• Reforms of the NHS in England are putting the healthcare of children at risk, reports the BBC. It says an article by doctors and academics for the British Medical Journal warns that healthcare for children already lags behind the best European examples. But they say giving GPs control over the lion's share of the NHS budget could make the system even worse.

• Public sector pensions will cost other taxpayers £1,600 each unless the system reformed, claims the Telegraph. As Lord Hutton prepares to publish his pensions review, analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility suggests the gap between contributions made by public sector employees and the amount paid out by schemes in a single year is on course to more than double to £7bn in the 2015/16 financial year.

• A patient in Broadmoor hospital who has spent more than two decades alongside some of Britain's most dangerous criminals has won the right to have a review into his detention heard in public, reports the Independent. It says the decision, which is thought to be a legal first, has major implications for the way mental health tribunals function and will open the doors to one of the country's most secretive arbitration systems.

• The government has been accused of a breaking a promise to protect the rights of existing tenants, reports Inside Housing. Shadow housing minister Alison Seabeck said ministers have gone back on a commitment not to scrap lifetime tenancies for tenants who are already in social housing.

On my radar ...

• This shocking story from Third Sector on the jobseekers who have been told to volunteer at Poundland or risk losing benefits. According to the story, the manager of a volunteer centre in Hemel Hempstead says a new DWP leaflet lists private firms among places with volunteering opportunities, and this had led job centre staff to arrange volunteering placements at the local Poundland shop.

She told Third Sector:

"The voluntary work being done by these people is mainly stacking shelves. At best, that is work experience rather than volunteering. At worst, it is exploitation. When these unemployed people appear at our door, they are demotivated and they are volunteering only because they are afraid of losing their benefits."

In response, a Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said volunteering was not compulsory and the department's guidance may have been "misinterpreted".

• Welfare reform. As Iain Duncan Smith's bill receives its second reading today (watch the debate here this afternoon), Demos has published a pamphlet, Of Mutual Benefit, which suggests reforms of statutory sick pay "so that people get back into work before they become long-term unemployed, no longer punishing the savers of the 'squeezed middle' and encouraging more personal responsibility".

Meanwhile, on the Left Foot Forward blog, Neil Coyle writes that "the 2010 Conservative manifesto stated DLA would be 'protected' and it seemed unlikely Cameron would remove a benefit announced under Thatcher". He adds:

"With the clock ticking, the situation looks bleak for the 80,000 disabled people and their families set to lose essential support. The coalition approach to cutting DLA expenditure has failed to adequately consider the impact on disabled people directly affected - or potential costs.
In the silos of Whitehall the cuts may appear achievable without impact. But it is extremely likely that DLA cuts will cause: higher NHS costs (including hospitalisation); greater need for council support (residential care); and disabled people and carers being unable to retain employment due to reduced financial or other support resulting in lost Treasury contributions."

Read also Brian B's moving contribution to the Broken of Britain's Left out in the Cold campaign:

"The whole disabled community is now considered fair game for institutional abuse and financial disregard by a government who do not consider us to be a significant voting force. They have a point if they are just counting us, but they are forgetting that we all have friends and relatives who also have friends and relatives and that among those people is YOU and you are interested in US or you wouldn't be reading this, so if you come and join us, and bring your friends and family with you, suddenly WE will become, in voting terms, a significant number."

• Homeless Link, which has launched a crowdsourcing project to track cuts. Find out more about the project here.

• Manchester, where councillors are today debating the budget for the year ahead. Follow the debate - and news on the protests in and around the town hall - on Twitter with the hashtag #MancCuts

• This Local Government Association event this evening, being chaired by the Guardian's David Brindle, on the future of social care.

• This worrying tale of voluntary sector whispering campaigns from Jude Habib on the Third Sector blog:

"[The charity CEO] doesn't want to rock the boat of a successful, long-term corporate relationship but feels under threat by comments heard through the grapevine of what the other charity is saying.
Speak up and say something, then you risk losing a corporate partner and all the benefits that come with it; or keep quiet and allow unsubstantiated comments being left uncorrected.
These bullying tactics don't just disappoint me but have made me extremely angry. But I don't think this is an isolated incident and I am sure some charities have found themselves in a similar position."

• Quote of the day from this eye opening account of an NHS trust cuts meeting on the False Economy blog from a ward manager:

"The conclusion of the meeting left many in the room stunned. Not least because throughout the meeting the word 'patient' was not mentioned in any context by the financial director or the Trust chief executive (a former nurse)."

• Crystal ball gazing by Michael Carty on the XpertHR blog, who asks What can HR expect from the 2011 Budget?

• This fantastic film made by homeless young people who attend the Connection at St Martins day centre in central London, part of a planned A-Z of homelessness, which aims to warn young people about the dangers of rough sleeping.

• The impact of cuts, as described in this special Community Care report.