Council workers face pay clash over 5% claim

Unions representing 1.3 million local government workers are demanding a 5% pay rise, more than double the ceiling set for public sector workers by Gordon Brown. The claim is certain to be resisted by the Treasury, which is already opposing calls for bigger pay rises and a no compulsory redundancy deal from 300,000 civil servants who have started industrial action, including one-day strikes. The council workers’ claim, put forward by the GMB, Unison and the TGWU, covers the lowest paid employees, including care assistants, cleaners, teaching assistants, librarians and refuse collectors.

Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 14

Three million ‘may quit work to care for relatives’

Millions more workers will have to quit their jobs to care for older or disabled people in the coming years, the Disability Rights Commission warned yesterday.

In a report, the DRC said the number of unpaid carers could rise from 6m to 9m over the next 25 years due to underfunding of social care.

Source:- The Daily Mail, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 32

Boy died in custody

A boy suffocated while being restrained by three security staff at a youth jail, an inquest was told. Gareth Myatt, 15, choked on his own vomit in April 2004 as staff at Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre, near Rugby, held him down using a Home Office-approved restraining technique. He had he lunged at them after they confiscated a paper with his mother’s phone number on it.

Richard Pollard, assistant deputy coroner, told the inquest in Northampton: “While Gareth was being bent forward he told the staff he could not breathe. He was told by staff if he could talk, he could breathe.”

Source:- The Times, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 11

Hain calls for war on inequality

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, will move to boost his candidacy for Labour’s deputy leadership by calling for the party to begin a “war on inequality.”

Mr Hain will argue that “reversing the trend – closing the gap between rich and poor in Britain – needs to be the major focus of Labour’s efforts in the years ahead … it is time Labour is clear that the war we wish to wage is not just a war on poverty, but also a war on inequality.”

Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 10

Mercy for mother in suicide bid with daughter

A mother jailed for 18 months after trying to kill herself and her child by jumping 100ft from a bridge was freed from prison by the court of appeal as an act of mercy yesterday. Angela Schumann, 28, of Leeds, fell from the Humber Bridge with daughter Lorraine Tumalan-Schumann in June 2005. German-born Schumann admitted attempted murder and was jailed at Hull crown court last November. The court of appeal replaced her jail term with a community sentence and a three-year supervision order. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, said the court could “apply mercy”.

Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 14

Toddler’s uncle charged with rape and murder

The uncle of two-year-old Casey Leigh Mullen was charged yesterday with her rape and murder. Michael Mullen, 21, was arrested after the toddler was found in a pool of blood at her home in Gipton, a suburb of Leeds, on Sunday night. A post mortem examination revealed that the child had died from “compression of the neck”, a West Yorkshire police spokesman disclosed. Mr Mullen is due to appear before magistrates in Leeds today. More flowers and tributes were yesterday left outside the little girl’s home in Oak Tree Crescent, Gipton.

Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 14

Give our children more respect, urge campaigners

Politicians and campaigners called yesterday for a fundamental change in society’s attitude to children in the wake of yesterday’s report by Unicef which revealed that growing up in the UK is a bleaker experience than in any other wealthy country.

Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 10

Save the Children (from nonsense)

Unicef’s report card on child wellbeing is tosh mixed with bias.

Source:- The Times, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 16

Sure Start is typical of Labour’s failure

A significant proportion of the budget has been wasted on group day care.

Source:- The Times, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 17

Sexual health clinics divert funds from care to repay deficits

Government promises to make sexual health a priority are more talk than action, a survey by the Terrence Higgins Trust indicates.

Many clinics are struggling to hit government targets because they lack money.

Source:- The Times, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 33

Thirty years for teenage robber who killed woman cradling baby at christening

A teenager from Angola who shot one woman dead as she cradled a baby and went on to fatally stab another 15 days later was jailed for a minimum of 30 years at the Old Bailey yesterday.

Roberto Malasi is the son of an Angolan asylum seeker. Sir John Nutting, QC, told the court Malasi had been abused and neglected and that his moral reasoning had been “distorted by his early life”. By the time he was 16, he was back in Britain and was living rough on the streets of Peckham.

Source: The Guardian, Thursday 15 February 2007, page 6

Welsh news

Ministers plege counselling for pupils

More school based counselling services are set to be made available for in children in Wales the Welsh Assembly government has announced.

The pledge has been backed with £200, 000 a year for the next three years to pay for the extra services.

The move is a result of a recommendation by the late children’s commissioner Peter Clarke for a national strategy for an independent counselling services for Wales in his Clywch report into allegations that drama teacher John Owen sexually abused pupils.

Source:-icWales, Thursday 15 February 2007


Scottish news

Mental health services in Scotland are losing out financially to other parts of the health service, according to a new report.

The health committee report found that while health spending had increased dramatically over the past six years, funding for mental health services had lagged behind.

The research, by Sean Boyle of the London School of Economics, also found a decline in the number of beds available for psychiatric patients in Scotland.

Source:- The Scotsman, Thursday 15 February 2007

Carer cut old folks’ panic alarm

A care worker cut off panic alarms to stop old people getting help.

John Cruickshank left one woman in her 90s lying on a toilet floor after suffering an epileptic fit.

And he cut off the alarm of a woman in her 80s who was suffering from heart failure and a broken leg. He admitted ill-treating or wilfully neglecting patients at the Grove nursing home in Kemnay, Aberdeenshire.

Aberdeen sheriff court heard he disconnected push buttons and pressure pads from the home’s buzzer system over a 10-month period between September 2004 and June 2005.

Source:- The Record, Thursday 15 February 2007

Ring confidential hotline to protect abused children

Most situations of child abuse can be easily resolved once the authorities know a family are having difficulties.

Which is why the launch of the new Scottish executive freephone phoneline for anyone worried about a child is such an important step forward in child protection.

Source:- The Record, Thursday 15 February 2007