The Child Minder

Homelessness charity Centrepoint expects to provide beds and support for 800 young people over the Christmas period. Over half of these young people have slept rough, and most have fled family homes because of violence and abuse and have nowhere to go.

Yet many young people who find themselves in this situation do not get accepted as homeless by local authorities. This makes official figures artifically low - and keeps the pressure off local authorities to provide sufficient services.

Centrepoint estimates that it needs to raise £252,900 to support its work with young people this Christmas. That gives us some indication of the level of support needed the rest of the year too.

In 2007, local authorities must not be allowed to continue to put favourable statistical returns over any young homeless person's cry for help.

Click here to make a donation to Centrepoint, or call 0800 232320 or text SAFE to 84862

The secretary of state for work and pensions has promised to crack down on the "can't work, won't work" culture that is apparently rife in our communities.

All the time the focus of this crack down is support, that is fine. John Hutton's pledge to find "a new place for skills at the heart of a welfare contract for the 21st century" and build on the recommendations of Leitch's review of skills report, for example, sounds like a welcome step.

Talk of benefit cuts for those who remain on Jobseeker's Allowance for long periods of time but refuse to fully engage with programmes to get them back into work, on the other hand, make me nervous.

New research published by the National Day Nursery Association suggests the government is in serious danger of shooting itself in the foot over its promise of free early education for three- and four-year-olds.

While few would disagree with the principle behind the entitlement, many day nurseries are opposed to the way it is being delivered (namely with insufficient financial backing) and warn that the situation will only get wose as the scheme is extended to 15 hours per week and possibly to two-year-olds too.

Almost three-quarters of the nurseries who responded to the NDNA's survey are not being paid the full cost of child care when delivering the free entitlement, with a third losing more than £5 per session.

Many nurseries believe the issue has the potential to threaten their very existence, while others warn they will have to withdraw from the scheme or pass the cost on to parents in the form of higher fees outside the free entitlement hours.

The result is surely an own-goal for a government supposedly committed to reducing inequality and child poverty: fewer providers available to deliver free early years at a time when the scheme is supposed to be expanding; and fewer parents able to afford extra hours of high quality child care outside the free entitlement hours.

The NDNA has called on the DfES to conduct a full and rigorous national review of the true costs of the entitlement. But it seems to me that we already have a fairly good idea of the shortfall. What we need to know now is what the government is going to do about it.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has published new guidelines on tackling obesity.

Ironically, though, their publication coincided with that of the report by the health select committee which confirms that public health services - along with mental health services and voluntary sector-run services - have been hit hard by attempts to bring Primary Care Trust deficits under control.

Guidelines are all well and good. But without the necessary resources (money and staff), the rhetoric cannot become reality. The Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association is already warning that plans to tackle the obesity timebomb will be hampered by a shortage of school nurses.

The MPs' report expresses concerns that some changes currently taking place in the NHS are being driven by the need to drive down deficit levels, rather than a desire to improve services. The government must take this criticism on board and ensure that increased expenditure designed to tackle ill health - including obesity - should be used for just that.

The story today about a local community hounding a man living amongst them who they discovered was on the sex offenders' register illustrates why a 'Megan's Law' in this country would simply not work.

The Mirror reported that angry parents beseiged the man's house in Somerset, chanting and pelting eggs, while the man cowered inside.

The solution, according to a local councilor, is to move him somewhere else. But such Nimbyism will achieve nothing. If the man is not safe to live in one community, he is not safe to live in another one 30 miles further down the road either.

The point is that, if we are going to have a system where sex offenders who have served their time can be released back into the community, we have to have faith in the supervision and monitoring services around them that are supporting their rehabilitation and preventing their re-offending.

Introducing a Megan's Law, where local communities are informed about paedophiles living in their area, will - as today's story shows - simply see them hounded out and, eventually, driven underground where they can pose a far greater risk.

The Home secretary should be focusing his attentions on improving the management and rehabilitation of sex offenders, not on following America down this path of mob rule.

Education was the clear winner again in yesterday's pre-budget report.

While none of us would argue against greater investment in education, it is critical that the government thinks beyond the school day and invests in other aspects of childhood too.

Extending child benefit to cover women's pregnancies is a welcome move. But more radical action is needed if there is to be any chance of the government halving child poverty by 2010 and eradicating it by 2020.

The verdict, then, on Mr Brown: a good start, but could try harder.

With the government still a long way off meeting its target to halve child poverty by 2010, the pressure is on for the Chancellor to remember low-income households in tomorrow's pre-budget report.

Please don't let us down Gordon.

The Department for Education and Skills has written to Sure Start children's centre managers and practitioners, local authorities and primary care trusts setting out updated guidance and further research showing how services can best be delivered to meet the individual needs of all young children and their parents.

The revised practice guidance on children's centres includes new sections on working with particular groups, including disabled parents, the families of prisoners, parents with substance misuse problems, and families in temporary accommodation. It also raises the importance of ensuring outreach and home visiting services are used to increase the contact with families who are at greatest risk of exclusion, and of developing more effective multi-agency working arrangements.

The updated Planning and Performance Management Guidance, meanwhile, is intended to help children's centres and councils review the centres' performance, and includes suggested key performance indicators to work against.

As if that wasn't enough, the government has also published a discussion paper on the governance and management of extended schools and Sure Start children's centres, research on extended services in primary schools, and a national evaluation of outreach and home visiting services in Sure Start Local Programmes.

That lot should keep us all busy until Christmas! Happy reading...