Tuesday 30 September 2003

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