In Today's Papers

By Amy Taylor, Clare Jerrom and Alex Dobson.
Secret go-ahead for ID card database
The cabinet has secretly backed plans to set up Britain's first national population computer database, the basis for a compulsory identity card scheme.
Chancellor Gordon Brown is setting up the 'citizenship register' that will bring together all existing information held by the government on Britain's 58 million residents.
It will contain a unique personal number given to everyone as well as people's name, address, sex and date of birth.

Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 30 September page 3
Charities feel pinch as Lotto wanes
The amount of money available to charities from the lottery has decreased by almost 20 per cent in the last year, as public interest in the game falls.
New figures show that the Community Fund, which distributes lottery money to charities, has awarded grants totally around £285 million over the past year, compared to £350 million the previous year and £450 million in 2000.
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 30 September page 3
Brown pledge to fight child poverty
Chancellor Gordon Brown pledged to make the fight against child poverty a central plank of next year's spending review yesterday in his speech at the Labour Party conference.
He said he would be directing the most funds towards law and order, education, and transport as well as child poverty.
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 30 September page 5
Police hunt asylum seekers on the run
South Yorkshire police were hunting for the remaining uncaptured 10 asylum seekers on the run after a mass breakout from a detention centre.
Twenty men escaped from Lindholme removal centre near Doncaster by climbing over a 5.5 metre fence.
Lindholme was set up in 2001 and holds 112 asylum seekers, most of whom have had their applications rejected.
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 30 September page 7
Refugees warning to global polluters
Countries such as Britain that are destroying the environment of poorer nations should be prepared to take a fair share of the refugees they have created, according to a new thinktank report.
The New Economics Foundation said that those whose environment is being damaged and destroyed should be recompensed and protected by those responsible.
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 30 September page 13
Cherie's plea for children in prison
The government needs to "think more creatively" about the plight of children in jail, Cherie Blair has said at a fringe meeting on penal reform at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.
Blair recently visited some teenage girls imprisoned in Bulwood Hall jail in Essex.
Source:- Daily Mail Tuesday 30 September page 9
Asylum detainees 'denied food after £40m riot blaze'
Allegations that asylum seekers were denied food and subjected to excessive force at a detention centre that was severely damaged by fire during a riot are being investigated.
Stephen Shaw, the prisons and probation ombudsman, is heading the inquiry into claims by detainees at the Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire.
The centre reopened last weekend after £40 million of work to rebuild a wing burnt down in the uprising in February.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 30 September page 10
Scottish newspapers
Kirk board meets to decide fate of 200 residents in care homes
More than 200 older people whose care homes are threatened with closure will learn the fate of the Church of Scotland run homes this week.
Around 150 residents will find out today if they have to move out while a further 60 will have to wait another 48 hours to discover whether their homes will remain open.
The older people have faced uncertainty over their future care home places after the Kirk issued a list of 10 homes in danger of shutting three months ago.
Source:- The Herald Tuesday 30 September
Police hunt driver after sex attack on girl, 13
A 13-year-old girl was abducted and sexually assaulted on her way back from a junior disco, it emerged yesterday.
The girl and a youth were coaxed into a van by a driver asking for directions, but the driver tricked the young male into getting out of the van before he sped off with the girl.

The driver then carried out a sexual assault on the teenager before throwing her out of the van and driving off.
The victim was found by a taxi driver who followed the van after he became suspicious because of the erratic fashion the van was being driven. He returned the girl to the nightclub in Leith where she had been to an under-18s disco earlier in the night.
Source:- The Herald Tuesday 30 September
Hotline targets benefit cheats
Three Scottish councils have launched a joint crackdown against benefit cheats in the north east of Scotland.
A dedicated telephone hotline has been set up by Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray Councils in conjunction with the counter fraud investigation service at the Department for Work and Pensions to allow members of the public to phone in tips about benefit swindlers.
Source:- The Scotsman Tuesday 30 September page 10
Welsh newspapers
So Glad To Get him Back Home
A teenager is back with his foster parents after his disappearance sparked a major police hunt.
Fifteen-year-old Darren Freeman returned to home near Monmouth after staying with friends in south Wales, who it is thought he met using an internet chatroom.
Police are now trying to piece together Darren’s movements over the past five days, but say that the teenager is safe and well.
Source:- South Wales Argus Monday 29 September page 1 and 5
Funding overspend is blocking beds
Torfaen council in south Wales has 27 patients stuck in hospital beds because it cannot afford their care home places.
The council is struggling to cope with a £2.2 million overspend in social services funding, and a spokesperson for the council admitted that there is a problem in finding funding for residential care.
She added that the council appreciated the anxiety that the delays caused and said that the council were constantly working with health colleagues to look at ways of providing services for the increasing number of people who need support.
Source:- South Wales Argus Monday 29 September page 6
£2m ‘drop in the ocean’ to tackle bed-blocking crisis
Hundreds of older people across Wales are languishing in hospital for two months or more as a bed-blocking crisis cripples the Welsh NHS.
Health professionals say that the numbers of delayed transfers of care are evidence that patients are being failed by the NHS and that the £2 million - half of a £4 million Welsh assembly allocation to tackle the problem is a drop in the ocean.
The latest figures show that 399 patients are currently trapped in Welsh hospitals, a 41 per cent rise on 2001.
Source:- Western Mail Tuesday 30 September page 5
Drop-off blunder widow dies
An inquiry has been launched into how a woman of 93 died following an incident where she was mistakenly dropped off at the wrong house by an ambulanceman.
Mary Purnell, from Cardiff, suffered serious injuries when she tried to leave after being left in the house, even though she had tried to explain that it was not her home.
The ambulanceman believed that she was confused and after finding a key under the doormat, dropped her off at the address five miles away from her home.
As she struggled to leave the property she broke her leg and hip in the garden and died in hospital six weeks later.
An inquiry has now been launched into how the mistake occurred, and Mrs Purnell’s family are launching legal action.
Source:- Western Mail Tuesday 30 September page 8