News round up: Brown urged to launch wide inquiry after Baby P

Brown is urged to launch wide inquiry after Baby P case

A coalition of politicians, child experts and family organisations has called on the prime minister to launch a long-term, cross-party inquiry into how to stop children growing up to become abusive parents in the wake of the Baby P case and the jailing last week of a father who made his two daughters pregnant 19 times.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Baby P report will trigger instant action from Government

Senior managers at Haringey council in North London are “preparing for the worst” today when ministers receive a three-week review of the authority’s performance in the case of Baby P.

Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, is expected to take action within hours.

Read more on this story in The Times

Charities on brink of collapse as donations dry up

British charities are facing a £2.3 billion shortfall in funds next year as companies halt sponsorship and individuals cancel standing orders, says PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

A survey of 362 charities by PwC, the Institute of Fundraising and the Charity Finance Director’s Group predicted that charity incomes would fall as costs rise during the recession.

Read more on this story in The Times

The government is today, on World Aids Day, accused of double standards for permitting the deportation of people diagnosed in the UK with HIV to countries where they may not get the drugs they need to stay alive.

The UK has strongly supported the G8 pledge to get treatment to all people who need it in poor countries, and yet it is sending back people who have discovered they have HIV and been put on drugs while in the UK, to places where they have little hope of continuing their medication.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Backlash over Brown’s plans for jobless grows

Gordon Brown is facing a growing backlash against Labour’s welfare reforms, which will give private companies a greater role in moving the unemployed back to work, as some of Britain’s biggest unions join anti-poverty campaigners in a new national campaign against the plans.

As the prime minister pledged over the weekend to respond to the economic downturn by speeding up the reform of public services, the new campaign warned that a “draconian” welfare policy was not the right one in a recession.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Paying bills worries one in four borrowers

More than one in four borrowers is worried about how to pay bills as fears mount about the growing £1,500bn ($2.3bn) personal debt mountain.