Civil servants vote for strike

By Mithran Samuel

Staff in job centres and other Department for Work and Pensions offices have backed strike action over pay. Union the PCS, which is considering a two-day stoppage, claimed 40% of DWP staff would not receive a pay rise next year.

Source:- The Financial Times Tuesday 27 November 2007 page 4

School quotas plan suggested

Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Trevor Phillips has said that spreading poorer pupils more evenly across schools is crucial to addressing the impact of economic disadvantage on life chances.

Source:- The Financial Times Tuesday 27 November 2007 page 4

Concern over migrant centre

Chief inspector of prisons Anne Owers has called for an end to the arming of staff at Lindholme immigration centre, near Doncaster, after finding they were given wooden staves to deal with failed asylum-seekers.

She said conditions had deteriorated at the centre with detainees being locked in solitary confinement, complaints of racism taking too long to be investigated and a rise in drug abuse.

Source:- The Independent Tuesday 27 November 2007 page 12

Work and pensions secretary Peter Hain yesterday announced a host of carrot and stick measures to get people from welfare into work.

Proposals included making “skills health checks” mandatory for those who had been on unemployment benefit for six months and allowing those on the benefit for the same period of time to undertake full-time training without losing out on payments.

He also proposed to extend the Pathways to Work programme for incapacity benefit claimants to all those under 25.

Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 27 November 2007 page 12

Report puts spotlight on homes’ failings in caring for people with dementia

Specialist care for people with dementia in care homes needs to improve with mandatory training in the condition a must for all care staff, a report out today from the Alzheimer’s Society has said.

It found that people with dementia, who make up two-thirds of care home residents in the UK, spent on average just two minutes in every six hours talking to other people, while more than half of families surveyed said there was not enough for their relatives to do.

Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 27 November 2007 page 14