Society Daily: 11.10.10

Portrait of a young man behind bars — The proportion of black people in prison in England and Wales is higher than in the United States. Photograph: Alamy

Today's top Society Guardian stories

More black people jailed in England and Wales than in US

How Fair is Britain report shows that for UK, race is still the issue

Smokers 'more likely' to drink, eat badly and face mental illness

Campaigners ask why local council bosses are almost all white

Computer and television time linked to psychological problems

Public sector crucial to drug research, says head of AstraZeneca

Interview: healthy school meals campaigner Jamie Oliver

All today's Society Guardian stories

Other news

• GP commissioning will leave the NHS open to privatisation, the new shadow Health Secretary, John Healey, told the Independent in an interview.

• NICE approves the majority of cancer drugs it reviews, an analysis by the Financial Times shows.

• New guidelines have been issued by the National Association of Care to improve quality of food for elderly people, the Daily Telegraph reports.

On my radar ...

• Birmingham council's Tory leader Mike Whitby, who according to the Daily Mirror, put himself up in a £2,000 a night hotel during Tory party conference... in Birmingham, just four miles from his home (thanks @WaseemZaffar). Haven't heard Communities secretary Eric Pickles denouncing this wastefulness yet. Eric? Eric?

• Another great blog post from Redundant Public Servant, on why we forget the history of the welfare state at our peril:

"Seventy years later we have a political elite generally divorced from everyday life led by a cabinet whose leading figures are even more removed from the exigencies of making the domestic budget work. Together they have decided to do some topiary on the tree planted by that great war-time generation. The result looks suspiciously like a turkey."

• New Start, the regeneration magazine, which has bitten the dust, a victim of public spending cuts (but will rise from the ashes as an online resource). Founder Julian Dobson says farewell here.

• Doncaster council: it may still be in rehab after years of controversy, scandal and dismal performance, but it finds itself top of this council social media reputational index.

• Big Society guru Lord Nat Wei's thoughts on what it all means for local authorities, a process he calls - in fabulously retro Maoist fashion - "The Great Transition"

• Sir Philip Green. So what's the Topshop billionaire and master tax avoider doing reviewing public sector efficiency? Good insights here from BBC business editor Robert Peston

• This exhaustive online treasure trove of documents and articles relating to the NHS white paper compiled by NHS Evidence and the King's Fund (thanks @rich_watts)

• A Demos pamphlet, Destination Unknown, which calculates that disabled people will suffer more than £9bn of welfare cuts over the next five years

• The modern world. Parish councils have just entered it, according to this report on PA (although it's only a matter of time before the Tax Payer's Alliance accuses them of wasting money on buying laptops and broadband)

• Communications specialist Max Atkinson, who analyses the "low applause rate" for David Cameron's part conference speech, particularly for the bits in which he mentioned Big society (thanks @PeterKyle).

"So, if the Conservative leadership's idea of the 'big society' is supposed to assert brand differentiation from Thatcher's 'no such thing as society', it's difficult not to conclude that their activists in the hall were neither impressed nor convinced by the concept."

Guardian and Observer Christmas Appeal 2010

This year our Christmas appeal will support charities working with vulnerable teenagers and young adults.

There are around 8,000 UK charities out there who operate in this area. We are looking for 10 projects that do innovative, effective work with young people at risk aged 13-24. Nominations have now closed – thank you to everyone who applied. We will begin the process of reading through the 300 applications we have received, and making the difficult decision of which projects to choose. More information follows soon.

Events

Public sector online, 4 October, London: a one-day conference examining how public sector professionals can engage with their audience to deliver services more effectively and strategically online.

Capital Ambition Delivering services for London in an age of austerity, 15 November 2010, London. Join leading practitioners across London to re-think, re-design and re-assess the way services are delivered

Guardian Social Enterprise 2010, 16 November, London. An interactive conference for anyone delivering public services or supporting social enterprises. Speakers include: minister for civil society Nick Hurd; Peter Holbrook, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition; Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive, Social Enterprise London; Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive, Turning Point; Rod Schwartz, chief executive, Clearly So; Dai Powell, chief executive, HCT; Alastair Wilson, chief executive, School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Transforming Blue Light Services Innovating ICT for the emergency services, 24 November 2010, London.

Discover how the innovative use of technology will improve performance and response in difficult financial times.