Schools 'failing brightest pupils'

Non-selective state schools are failing to get the most out of their brightest pupils, according to a new Ofsted report.

The watchdog found that last year 65% of the pupils who had achieved a SAT level 5 in English or Maths did not go on to get at least an A in both subjects at GCSE.

 Ofsted's chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said this morning that his inspectors had found that in many schools "expectations...are far too low" for the most able children.

 He also said that having a target of children getting A-C grades at GCSE created "false incentives" that stopped teachers pushing the best students harder.

They don't want an intelligent breed of consumers, do they?

West's public health authorities invest £44m in tobacco

More than £44m has been invested in tobacco firms by local councils in the West, despite their new responsibility for promoting public health.

Figures obtained by the BBC show that a pension fund administered by Somerset County Council has approved the biggest spend of £21.6m.

Gloucestershire County Council has invested £12.2m, authorities in Avon some £9.7m and Wiltshire Council £1.1m.

In April, as part of the NHS reform, local government was passed responsibility for public health - a term encompassing everything that prevents disease and prolongs life, such as promoting physical activity and better diets, as well as stop smoking services.

The former director of public health for the South West, Dr Gabriel Scally, has lambasted the investments as an "impossible contradiction".

He said: "How can you have a responsibility to improve the health of the population and yet be one of the owners of a tobacco company?

They make money by making you sick, then make more by 'trying' to make you well.

Legal loan shark Henry Angest charges hard-up families up to 200% interest while Tory Party are offered just 3.5%

Banker Henry Angest has given them more than £1million in cash and offered to lend another £5million at just 3.5% interest 

 
A Tory multi-millionaire makes money as a legal loan shark by charging customers interest of up to 200% – but offers “mates’ rates” to David Cameron.

Banker Henry Angest, 72, has given the Conservatives more than £1million in cash and also made a standing offer to lend them another £5million at just 3.5% interest.

That is a fraction of the rates charged by Mr Angest’s Everyday Loans company, a probe by the Daily Mirror and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found.

The revelation he is involved in consumer credit has fuelled claims Mr Cameron will not cap interest rates because he’s in the pocket of wealthy backers. 

Arbuthnot Banking Group chairman Mr Angest, with an estimated personal wealth of £45million including a farm in Perthshire, is one the elite group of supporters to be rewarded with intimate dinners at Downing Street and Chequers.

Another major Tory donor, Adrian Beecroft, has a major stake in payday lender Wonga. 

Yesterday the PM sidestepped demands for a crackdown on rip-off credit firms by calling for more support for credit unions. 

But Labour MP Stella Creasy, who wants to limit interest charged by firms such as Everyday Loans and Wonga, said: “People struggling to understand what the Government has against capping the cost of credit want reassurances they have not been lobbied by the donors over cosy dinners in No10.” 

Norman Lamb: home-help for elderly is scandal waiting to happen

The elderly care system “incentivises neglect” and could lead to a new abuse scandal, the health minister Norman Lamb warns as a review is launched into home-help services.

Frail pensioners suffer from care that is organised “by the clock”, with some visits lasting no more than 10 minutes while rushed workers are paid the minimum wage or less, according to Norman Lamb.

 He will suggest that the crisis in home-care for the elderly could become the next abuse scandal to erupt, with failings potentially as serious as at the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust.

However, because pressure on services is so great, agency workers are in some cases paid to spend no more than 10 or 15 minutes with an individual. This leaves pensioners facing a choice of either being dressed or having a meal prepared for them during rushed visits.

 In addition, there have been complaints that carers change too frequently, leaving elderly people to receive intimate care from strangers and with new staff not always being familiar with their needs.

Well, they're not working and have pretty much consumed all they're going to, they have no use anymore.  That's the government doesn't care about the elderly!

The Anti-Bedroom Tax and Benefit Justice Federation

The Federation was launched at the 2nd Benefit Justice Campaign Summit on 11 May 2013 in London to co-ordinate opposition to the bedroom tax and other benefit cuts.

Government announces details of post Work Programme support

Press Release

Work Programme leavers targeted by specialist advisers as part of a tough approach to get them into a job.

Minister for Employment Mark Hoban said:

“The Work Programme is getting some of the hardest to help claimants into work despite a tough economic climate.


“We always knew that there would be some who would require further support after the Work Programme, which is why we’re introducing this intensive and uncompromising regime.

Read more on the measures being introduced to get people back into work, but nowhere does it say where the jobs are comng from!!

Samaritans called in over Liverpool bedroom tax suicide risk

City's housing associations say one tenant attempted suicide, with more people becoming distressed and overwhelmed

The Samaritans have been drafted in by Liverpool's Riverside Housing Association to help deal with desperate tenants on the brink of suicide because of the bedroom tax.

Staff at Riverside Housing Association’s head office in Speke are being trained by phone counsellors from the Samaritans as workers struggle to cope with the high volume of calls from tenants at risk of suicide.

And South Liverpool Homes (SLH) said in early May a tenant attempted suicide over the bedroom tax and earlier this year a resident committed suicide over issues believed to be related to financial hardship.

Head of business excellence at SLH Claire Ryan said: “People have become overwhelmed, they’re just engulfed by the financial situation.He said: 

“It’s a range of different issues and bedroom tax is one which affects six and a half thousand of our tenants so it’s clearly a significant factor.

“I think what we’re experiencing is the cumulative effect of the austerity measures.”

Government Abandons Flagship Workfare Scheme

In a major victory for campaigners, the DWP seem to be confirming that they have scrapped the Community Action Programme (CAP), the rolling workfare scheme which had been planned for those leaving the Work Programme.

 It now seems it has been abandoned altogether, with an announcement from the DWP today of a new scheme involving ‘a hit squad of specialist advisers’ based in Jobcentres. 

It seems that the floundering welfare-to-work companies in charge of the Work Programme are no longer to be trusted with those who have been unemployed for over two years.

Workfare is still likely to be involved in the scheme, with threats of Mandatory Work Activity for participants – four weeks workfare as opposed to six months.  This scaling back is almost certainly down to the huge resistance to workfare which has forced most of the UK’s best known charities to withdraw and refuse to provide further placements.

One thing that can be guaranteed is that whatever they do won’t work.  From Tony Blair’s New Deal to Iain Duncan Smith’s bungled Work Programme, not one of these measures has come even close to the aim of ending long term unemployment.  Despite the toughest ever welfare reforms, unemployment has risen over the last three months and long term unemployment continues to soar.

And whilst government ministers insist that unemployment is caused by unemployed people, then billions more will be poured down the drain to do little more than harass, impoverish and stigmatise those unable to find a job.