A summary of social care stories from the main newspapers

By Clare Jerrom and Alex Dobson.

Comprehensive spending review

Schools will have to earn their extra £15
billion

As the chancellor announced that spending on education is to
rise by £14.7bn over three years, he made clear in the
comprehensive spending review that the money will be tied to
“reform and results”.

In England, spending will increase by £12.8bn from
£45bn a year to £57.8bn in 2005-6, Gordon Brown said.
Most of the extra funds will be directed at secondary schools which
face sweeping reforms. The targets for schools to reach will be
outlined by education secretary Estelle Morris today.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 9

Local councils to get bonuses

Top performing local councils will receive new bonuses if they
meet Treasury targets, the chancellor announced yesterday.

All local authorities will be set targets linked to national
priorities and the most successful will be eligible for “reward
grants” worth £635m over three years. These will eventually be
linked to local government reforms, which will grade councils into
league tables for the first time.

The best performers will receive extra cash and more freedom
whereas poor performers face financial penalties and management
takeovers.

Gordon Brown said all department spending would be linked to
meeting 130 targets (public spending agreements) across public
services.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 10

Poor performers will be held to account

A number of new inspectorates are to be introduced to monitor
public spending and hold poor performers to account, Gordon Brown
announced yesterday.

Two bodies have been set up to oversee hospitals: the health and
social care inspectorate, which will register and inspect hospitals
and nursing homes, and the commission for healthcare audit and
inspection, which will monitor and publish information about
performance and oversee complaints.

There will also be a new criminal justice inspection system and
a single housing inspectorate. The latter will be established to
drive up performance for all types of social landlord, replacing
existing inspection regimes.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 10

£2.7bn to fight crime as asylum target
dropped

The government target of removing 30,000 failed asylum seekers
was dropped by ministers yesterday as the chancellor announced a
£2.7bn increase to the Home Office budget to deal with crime
and asylum.

The target was dropped after the Home Office admitted it had
only been able to remove fewer than 1,000 failed asylum seekers a
month. A more vague target has been set of “removing a greater
proportion of failed asylum seekers” as one of a number of
objectives and performance aims published by the Home Office as
part of the spending review.

The government announced a rapid expansion of the work permit
scheme to allow 175,000 workers to enter the country, compared with
103,000 last year.

The home secretary also won extra cash to ease the problem of
overcrowding in prisons, as the prison service was forced to hold
inmates in police cells over the weekend.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 11

£1.5 billion will help to combat child
poverty

New “children’s centres” providing everything from child
care to parenting classes were announced yesterday as part of the
government’s plans to eradicate child poverty.

Children’s campaigners were delighted with a package of
measures worth £1.5bn.

The new measures will provide 250,000 extra child care places
for low income working parents. An extra 300,000 children will have
access to health, education and other services as a result of the
new centres.

The Daycare Trust said the new children’s centres would
build on the existing work of 100 early excellence centres, Sure
Start projects and 900 neighbourhood nurseries.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 12

Teacher admits child porn

A teacher pleaded guilty yesterday to downloading almost 5,000
indecent images of children on his computer, at Maidstone crown
court yesterday.

Dalwyn Henshall, of Whitstable, Kent was sentenced to 18 months
suspended for two years.

Source:- Daily Telegraph Tuesday 16 July page 2

Pay protest to disrupt council services

Local authority services across the country will experience
severe disruption tomorrow as a result of the first national strike
by council workers since 1979, union leaders said yesterday.

More than 1.2 million workers in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland will walk out in protest over a 3 per cent pay offer.

The largest union involved in the dispute, Unison said the
stoppage will affect council services including residential care,
social services, education, housing and transport.

The workers are demanding a 6 per cent increase.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 2

Girl, 10, killed by Ecstasy when she went out to
play

A 10-year-old girl has become Britain’s youngest victim of
Ecstasy after she collapsed and died having taken up to five
tablets.

Jade Slack found the drug in a cottage where she was playing on
Sunday. Two women and a man in Lancaster, all aged between 18 and
20, have been arrested and detectives were later questioning them
about the events that led up to Jade’s death.

The pills that she took are known as Ferraris because they are
stamped with a picture of the sports car.

Source:- The Times Tuesday 16 July page 5

Welsh papers

Mum’s plea over ‘tearaway’
son

A south Wales mother has hit out at social services, claiming
that they have failed to help her ‘tearaway’ son.

Sarah Spaans said that her 11-year-old son Cameron is out of
control and that she has tried in vain to get help for him. She
said that he constantly misses school and has even spent a night
sleeping rough with homeless people.

Problems began following a move back to Wales from South Africa
and Spaans said she contacted social services last September to
tell them that her son was out of control and that she needed help.
Cameron was referred to a psychiatrist, but according to his mother
no positive action has been taken.

A spokesperson for Cardiff Council said no comment could be made
on individual cases other than to say that social services and the
school had been doing their best to find a solution to the
problem.

Source:- South Wales Echo Monday July 15 page 2

Council staff’s strike turmoil

Striking council workers are set to cause chaos in south Wales
on Wednesday.

Members of Unison, GMB and the TGWU will stage a one-day strike
in protest over a 3 per cent pay offer. They are asking for a 6 per
cent increase.

In Caerphilly most major service providers will close, including
all schools, leisure centres, day centres, social services
departments and housing and administration offices.

A council spokesperson said that almost all facilities would be
shut but that the social welfare of the most vulnerable people
would be maintained.

Blaenau Gwent is still negotiating with the unions but warned
that there was likely to be widespread disruption to services.

In Monmouthshire and Newport significant levels of disruption
were also expected.

Source:- South Wales Argus Monday 15 July page 1

Call for funding shake-up

There have been renewed calls for a total rethink of the way
that public services in Wales are funded after yesterday’s
spending review.

Opposition parties are urging that the way the block grant from
the Treasury to the Welsh assembly is calculated is in urgent need
of reform.

Both Plaid Cymru and the Liberal democrats want to see a
complete overhaul of the way that Wales’s share of the
spending cake has been worked out since 1979 and they said that the
present system should be replaced by a needs-based formula.

Source:- Western Mail Tuesday 16 July page 2

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