ROOF Blog

Thousands of frail and elderly people are living in care homes that fail to meet the most basic standards, a damning report has revealed.

In the most comprehensive assessment yet of homes in England, new watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found that more than 10,000 people are living in squalid conditions and receiving inadequate care.

The CQC has threatened to close 400 homes unless they are improved immediately. It described a further 3,500 homes, where 70,000 people reside, as ‘adequate’, the second-lowest rating.

It criticised councils for sending people to the worst homes, apparently with little regard for their welfare.

Local authorities foot the bill for about half the 440,000 care home residents.

Net migration – the number of people who come to live in Britain minus the number who move abroad – fell by more than a third to 163,000 last year, its lowest level since Poland joined the European Union.

The Office for National Statistics said the fall from 233,000 in 2007 was mainly driven by a rise in emigration to a 17-year high: 427,000 people left Britain to live abroad, up from 341,000 the previous year.

The increase was mainly due to the number of Poles returning home.

Asylum figures show a further fall in the number of fresh claims for refugee status between July and September this year to 5,055 – a decline of 24 per cent compared with the same period in 2008.

Refugee welfare groups said the fall in asylum numbers was not necessarily a matter of celebration but raised fears that the tightening up of Britain’s borders was denying sanctuary to those who needed protection.

Housing benefit should be converted to a £17,000 lump sum grant to enable poorer people to put down a deposit on a home, think-tank Demos has suggested. In a report, Recapitalising the poor, it argues that it this would help end the ‘culture of dependency’ that dominate poor communities. It also said that part of the income tax paid by low earners should be ringfenced and put into a private pension to remove them from the system of means-tested pension credit when they retire.

A freedom of information request by Andrew Slaughter, London MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, has found presentations made by the Conservative leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council to senior Tory figures calling for limiting social housing to the old, infirm and disabled in a bid to solve the ‘concentration of deprivation’. Council leader Stephen Greenhalgh suggested a range of ‘radical reforms’ including wanting to see social rents rise to market levels; welfare payments based on need rather than rent paid; an end to tenure for life by those in need of social housing; five-year reviews of existing tenants to check on changing circumstances; and demolition of some of the borough’s largest council estates.

Treasury figures show that welfare payments will exceed income tax receipts by almost £25 billion in 2009/10. Treasury is expecting to take in £140.5 billion on gross income tax receipts, and pay out £164.7 billion in social security benefits, growing to £170.9 billion in 2010/11, equal to government spend on the NHS, schools and universities combined. The Treasury has blamed the worsening state of public finances on the ‘global financial crisis and recession’. 

Research by the Legal Action Group (LAG) has accused the government of failing to help the most vulnerable during the economic downturn as the extra legal aid cash made available in July (£10 million) has been spent in the wealthiest areas in England and Wales. LAG found that the most deprived areas, including Liverpool, Hackney and Manchester missed out on extra spending for social welfare cases, whereas ‘almost all’ the most prosperous boroughs, including Surrey and West Berkshire benefitted. More than 70 per cent of the funding was spent in 20 per cent of the most prosperous boroughs.

A House of Commons’ select committee has warned that the state is failing in its duty to act as a parent to children in care by not protecting them from sexual exploitation, homelessness and crime. In its report the children, schools and family committee calls for a radical overhaul of the system to ensure that the most vulnerable children get the services they require. It says that concerns for the happiness and welfare of the 60,000 children in care should be at the heart of the system and that government is ‘too timid’ in demanding that health services and the criminal justice and asylum systems give special consideration to looked-after children.

A package of measures to help unemployed people who are experiencing depression or anxiety to get back to work were announced on the weekend by health secretary Alan Johnson and Work and Pensions secretary James Purnell. There will be a faster roll out of talking therapy services around the country, with services will be available in every area by 2010, and employment support workers linked to every talking therapy service. The NHS will also get a reduction in the rate of VAT to commission complementary services including debt advice and family counselling.

The government is entitled to take legal action to recover social security benefits it pays by mistake a judge has ruled. In a test case at the High Court the Child Action Poverty Group (CAPG) argued that government has no power to seek to claw back overpayments where the recipient had done nothing wrong. However the court decided that government is entitled to ask for its money back under common law. Recognising that the decision would have wide-spread implications, the ruling judge gave the CPAG permission to appeal the decision.

Public attitudes to the welfare state have hardened during Labour’s decade in power, and even more so among Labour voters, a study by the London School of Economics has found. The study pre-dates the current recession, starting in 1996, just before Tony Blair took power. At the time 48 per cent of voters and 62 per cent of Labour supporters believed that unemployment benefits were too low and causing hardship. By 2006 only 23 per cent adults felt this and among Labour voters this had dropped to 30 per cent.