News round up: Jon Venables; Laming; Adult care row; Election

Parties clash ahead of elderly social care summit

The political parties have clashed ahead of a summit meeting designed to find agreement on the establishment of a national care service for the elderly.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Parents have right to have disabled daughter, 11, sterilised

The parents of a profoundly disabled Australian girl have won a court case to have the 11-year-old sterilised, prompting claims the ruling amounts to an “abuse of human rights”.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Psychiatric report said Jon Venables was a ‘negligible risk’

A psychiatric report that paved the way for the release of Jon Venables, one of James Bulger’s killers, concluded that he posed a “trivial” risk to the public, The Times has learnt.

The document, which formed part of the legal case for Venables’ release under a new identity, said that the danger of him reoffending was “so negligible as to not amount to a serious consideration”.

Read more on this story in The Times

Public sector pay has risen 15% more than private since Labour came to power

Salaries of millions of public sector workers have risen 15 per cent more than their private sector counterparts since Labour came to power, an explosive report reveals today.

And despite the growing pay ‘apartheid’, productivity has fallen in the public sector while it has risen in the private economy.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail

Reoffending costs the country £10bn a year

Reoffending by prisoners given sentences of less than 12 months is costing the country up to £10 billion a year, a watchdog report published today says.

Offenders on short-term sentences are left idle in their cells for much of the day because there are not enough classrooms and workshops for them.

Read more on this story in The Times

Web firms that allow child sex sites blocked

Public bodies have been banned from using internet companies that refuse to block a range of websites that contain images of child sex abuse, The Times has learnt.

The decision, which could cost some telecom companies millions of pounds, comes amid heightened concerns about the exploitation of the internet by sex offenders.

Read more on this story in The Times

Budget in a fortnight as Britain heads for 6 May election

Gordon Brown will settle today on March 24 as the day for the pre-election Budget as the campaign accelerates towards a May 6 showdown.

The prime minister will also place his stewardship of the economy at the heart of his election drive.

Read more on this story in The Times

Real choice and control

The Guardian has produced a supplement on personalisation ahead of next week’s annual conference by In Control.

Read more on this in The Guardian

Child protection reforms in wake of Baby P could run up huge bill

The cost of implementing child protection reforms recommended in the wake of the Baby Peter case will run into tens of millions of pounds and new rules and targets have left social workers so overloaded that vulnerable children’s safety could be put at greater risk, council leaders warn today.

The first independent costing of the action ordered a year ago by Lord Laming, which children’s secretary Ed Balls backed and agreed to fund, put the price of hiring thousands of extra social workers to meet just one aspect of the requirements at £116m.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

 

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