Equal-pay deadline fails despite ten years’ notice

Equal-pay deadline fails despite ten years’ notice
More than half all local authorities will miss the March 31 deadline for new equal-pay deals to be in place, despite being given ten years’ notice.
Source:-The Times, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 29

Council wins full Asbo for boy of 10
A ten-year-boy considered so out of control that he was banned from a school for badly behaved children has become one of the youngest with an antisocial behaviour order.
Source:-The Times, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 31

Top 50 list lets Britain’s top black women take a bow
New Nation newspaper has published a list of Britain’s most powerful black women. Lady Amos, the leader of the Lords, took top place with Lady Scotland, the minister of state for the criminal justice system and offender management, in second place.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 7

Women who are harassed by public can sue the boss
Women subjected to sexual humiliation or harassment by the public in course of their jobs won the right to claim against their employers in a massive extension of the law yesterday.
Source:-The Times, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 29

Gambling adverts face strict rules on social responsiblity
Watchdogs will today unveil rules designed to prevent a surge in problem gambling when advertising restrictions on bookmakers and casinos are lifted.
Source:- The Guardian, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 13

Sex offender jailed
A former bus driver has been jailed for grooming a teenage girl on the internet and molesting her. Gareth Crowther, 37, formerly of Nether Langwith, Nottinghamshire, was given a 14-month term at Gloucester crown court for offences that took place in 2005 when his victim was 14 years old.
Source:- The Times, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 4

Gangmaster raids expose illegal working conditions
Government inspectors have found east European workers being paid under the minimum wage, without contracts of employment and working for more than 10 hours a day without a break in three vegetable packing plants in the West Midlands.
Inspectors from the Gangmasters Licensing Agency revoked the licences of seven gangmasters who supplied the workers to Bomfords, one of the country’s largest vegetable suppliers, whose clients include Sainsbury’s and Tesco.
Source:- The Independent, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 11

Primary schools throw out 230 pupils a day
More than 200 primary school pupils were expelled every day last year for illegal, violent or offensive behaviour during school hours last year.
Source:- Daily Mail, Tuesday 13 March 2007, page 10

Scottish news
 
Charities subsidise state by £130m
Charities are subsidising the public sector by up to £130m a year, according to an official report commissioned by the Scottish executive.
Leading charities such as Barnardo’s, Capability Scotland and Quarriers are being forced to use their own funds to pay for services they provide for the state. As a result, a number of voluntary organisations say they are being forced to cut services.
More than 70 per cent of voluntary organisations which provide services such as social work, nursing or care services, are not recouping the full cost of the service from local authorities.
Source:- The Herald, Tuesday 13 March 2007

Scottish children’s homes in crisis
Children’s care homes are in crisis as thousands of staff working with young people do not have the qualifications for the job.
Figures show that only 18 per cent of staff are fully qualified to work in residential care, more than a decade after inspectors called for urgent improvements.
Insiders claim teenagers are left to “run amok” – allowed to leave the units and return in the early hours of the morning by staff who have neither the qualifications nor the training to do the job properly.
Source:- The Scotsman, Tuesday 13 March 2007

Daily hell of loving a little boy with autism
Desperate mum Linda McIntyre has explained how she feels she has been abandoned with her acutely autistic son.
The single mum is near breaking point trying to cope with six-year-old Ian, who suffers almost constant violent mood swings because of his condition. She says the lack of support has left her at the end of her tether: she says social workers and education chiefs have turned their backs on him.
Source:- The Record, Tuesday 13 March 2007

Welsh news

No social care news today.