-
The Observer reports on a submission from the Local Government Association to MPs, warning about a "looming crisis in adult social care". The LGA says that more and more local authorities may limit social care to people with "critical" needs. (There are four categories of need, "critical" is the highest. At present, most Councils also provide care services for people with "substantial" needs, and some for those with "moderate" needs.) <br />
In what is becoming a common feature of stories like this, the Associaition says that the cuts combine with the fact that the British population is getting older to create the crisis. -
Community Care reports that more and more disability organisations are outraged at the planned scrapping of Disability Living Allowance (mobility) for people in residential homes. The magazine reports that 60,000 people will be affected. The government seems to have changed its defence of the move – originally the DWP claimed that people in residential homes don't need to get out, now they say its the responsibility of Councils. Community Care has contacted John Nawrockyi, from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services' physical disabilities network, who says "local authorities can't help fill that gap. It's a state benefits issue."
-
-
Richard Exell
Michael Gove has announced the abolition of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSNB). The SSNB was set up by the Labour government to develop a national standard for the pay and conditions of 450,000 caretakers, teaching assistants, canteen and clerical workers and other non-teaching staff.
-
Richard Exell
A dramatic story on the Financial Times website reports a “close analysis” of the funding settlement for education in the Spending Review. The newspaper reveals that most schools will have their budgets cut during a period when the number of pupils is rising;
-
Owen Tudor
It’s a familiar game in the European Union. When faced with a fait accompli that you know will go down badly in your country or with your troops, what Governments do is claim that something even worse is being proposed, demand that it should be abandoned, and then return in triumph claiming that you have done a great deal to achieve what was actually going to happen anyway. The Prime Minister’s attempt to do that over the European Commission budget is unravelling faster than usual, but it’s the usual trick (and isn’t unique to the current administration). And David Cameron’s desperate chicanery is obscuring the real scandal – which is the European Commission’s staggering hypocrisy in proposing a modest budget increase for itself is the same one demanding that every other Government in the EU should wield the axe on services for working and middle class people.
-
-
Sunder reports on a TUC/Fabian poll on housing costs.
-
Paul Mason neatly summarises the economic thinking behind austerity, and wonders what else would need to be done to make it work. Essential.
-
-
Richard Exell
Around the country, sports organisations are complaining about the Spending Review. The government has announced plans to axe the 450 Schools Sports Partnerships and abolish the £162 million PE and Sports Strategy and its associated target of 5 hours of sport a week for all 5 to 16 year olds; the extra funding for specialist sports schools and colleges will also be withdrawn.
-
John Evans
Last week, the OECD’s Secretary General, Angel Gurría, issued a statement on the UK’s Comprehensive Spending Review, calling it “courageous”, “a necessary step to achieving long-term fiscal stability” and “the best way to secure better public finances and bolster future growth”. At TUAC, we think his quotes are both ill-advised and inconsistent with the OECD’s stated objective of prioritizing job growth coming out of the crisis.
TUAC (the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to use our full name) is an international union organisation, with consultative status to the OECD and its different committees. We exist to help the OECD balance the interests of global markets with an effective social dimension, and we think this is one of those occasions where the balance is distinctly off.
-
-
Will Davies has a thoughtful post on soaraway top pay
-
The 2009 Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents reveals that many parents of disabled children believe local childcare does not meet needs related to their child’s impairment, or is not available for the times they require or requires travelling an unreasonable distance. In addition, a third of those parents who were using formal childcare for their disabled child, one-third thought the staff were not properly trained.
-
Unseen disability, Unmet needs is a new review of the impact of the Work Capability Assessment on people living with HIV published by the National AIDS Trust. The Work Capability Assessment is a new tougher eligibility test for Employment and Support Allowance and the report finds that it does not fully take into account the impact that fluctuating symptoms, depression, fatigue and the side-effects of treatment can have on. The authors discovered continuing ignorance about HIV amongst medical assessors and decision makers and that claimants do not always have the opportunity to discuss how their HIV limits their capability for work.
-
Iain Martin sheds some light on the challenge that designing a mechanism to enforce the Child Benefit change is causing the Treasury – and suggests that without a new database to ‘match’ mothers to their partners, the whole policy may have to be dropped.
-
A new report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists shows that children with unemployed parents are two- to three times as likely to have emotional or conduct disorder in childhood. Children from the poorest 20% of households are 3 times as likely to have mental health problems aschildren from the richest 20%.
-
-
Richard Exell
Cutting Child Benefit for higher rate taxpayers may be “unenforceable” a Treasury source has told Iain Martin at the Wall Street Journal blog.
-
Richard Exell
The trouble the government is facing over the Housing Benefit changes is only the first sign that being tough on welfare isn’t the political free ride some politicians may have imagined.