Prisoners should be freed to ease overcrowding

By Simeon Brody, Maria Ahmed, Derren Hayes and Amy Taylor

Doctors to be graded for quality of service
Every doctor’s surgery is to be inspected and awarded Michelin-style rosettes so that patients can tall the quality of care offered by their GP at a glance.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 1
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212425,00.html
 
Judges urged to be tougher on rapists and child abusers
Judges will be urged to impose tougher sentences for rape, irrespective of whether the crime is committed by a stranger or is a “date rape” under guidelines to be published tomorrow.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 2
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212392,00.html
 
Teacher admits sex with boy, 15
A judge has told a teacher to expect a jail sentence after she pleaded guilty to having sex with one of her teenage pupils.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 4
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212013_2,00.html
 
Councillor charged
The Conservative councillor for the Dartford borough council ward of Heath has been charged with making indecent images of children.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 4
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212013_2,00.html
 
Home Office has six weeks to get it right
A plan to overhaul the Home Office will be in place in six weeks as part of John Reid’s drive to change every aspect of the battered department’s culture and performance.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 4
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2212341,00.html
 
Pensioners in need ‘denied care’
Social work inspectors could be drafted in to sort out a Scottish council where it is claimed more than 200 older people are being denied their right to free personal care.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 23
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212501,00.html
 
£6m in bounties persuades asylum-seekers to go home
The government gave £6 million in “bounty” handouts to asylum-seekers in the first four months of the year under a scheme to encourage migrants to leave Britain.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 26
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2212314,00.html
 
Brown tells all migrants to learn English
Immigrants to Britain who have refused to learn the English language should be required to do so, Gordon Brown said yesterday.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 26
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2212312,00.html
 
Brown calls for public sector pay freeze
Chancellor says two more years of low settlements are necessary.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 1
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1791100,00.html
 
Prisoners should be freed to ease overcrowding
Thousands of remand prisoners, inmates with mental health problems and children behind bars should be released to relieve the growing overcrowding crisis in prisons in England and Wales, according to a damning report the Commons public accounts committee.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 4
http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,,1791119,00.html
 
Blair sets out stall on public services to regain authority
Tony Blair will admit today that the public will not tolerate Labour’s decision to pump billions of pounds into public services unless they improve their performance.
Source:- The Independent, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 12
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article625638.ece
 
Asylum-seekers paid to go home
The government spent £6 million in the first four months of this year on handouts to 1,956 asylum-seekers who agreed to go home.
Source:- The Independent, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 13
 
Foundation status hospitals owed £24m by trusts
Foundation hospitals incurred debts of about £24 million last year but the deficit could have been wiped out if primary care trusts had paid the money they owed, according to new figures.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 2
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/06/nhs06.xml
 
City academies well on target despite honours investigation
The government’s target of establishing 200 city academies by 2010 will be met three years early, according to schools minister Lord Adonis.
Source:- Financial Times, Tuesday 6 June 2006, page 4
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0567144c-f4f8-11da-86f6-0000779e2340.html
 
Scottish news

Council suspends right to buy in affordable housing shortage
Former council tenants in one of Scotland’s largest local authorities have lost the right to buy their homes.
Malcolm Chisholm, communities minister, announced that the controversial policy would be suspended in almost 70 towns and villages after a successful application by Dumfries and Galloway Council.
It is the sixth Scottish council to successfully apply for the policy to be suspended for five years.
Source: The Herald, Tuesday 6 June
www.thenherald.co.uk

Stronger heroin on Scottish streets
Heroin gangs across Scotland have launched a “deliberate marketing strategy” selling more potent versions of the drug to wean users away from cocaine.
Strathclyde Police said that a sudden increase in heroin purity and a subsequent rise in drug deaths may be due to a new sales campaign by organised criminal groups.
The news comes as an eminent GP who advises the Scottish executive on addiction has joined a former drugs minister in calling for the country’s worst heroin addicts to be given the drug on the NHS.
Source: The Herald, Tuesday 6 June
www.therherald.co.uk

Family pursued by debt collectors over ‘free’ care debt
Debt collectors have been called in by a council to pursue the family of a dementia sufferer over fees for home food preparation which the family says it should not have to pay.
Renfrewshire Council claims not to charge people assessed to need help with care preparation, but this week a debt collection agency acting on its behalf demanded nearly £500 from the daughter of 87-year old Margaret Devine for a home help service.
Yet when Devine was taken into a care home in Erskine in March, it was immediately recognised that she needed the maximum care package.
Source: The Herald, Tuesday 6 June
www.theherald.co.uk

‘Scrap fines for criminals who cannot afford to pay’
Criminals on low wages or benefits will escape court fines, under plans drawn up by legal experts.
The Scottish Sentencing Commission has published its recommendations for an overhaul of the fines system. It called for the scrapping of fines for offenders with low disposable incomes, replacing them with supervision orders or community service.
Anybody who defaulted on a fine of up to £5,000 would no longer be jailed, but would also be kept under supervision or made to do community service.
Source: The Scotsman, Tuesday 6 June
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=832592006

Deported paedophile on way back to Scotland
A Scottish paedophile has been deported by Australian authorities who revoked his permanent residency visa.
Police in this country have been alerted to the arrival of William Gallagher, 61, from Glasgow, who emigrated to Australia more than 30 years ago. He has a history of sex offences against boys aged 11 to 14 dating from 1973.
His most recent conviction was for the aggravated indecent assault of a 13-year-old boy he met at an amusement park in Sydney in 2003.
Source: The Scotsman, Tuesday 6 June
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=832062006

Plea to Executive over ‘shortfall’ in funding for free personal care
The Scottish executive must give councils the money to pay for its flagship policy of free personal care for older people, campaigners have said.
Some local authorities have blamed cash shortfalls for forcing them to operate waiting lists, although the executive insists the policy is fully funded.
David Alexander, the SNP leader of Falkirk Council, said it was paid £3.16 million to implement the policy but the annual cost was £5.22 million.
Source: The Scotsman, Tuesday 6 June
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=832972006

I can’t be cured but I can take control
Journalist Mark Auld was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at 30. Mark, from Musselburgh, East Lothian, tells of his journey as he and his family came to terms with the condition. And he talks of his hopes that a new drug which could significantly improve his illness
Source: The Record, Tuesday 6 June
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/

Welsh news

Labour’s hands tied over manifesto pledges
The Assembly government has no legal power to make councils deliver one of Labour’s main election pledges from 2003 it has emerged.
Documents, revealed to the Western Mail, show that the abandoned pledge to provide free home care to disabled people would not be able to be enforced if councils objected.
The government went back on the pledge in February after deciding that it would be too expensive.
Source:- Western Mail, Tuesday 6 June 2006
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=17181367%26method=full%26siteid=50082%26headline=labour%2ds%2dhands%2dtied%2dover%2dmanifesto%2dpledges-name_page.html

Stormy times ahead for Welsh health
The NHS will not meet key Assembly Government targets this year it has been revealed.
Health leaders, from local health boards and NHS trusts, made the warning as it was revealed that many trusts are struggling to find millions of pounds of savings by next April.
Source:- Western Mail, Tuesday 6 June 2006
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=17181379%26method=full%26siteid=50082%26headline=stormy%2dtimes%2dahead%2dfor%2dwelsh%2dhealth-name_page.html

Elderly threatened by home closures
The continual closure of care homes in Wales could lead to a shortage of spaces for older people, according to a television investigation.
The programme, produced by S4C’s current affairs programme Y Byd ar Bedwar, found that at least 185 adult care homes had shut down in the past two years and that many others still faced closure.
Source:- Western Mail, Tuesday 6 June 2006
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/homes/0100newsandfeatures/tm_objectid=17181383%26method=full%26siteid=50082-name_page.html