Wednesday 26 January 2005

By Clare Jerrom, Lauren Revans, Derren Hayes and Amy
Taylor

Welfare overhaul to target incapacity benefit

Tony Blair is seeking to cut incapacity benefit which costs the
Treasury £7 billion a year.

The Department for Work and Pensions five-year plan will include
plans to set claimants’ incapacity benefit at £56 a week
– the same as job seeker’s allowance.

Source:- Financial Times  Wednesday 26 January page
1

Child Support Agency ‘should be scrapped unless it
improves’

The Child Support Agency, which was set up to raise maintenance
from absent fathers in is crisis and “has failed”, the
commons work and pensions committee claimed yesterday.

MPs said that if the Agency cannot be improved, it should be
scrapped.

Source:- Financial Times  Wednesday 26 January page
3

School abuse

Six boys were victims of multiple sex abuse at the hands of a
prefect at Cabin Hill school in East Belfast in 1992-3, according
to a report.

The head-master investigated the allegations but did not inform
social services or the police.

Source:- The Times  Wednesday 26 January page 2

Clarke takes up fight against rise in violence as the
election looms

One in four teenage boys admits to being a serious or prolific
offender, according to a Home Office study published
yesterday.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said it was “appalling”
that a quarter of boys aged between 14 and 17 described themselves
in this way.

Source:- The Times  Wednesday 26 January page 6

Quitting UN agreement on refugees ‘not
feasible’

The Conservative Party’s plan for Britain to withdraw from
the 1951 UN refugee convention is not possible without breaching
new obligations to the European Union, Number 10 said
yesterday.

Source:- The Guardian  Wednesday 26 January page 8

City prepares to vote on official red light zone

Plan for first legal tolerance scheme gets mixed response

Source:- The Guardian  Wednesday 26 January page 10

Travellers win two more years on their illegal site

Travellers at a site in Cottenham in Cambridgeshire delayed their
eviction yet again yesterday by lodging a planning appeal that will
not be heard until next year.

Source:- Daily Mail  Wednesday 26 January page 23

Grey eminence

Stephen Burke put childcare at the heart of the government’s
political agenda. Now he plans to do the same for older
people.

Source:- Society Guardian  Wednesday 26 January page
6

No laughing matter

While Asperger’s Syndrome is being recognised in children,
adults are often left undiagnosed.

Source:- Society Guardian  Wednesday 26 January page
8

What else can I do?

Rachel, an IT project management wizard, wants more public or
voluntary sector experience.

Source:- Society Guardian  Wednesday 26 January page
140

Blair’s asylum switch gives Europe the key to
Britain

Tony Blair has admitted that the government has signed away to the
European Union the right to limit the number of asylum seekers
coming into the country.

The admission comes despite earlier promises to maintain control
over Britain’s borders.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 26 January page
1

Does anti-Semitism still linger in Britain?

As the world prepares to mark Holocaust day tomorrow, Alice Thomson
asks whether the problem that has stained Europe for centuries
continues to exist

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 26 January page
11

Tax credits system ‘has forced thousands into
debt’

The introduction of the unnecessarily overcomplicated tax credit
system has forced thousands of claimants of the benefit unwittingly
into debt, accountants Ernst & Young have claimed.

The criticism was backed by Citizens Advice, which called on the
Inland Revenue to abandon its plans to “claw back” tens
of thousands of overpayments of tax credits.

Source:- The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 26 January page
31

Second brother dies in custody

The brother of Alton Manning, who died after a struggle with prison
officers, has died in hospital after being taken into police
custody.

Osman Cameron, from Birmingham, was arrested on suspicion of
robbery earlier this month, then taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital
with “mental health issues”, where he died earlier this
week.

Source:- The Independent Wednesday 26 January page
12

Scottish newspapers

Public sector bureaucrats pen-pushing bills skywards

An analysis of why council tax bills in Scotland are rising faster
than inflation, earnings and pensions.

The councils blame the executive for not giving them enough money
to implement their policies while the executive blames councils for
not spending wisely.

Source:- The Scotsman Wednesday 26 January

Electronic tagging up by more than half

Electronic tagging increased by more than 50 per cent last year,
while a third of drug treatment orders were broken.

The figures from the Criminal Justice Social Work Bulletin showed
807 restrictions of liberty orders monitored by tags.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 26 January

MSPs question government health policy

A number of MSPs have questioned the executive’s governance
policies of centralising health services so that patients are
treated by specialists rather than generalists.

The review also found successive governments had failed to plan for
enough health staff.

Source:- The Herald Wednesday 26 January

Web perv jailed for cyber sex with girl, 13

The first man to be convicted for lewd practices over the internet
has been jailed for two years.

The 31-year-old lured a girl of 13 over the internet performing a
sex act on himself and was believed to be grooming her.

His case coincides with the launch of a new website to track
paedophiles on the net.

Source:- Daily Record Wednesday 26 January

Welsh newspapers

Much of Wales ‘below Malta and Slovenia’

West Wales and the Valleys are poorer than a part of the former
Yugoslavia, according to figures published by the European Union
yesterday.

GDP figures per head for 2000-02 put people in the areas are just
73.8 per cent of the EU average.

The low nature of the figure means that the areas would qualify for
the top rate of European aid in the next funding round despite 10
mostly Eastern European countries joining the EU last year.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 26 January

Hospital ‘crippled’ as bed-blocking fall
hailed

Health Minister Dr Brian Gibbons announced a two-and-a-half year
low in bed-blocking numbers yesterday at a time when 130 people are
in this situation at the University Hospital of Wales,
Cardiff.

Hugh Ross, chief executive of Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, said that
the prolific bed-blocking at the hospital was
“crippling”.

The hospital is finding it difficult to find beds for a high number
of emergency admissions because of so many beds are being blocked
by patients who are ready to go home.

Source:- Western Mail Wednesday 26 January