Home Office reveals police forces failing to protect vulnerable

Home Office reveals police forces are failing to protect vulnerable
The two worst-performing police forces in England and Wales are Humberside and Northamptonshire, Home Office inspectors said.
They also reported concern that forces are failing adequately to protect vulnerable people, such as victims of domestic violence, missing persons and child abuse victims. Worries were also expressed that forces are performing poorly when managing sex offenders and dangerous individuals.
Source:- The Independent, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 12

Tackling alcohol misuse in Scotland
The Scottish executive will soon unveil proposals to crack down on alcohol misuse and change what they see as a drinking culture in Scotland.
Proposals may include a national proof-of-age card, warning labels on drinks and a ban on alcohol advertising on children’s sports shirts.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 7

How will services for older people be improved?
Too little has been said about how the government will improve services for older people, according to Counsel and Care chief executive Stephen Burke and Social Market Foundation director Ann Rossiter have said.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 6

Residents will call doctors and heads to public account
Residents will be able to trigger public hearings about hospital closures, drug dealing and school bullying as part of a radical programme to devolve power from Whitehall.
Doctors, senior police officers and head teachers would be summoned before local select committees to be grilled about local services under the proposals to be announced in a white paper tomorrow.
The proposed laws, to be unveiled by Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, as part of wider local government reforms, follow growing frustration among members of the public about their inability to influence local policy-making.
Source:- The Times, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 2

Youth ‘prisons’ are close to meltdown as they run out of space
Just 29 places remained unfilled in the youth custody system as of last night, the Youth Justice Board said, as its chair Rod Morgan claimed the system faced ‘meltdown’. He called for urgent action to stem the number of young offenders going into custody.
Source:- Daily Mail, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 13

Unstoppable rise of child pornography on the web
Child pornography sites are rapidly expanding on the web and becoming increasingly hardcore, watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation has warned.
It said a record 27,500 sites were reported to authorities last year, 45 times the number when it was set up a decade ago.
Source:- Daily Mail, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 26

CSA will fail to meet its backlog target, Tories claim
The Child Support Agency will not meet its target for clearing a backlog of cases despite recruiting 1,000 extra staff, the Conservatives claimed yesterday. The body’s latest quarterly figures show it has cut the number of outstanding cases by 10 per cent since March 2006, with a target of a 27 per cent drop by March 2007.
Source:- The Guardian, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 11

Children involved in risky businesses
The government has dropped proposals to toughen up the regulatory system for employment for children, leading to criticisms from campaigners.
Nine out of ten working children do not have a local authority permit to work as they should, the Trades Union Congress says, while 607 under-16s were injured at work in 2004-5 according to Health and Safety Executive figures.
Source:- Society Guardian, Wednesday 25 October 2006, page 2

Scottish news

Housing transfer rejection is ‘tragic’
The minister in charge of housing policy said a decision by thousands of council tenants to reject plans to transfer ownerships of their homes was “a tragedy”.
The communities minister said it was as “an absolute tragedy” that Renfrewshire tenants last week rejected transfer from the local authority to a not-for-profit agency. The vote followed similar rejections in Stirling a week ago and Edinburgh tenants last December.
He said householders in those areas now faced higher rents or scaled-down investment after turning down “a free gift”.
Source:- The Herald, Wednesday 25 October 2006

Landmark five-year Asbo for teenage gang
Three teenage gang members who terrorised their local community have been banned from large parts of their home town for five years.
The sheriff court ruling- which bans them from the town centre between 6pm and 6am follows months of trouble and is one of the toughest antisocial behaviour orders ever imposed.
The gang have been responsible for a catalogue of offences in Forres, including assaulting police officers, “happy-slapping” a 15-year-old boy while urinating on him and damaging vehicles and buildings.
Source:- The Herald, Wednesday 25 October 2006

Children’s tsar probes PPP impact on pupils
The children’s tsar in Scotland is to investigate the impact of private-sector investment on schools, amid growing concern about poor maintenance and lack of access.
Professor Kathleen Marshall, the children’s commissioner, will meet education experts next month to discuss allegations levelled against the private companies that are refurbishing nearly 300 schools throughout the country.
Under public-private partnerships, or PPPs, the responsibility for building and running schools rests with a consortium of businesses, while the local council agrees to pay a maintenance fee for a set number of years.
Source:- The Scotsman, Wednesday 25 October 2006

Anger at dawn raids forces rethink on asylum
Asylum cases filed in Scotland could be processed there under plans to be discussed between the first minister and Home Office this week after concerns over dawn raids.
Jack McConnell will meet Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, to consider an overhaul of the way asylum claims are dealt with. While the Scottish executive stressed it was not pushing for more powers over asylum or immigration policy, reforms of the protocols will be discussed.
The way dawn raids have been conducted in Glasgow, where families have been forcibly removed from their homes, have alarmed politicians and sparked public outrage.
Source:- The Scotsman, Wednesday 25 October 2006

Welsh news

Abduction suspect in ‘sinister game of chess’
The family of a 15-year-old girl who was abducted off the street and sexually assaulted spoke of their relief that a man had been arrested last night. Police said that Alan Grant, 49, had played a “sinister game of chess” with officers while trying to evade detection. The hunt has been on for Grant, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, ever since the girl was kidnapped in Wrexham on Friday afternoon.
Source:- Western Mail, Wednesday October 25 2006

 


 

 


 

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