Government
- An independent scientific audit of the UK's climate change policies predicts that the government will fall well below its target of a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 - which means that the country will not reach its 2020 milestone until 2050. The report condemns government forecasts on greenhouse gas emissions as "very optimistic" and projects that the true reduction will be between 12 and 17%, making little difference to current CO2 emission levels. The report is based on an analysis of the government's attempts to meet climate change targets. The authors argue that because much policy is based on voluntary measures, the predicted outcomes cannot be relied upon. It is released on the day the environment minister, David Miliband, delivers a speech on the UK's transition to a "post-oil economy". http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2026715,00.html
- A school in the government's city academy programme has given more than £300,000 to organisations linked to its multi-millionaire sponsor, with the approval of the Department for Education and Skills, which appeared to waive its normally strict rules on tendering out contracts. The Grace academy in Solihull is sponsored by Bob Edmiston, a car dealer and property developer who has donated more than £2m to the Tory party. The school awarded three contracts to the IM Group, a company owned by Mr Edmiston, without asking for bids from other organisations. It has also paid £53,000 in the past two years to Christian Vision, a charity founded by Mr Edmiston, an evangelical Christian, to promote the religion around the world. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2026666,00.html
- The NHS will start recruiting alternative software suppliers to its troubled £6.2bn IT upgrade project this month, in a move which could see the government's vision for a single IT system for the health service in England unravelling. The move is a tacit admission that a fully integrated IT system may never be completed. NHS bosses had until recently discouraged hospital trusts from deserting the scheme. But disaffection is now so widespread and delays so long that officials are working on a list of accredited alternative suppliers, which is widely seen as a move to appease hospital trusts. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2026498,00.html
- Private sector contractors taking over a swath of the government's welfare-to-work programmes will be prevented from "creaming off" the easiest cases under proposals to be launched in Downing Street. Every new benefit claimant's ability to work will be assessed to ensure that first the hardest to help, then the long-term unemployed, are handed over to employment and retraining agenciesand not-for-profit groups. The vastly expanded role for the private and voluntary sector in getting 1.5m of the 3.5m long-term benefit claimants into sustainable jobs is the central recommendation of a review of welfare by David Freud, a former investment banker. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ec64b5e2-cabe-11db-820b-000b5df10621.html
- Regional quangos cost an estimated £360m a year to run, double the level of five years ago, a think-tank with close links to the government will reveal. A report from the New Local Government Network think-tank, to be launched today by Ed Balls and John Healey, the Treasury ministers, will call for a radical simplification of the plethora of regional bodies. The report forms a potential blueprint for a Treasury review of regional structures that will feed into this summer's spending round. This is expected to trigger significant changes to the way regional development agencies operate. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/53193ba6-cabe-11db-820b-000b5df10621.html
- Middle income families are being hit hardest by Gordon Brown's taxes which will rise to their highest level for 25 years in two years' time, an influential think tank claims today. The report from Reform, a centre-Right group, warns that the Chancellor must cut taxes and spending in this summer's Comprehensive Spending Review or "take the UK backwards in the next decade". Its report reveals how middle income earners are paying more tax as a proportion of their disposable income. advertisement. A household receiving £28,000 a year in disposable income pays 47.9 per cent of that in tax, while earners in the top income bracket pay 46.9 per cent. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/05/ntax05.xml
- One homebuyer in five is now paying stamp duty of at least £7,500, representing nearly a fourfold increase in five years, latest figures show. Analysis by the Halifax bank found that nearly 300,000 purchases fell into the three per cent bracket last year as the number of properties sold above its £250,000 threshold soared. The survey of postcode districts also revealed a number of up-and-coming areas where the majority of purchases have been propelled into the higher rate, compared with only a minority that was subject to it five years ago. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/05/nduty05.xml
Liberal Democrats
- Sir Menzies Campbell steered the Liberal Democrats towards a coalition with Labour yesterday, effectively laying out the terms of trade by setting Gordon Brown five tests he would have to pass as prime minister. But his bold attempt to reposition the party, which had insisted on its equidistance from the government and Conservatives, rapidly became mired in confusion. Aides contradicted each other over whether electoral reform was the bottom line for a pact in a hung parliament. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2026566,00.html