://lnkd.in/e63wNxG4 #AskAshworth #Apprenticeships #SkillsMeansGrowth AELP

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This week on Global #LBC with Tom Swarbrick, I challenged new DWP Secretary #PatMcFadden’s notion that young people are “out of the habit of working.” How can you be out of a habit you never had??? Especially when so many were studying and came of age during COVID, facing fewer opportunities and greater barriers to work? I also highlighted the real issue: the essential things not taught in school!!!! Financial Literacy, Money Management, Digital Skills, Corporate Etiquette, Emotional Intelligence all crucial for navigating today’s workplace and all things we deliver on our programmes!! At 20/20 Levels, we don’t just talk about it, we act on it. We even use tools like breath work to help young people manage the anxiety of entering the world of work. With the right support, they prove their resilience, creativity, and drive every single time.

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