Hospital admissions for serious conditions related to alcohol have doubled in the past 10 years but a report reveals that a quarter of primary care trusts have failed to fully assess misuse in their areas.
Yesterday's High Court decision in the Debbie Purdy case has opened up fears of a flood of prosecutions against people who have helped terminally ill relatives end their lives.
It's a familiar story: too many looked-after children moving between carers; instability for vulnerable young people; and a shortage of foster carers.
Of course it is laudable that the government wants to move one million people from benefits to employment by 2015. Of course there are people who want to milk the system. Of course "something should be done".
Joseph Rowntree Foundation is doing an admirable job at keeping child poverty on the social agenda. This week it released a report showing the economic costs of allowing the UK's children to remain below the poverty line.
Here's an immigration question that should confuse even the worst "send 'em home" types.
One of Gordon Brown's most irritating soundbites is his habitual homage to "hard-working British families". You wouldn't catch Peter Mandelson trotting that one out.
For charities, there has never been a recession like the one the UK is said to be heading into.
The Howard League for Penal Reform yesterday confirmed what many have suspected for some time: that punishment alone is ineffective in the fight against knife crime among young people.
Social workers have enough aggravation dealing with the anger they can encounter during home visits, as Ray Braithwaite will expand on at Community Care Live Children & Families this month, but some have to bear the wrath of their clients' dangerous dogs too.
With all the excitement about global economic slumps and derring-do rescues, it is easy to overlook the way we continue to treat the most vulnerable.
Tomorrow could prove pivotal for British charities that have invested in high-interest bank accounts in Iceland.
So you have some spare cash and you want to put some aside for the proverbial rainy day. Do you invest it in a low-interest account or do you stash it away in a high-interest one?
We have yet to reach that watershed for disability rights, like the one the police had to face up to after their botched investigation into the racist murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence.
We no longer have a shoe shop on every corner. We don't
even have a corner shop on every corner. But in most high streets you can be
sure of a betting shop on the corner.
Two news stories at the weekend encapsulated attitudes to income inequality and the power of celebrity.
Man cannot live by rice cubana alone, although many of us get by on burger and fries alone (with large diet Coke) and expand our waistlines accordingly. Now some of Europe's top footballers have teamed up to tackle obesity among young people.
The latest drug treatment data are published today and it looks like the methods are failing.
Amid the mass hysteria that surrounds the latest crisis of capitalism and the uncertain futures of the moneybags who run our western economies, it is easy to forget that there is one group of people who do badly in both boom and bust.
| Outside Left questions the thinking behind today’s social policy, with a sometimes wry, occasionally cynical, always straight-talking look at the political elite that shapes it, written by sub editor, Mike McNabb. |
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