Today's top Society Guardian news and comment
Children at risk because courts "don't trust social workers," research claims
Bulger killer: Straw may reveal more details
Tory adviser: efficency savings will not save frontline public services
Civil servants strike over plan to cut redundancy payouts
NHS database raises privacy fears, say GPs
Madeleine Bunting: cuts rhetoric won't boost Labour hopes
Other news
Lisa Arthurworrey, the social worker sacked after the death of Victoria Climbie is free to practice again as a social worker after being reinstated by the General Social Care Council, says Community Care
Labour is accused by the Tories of rushing through £11bn worth of "reckless and irresponsible" spending commitments before the election to stop pet projects being scrapped by an incoming Tory government, says the Independent.
The NHS is spending too much treating the "worried well" rather than sick patients, the president of the Royal College of GPs, Iona Heath has warned, reports the Daily Mail.
Senior police officers are accused in an internal Tory party briefing of being too close to Labour and of "providing political cover" for ministers, according to The Times.
Top Whitehall Mandarins are giving up their official cars and travelling to work by tube and bus, in an attempt to "take a lead" in cutting spending and pollution, reports the Financial Times.
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Feeling glum about economics
Who is hurting most in the recession? Not high earners, or those in benefits, but low-earning, hard-working households, who fall into neither of those categories. According to new research by the Resolution Foundation, Low Earners are more likely to have experienced a drop in income than other groups, seen a reduction in their working hours and suffered higher levels of personal inflation (they spend 41% of their income on food, fuel and other essentials; high earners spend 27%). "Low earners" are made up of households with an income of between £13,500 and £25,800. Around 7.2 million households fall into this category in the UK, equivalent to about 14 million adults. Says the report:
Low earners are not the poorest in society and are not in crisis - although many of them live close to the cliff edge, spending all their monthly income, leaving no room for savings or safety nets. Many of them were already in a fragile economic position prior to the recession and our findings point to their vulnerability now and in a future spending squeeze.
The group is financially exposed: few savings, little or no pension provision, and deeply susceptable to changes in economic circumstances. Although skilled at managing money and making a little go far, they are understandably "more glum" than other groups about their economic fortunes.
Resolution points out that they comprise one third of the electorate and are "more likely to vote for a minority party." Sophia Parker, Resolution's acting director says: "Politicians need to be talking to their needs if they want to secure their votes at the general election."
Hostel days done at Salvation Army
The 83 "hostels" for homeless people run by the Salvation Army no longer exist. That's because they have been re-branded as "LifeHouses". Maff Potts, the Salvation Army's director of homelessness services, explains:
"This is not a pointless rebranding exercise but a defining moment for the Salvation Army. The word 'hostel' was linked with old-style warehousing of people and didn't convey that there's more to our support services than simply housing. LifeHouse clearly demonstrates that we are about providing purpose and relationships - two words which are at the heart of our delivery of support services."
The Salvation Army did not call in expensive consultants to dream up the new name. "'Rather than hire a branding agency we asked the people who know best, the people in our services - service users and staff - to choose the name for us," says Potts.
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