Government
- Fathers will be allowed a half share of their partner's year-long maternity leave, the Government said yesterday as it set out new proposals to boost the role of dads. Under the plan, a woman entitled to 12 months off work after having a baby will be able to go back to work after six months, leaving her husband or boyfriend at home full-time with the child for six months. Partners who are not the biological father of the child, or who are civil partners of the mother, will also be able to take the six months leave. The plans were published a year ago but they were only put out for consultation yesterday. The aim of the proposals, said the Government, was to give parents whose babies are due in or after April 2009 greater flexibility and allow men to play a bigger part in the upbringing of their children. But small firms - there are 4.3 million in Britain - expressed concern that the scheme would be an administrative nightmare, and research has shown that many men fear that taking up to six months leave amounts to "career death". At a time when many men go into full "hunter-gatherer" mode, a substantial number also want to bring in more money when a child is born rather than less. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/15/ndads15.xml
- Plans to give struggling children intensive one-on-one numeracy training in the hope of making British standards comparable to the best in the world will be outlined today by Gordon Brown. More university students will be brought into classrooms to help with tuition and extra incentives will be offered to encourage more mathematics teachers and trainees to work in primary schools. Parents will also be involved in a campaign to ensure that every child is numerate by the time he or she leaves primary school. The proposals are aimed at giving one-on-one training to 300,000 struggling pupils a year by 2010. The programme will cost £600 a year for each child considered most at risk of leaving school without numeracy skills. The highly intensive support plans will cost an extra £35 million a year of new money, on top of £150 million a year earmarked in the Budget for less intensive one-on-one tuition. The programme will involve 30 to 40 hours of one-on-one tuition a year for those most in need. For those just starting to fall behind there will be ten hours of tuition. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1790553.ece
- Tony Blair paved the way yesterday for privately sponsored academies and trust schools to create links with state primaries like those between preparatory and secondary schools in the independent sector. At least 14 new academies are to cater for children from the ages of three to 18. A number of the 69 trust schools that plan to open in September, are expected to follow suit. Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said that the "all-through" approach to education had proved extremely successful in the private sector, where secondary schools have their own junior "prep" schools. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1790547.ece
- A key target in the Government's health reforms - to have thousands of community nurses treating the most seriously ill patients outside hospital - has been missed, with fewer than half the promised numbers in place. A pledge made three years ago to have 3,000 experienced nurses in post by March this year has been delayed, with social workers and less qualified staff having to make up the numbers looking after patients with chronic illnesses. Cost-cutting and a recruitment freeze in the NHS have forced ministers to revise the deadline back one year in order to benefit from record funding increases in 2007-08. The retreat has emerged as Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, prepares to outline today how £8 billion of extra NHS funding will be spent this financial year. It is the last planned annual increase, and many NHS chiefs are already preparing for a subsequent period of drastic budgeting. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1790423.ece
- London councils flooded with immigrants from Eastern Europe are to lose £40 million in government funding next year because of changes in calculating population estimates. Council leaders across the South East are furious that the Office for National Statistics has cut 60,000 off London migrant figures alone after using the new formula. Four town hall chiefs have written to the Treasury claiming that new figures have underestimated actual levels and will force them to raise council tax or cut services next year. Westminster, Slough, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea councils have asked ministers to abandon the new estimates, which suggest that many migrants have moved out of London to the North East and North West. They are commissioning their own surveys to identify the true levels. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1790544.ece
- Gordon Brown could open talks with the head of the civil service about implementing his programme for government as early as next week - should he find himself facing a clear run at the Labour leadership. As nominations formally opened yesterday, Mr Brown was said by aides to be taking nothing for granted,aware that John McDonnell, his sole potential rival, might secure sufficient support from Labour MPs to mount a bid. But assuming that no other candidate runs for the post, Mr Brown will, as"premier-elect", be able to begin discussions with Sir Gus O'Donnell, cabinet secretary, about ways in which the civil service can prepare for the start of his premiership on June 27. Mr Brown will not begin appointing his cabinet until the day he enters Number 10. Whether or not he faces a rival, he will want to use the remaining five weeks of the contest to give the partyand the country further details of his plan for government. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/72f63c28-0284-11dc-ac32-000b5df10621.html
- Police officers are being driven to make "ludicrous" arrests for trivial incidents to bolster government targets, the new Justice Secretary will be told. The leaders of 130,000 police officers have drawn up a dossier of "lunacy" on Britain's streets. They say that children are being arrested for throwing cream buns and bits of cucumber while adults are getting criminal records for offences that merit nothing more than a ticking-off. The pressure to get results is so bad, they say, that officers are criminalising and alienating their traditional supporters in Middle England and many are so disillusioned that they are considering quitting. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1790515.ece