Care UK profits up 25%
The pressures on local authority budgets will result in more
business for private sector care services, Care UK said, as the
health and care group reported a 25 per cent rise in full-year
profits.
“In social care, you’ve still got a tranche of services that are
delivered in-house,” said Mike Parish, chief executive of Care
UK.
Read more on this story in the Financial Times
Free care at home for 'all who need it': Brown pledges
£670million but critics say it won't help everyone
Gordon Brown today pledges to introduce free care for 400,000 of
the neediest old people in their own homes as he launches a
last-ditch political fightback.
With Labour flatlining in the polls, the Prime Minister will put
social care for the elderly at the centre of the party's last
Queen's Speech today before a General Election expected next
spring.
Read more on this story in the Daily
Mail
Facebook 'fails to protect children'
Jim Gamble, head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection
(Ceop) Centre, said Facebook and MySpace could do more to keep
youngsters safe.
He said he was disappointed the two internet giants have not
adopted a panic button for children who fear they are at risk.
Read more on this story in The
Telegraph
Queen's speech 2009: child poverty bill
The bill will impose a new legal duty on the government to
eradicate child poverty by 2020. Child poverty campaigners describe
the millions of children living in households below the breadline
as "a major scar on British society and a cost we can no longer
afford", and the government has missed previous targets in an area
that Labour made a key priority when it came to power in 1997.
The aim, ministers say, is to reduce poverty so that low-income
families do not lose out on opportunities, for example for children
to go on school trips, and to help create a fairer society.
Campaigners say that 4 million children, or three in 10 of all
children, live in poverty.
Read more on this story in The Guardian