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
