Gavin Newlands has called on the UK Government to ensure all women and girls are protected from violence through an international treaty. The Istanbul Convention on violence against women and girls is set to be ratified next month, ten years after first being signed by the UK Government. But campaigners have urged the Government to remove two opt-outs – around cross-border criminality and migrant victims of violence – as quickly as possible so the full treaty can be incorpora

Families are being urged to apply for a government payment aimed at children starting school for the first time. Applications for the Best Start School Age Payment opened earlier this month and remain open until the end of February next year. Families of children born between 1st March 2017 and 28th February 2018 can now apply for the grant, which is funded by the Scottish Government and run by Social Security Scotland. Households in receipt of most means-tested benefits are

After the kind of hype more associated with Hollywood blockbusters, Sue Gray’s report on Partygate and the misconduct in public office by the Prime Minister and others was published. Despite everything we know now about the countless parties held in Downing Street during the biggest public health emergency any of us have known, many of the new revelations were still shocking. Security staff and cleaners who raised concerns about the behaviour of senior civil servants and poli