News
6 hours ago
News, comment, blogposts and tweets across the sectorClare HortonClaire BurkeSarah Johnson
6 hours ago
A new project is bringing together social media and reminiscence therapyIn the UK today, there are approximately 800,000 people living with dementia and more than 6 million people who are indirectly affected by it, either by living with a dementia patient or caring for a close relative or friend who[...]
6 hours ago
Charities have been involved in providing and improving health and wellbeing services since well before the creation of the NHSEarlier this week Norman Lamb announced the government's ambition to make integrated care the norm in the NHS in the next five years.In his speech, he referred to the exampl[...]
7 hours ago
A strategy is crucial in combating digital exclusion, but what should be included and how can you make it work?Levels of digital exclusion are at a tipping point. According to the National Housing Federation, up to 90% of jobs now require some computer use, while offline households miss out on an es[...]
7 hours ago
The most essential ingredients of public sector leadership are about vision and visibility – it is not a popularity contestAre the key leaders in the public sector those who headed big organisations like the Department for Work and Pensions, as I did, or are the really important leaders the frontl[...]
7 hours ago
House on Wright street in Newark severely damaged in blast, with cars hit by debris and structural damage to other housesA man was killed in a gas explosion which destroyed a terraced house on Sunday, Nottinghamshire police said. One person was believed to be missing as firefighters searched through[...]
7 hours ago
Tory rebellion on amendment to grant civil partnerships to heterosexual couples will 'cost £4bn and take two years'Downing Street issued a stark warning that the bill to legalise gay marriage will run into grave trouble – and cost the taxpayer an extra £4bn – if the Labour party joins forces w[...]
7 hours ago
Ministry's proposals to reduce criminal legal aid budget by £220m is 'unfair in principle' and 'risks undermining quality'Depriving defendants of the ability to choose their own solicitor will undermine confidence in the criminal justice system, an official legal watchdog warned on Monday.The Legal[...]
7 hours ago
Some 120,000 gene samples taken in two years, as police forces argue they are acting within the law The DNA of thousands of innocent children is being taken by police and stored on the national database, campaigners say on Monday, citing new figures.Police have taken the DNA of 120,000 children in t[...]
8 hours ago
Eight in 10 parents polled by headteachers say issues around pornography should form part of sex education lessonsMany parents believe schools should teach children about the dangers of pornography as soon as they are old enough to use the internet, a survey suggests.It reveals that the majority of [...]
8 hours ago
More than anything, girls at risk of becoming pregnant need education, contraception - and loveTeenage pregnancy. The term still sends terror shooting through my veins, even now, seven years clear of my teens. It hung over me like a sceptre, whispering: "Whatever you do, don't get yourself pregnant.[...]
9 hours ago
The marriage bill under debate today still sees a difference between gay and straight couplesWhen MPs debate the same-sex marriage bill on Monday in parliament they will be discussing legislation that doesn't quite live up to its aspiration of equality. Instead of fully including lesbian, gay, bisex[...]
9 hours ago
Carla Brack of New Sewickley Township, an intern with the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce, measures the distance from the old planter boxes to the space for the new, expanded gardening boxes at Holy Redeemer Ministerium Social Services on ...
14 hours ago
Tory rebellion on amendment to grant civil partnerships to heterosexual couples will 'cost £4bn and take two years'Downing Street issued a stark warning that the bill to legalise gay marriage will run into grave trouble – and cost the taxpayer an extra £4bn – if the Labour party joins forces w[...]
14 hours ago
Retail woes of Welsh city centre demonstrate increasing challenges facing UK high streets as they battle to surviveSue Jones is disappointed. She always treats herself to a Marks & Spencer roast chicken sandwich when she makes one of her occasional shopping trips from her home high in a Welsh valley[...]
14 hours ago
Generalised anxiety disorder affects one in 20 adults, and there is increasing concern about how it is diagnosed and treatedEver since she can remember, 21-year-old Emma Campbell has been living in a state of heightened anxiety. As a child she used to stay up worrying about school work and her famil[...]
15 hours ago
House on Wright street in Newark severely damaged in blast, with cars hit by debris and structural damage to other housesFirefighters are working to rescue as many as two people who were believed to be trapped in the rubble from a suspected gas explosion in a Nottinghamshire town that seriously inju[...]
15 hours ago
Work and pensions department's figures to show how many people have lost benefits under new sanctions regimeThe Department for Work and Pensions has delayed publication of the first set of official statistics detailing the extra number of jobless claimants losing benefits as a result of a tougher sa[...]
15 hours ago
Rising private rents, lack of affordable housing, benefit cuts and low levels of home-building force costly short-term solution, investigation findsThe UK has spent almost £2bn housing vulnerable homeless families in short-term temporary accommodation, according to figures that demonstrate the scal[...]
15 hours ago
Price rise stokes fears of a new house price bubble being fuelled by cheap mortgages and coalition schemes to revive marketNew figures showing that the average asking price for a home in London has risen to more than £500,000 for the first time could add to fears of a new house price bubble being f[...]
15 hours ago
Britain urgently needs more public housing and this is the ideal time to underwrite local-council building of new homesHats off to Mervyn King. By voicing his doubts about the government's £130bn gamble on the housing market, the outgoing Bank of England governor has restarted a vital debate. Georg[...]
15 hours ago
New setback as DWP is ordered to publish names of businesses and charities hosting unemployed people on work schemesThe Department for Work and Pensions has lost a major court battle to keep the locations of thousands of workfare placements secret.At the end of a freedom of information challenge tha[...]
15 hours ago
Bob Crow is correct to label the European Union as a free-market straightjacket increasing misery for the continent's majority (Exit Europe from the left, 18 May), but he is mistaken to imagine we can improve matters by leaving. Should we do so we will then be out in the cold and easily picked off b[...]
15 hours ago
The consultation paper launched last month by the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, didn't only alarm "already despondent lawyers reliant on publicly funded cases" (Report, 16 May). At a time when so many people are struggling financially and are at risk of losing their home, Shelter is deeply conc[...]
16 hours ago
JAIPUR: To evoke a sense of activism among youths, the state higher education department has made it compulsory for every student seeking admission in degree programmes to have membership in any of the nation building and social service bodies ...