New on the site today is this audio report from yesterday's Guardian Social Enterprise Summit, which catches up with key speakers and delegates at the event. My colleagues from the Guardian's new Social Enterprise Network kept up with all the debate in this live blog, while this lively Twitterstream collates the day's events.. The health secretary Andrew Lansley announced a third wave of NHS social enterprise spin outs: read conference panellist Craig Dearden-Phillips' analysis here. And if you're working in a different sector but would like to see what life's like in social enterprise, the Guardian Local Government Network today hosts a live Q&A on moving from local government to social enterprise

Other news

• The government is to drop Labour's proposed equalities bill duty requiring councils to tackle social deprivation, reports the BBC

• Charities will scramble to sign up Kate Middleton as a patron after the announcement yesterday of her engagement to Prince William, reports Third Sector.

• Prisoners should be given access to the internet to help with their rehabilitation and cut crime, Martha Lane Fox tells today's Independent

• Figures used by the government to claim private landlords are driving up housing benefit bills came from a property website, and were not based on data from the Office for National Statistics as originally stated, reports Inside Housing.

On my radar ...

• Former health minister Lord Darzi, who has launched his own iPhone app. Wellnote by Dr Darzi, billed as the first smartphone health portal of its kind, will allow users to keep track of their appointments and medication - and also rate the healthcare services they use.

• This fascinating piece of data journalism from my colleagues on the Guardian Datablog, The public sector employment map of Britain. Compare Copeland, for example, where more than half the workforce has a public sector role, with South Buckinghamshire, where the figure is less than 7%. But see also Anthony Zacharzwkski's well made contextual points about the data on the Demsoc blog

• Burying bad news. Alastair Campbell's latest blogpost accuses David Cameron of breaking pre-election promises on midwife recruitment. Yesterday's royal engagement announcement gave the opportunity for the PM to bury the news, claims Campbell:

"So to midwives, and an article Mr Cameron wrote in The Sun earlier this year (pre-election) saying that a Tory government would deliver, no pun intended, more midwives to help the hard-pressed midwives we already have.
Of course now, he would say (were he pressed on it, which this far he has not been) that when they finally got into office, the books were far worse than they imagined and therefore terribly sorry, old girls, but no more midwives, no can do. Belt-tightening and all that … hey, I've even had to lay off my personal photographer."

• Excellent, absorbing reflections from Paul Corrigan on the anger of midwives - and how to take action in a way that does not hurt the women and children they work with.

• Charity founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, who's the only British nominee on the 10-strong shortlist for CNN's Hero of the Year. Magnus, who set up aid charity Mary's Meals, has already won $25,000 (£16,000) after being named named a 'Top Ten Hero' by CNN and could take the $100,000 top prize, which will be announced this weekend in a star-studded bash in Hollywood this weekend. Voting for Hero of the Year closes tomorrow.

• Two intriguing perspectives on NHS white paper developments: Andy Cowper's When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro post and HSJ Editor Alistair McLellan's leader on Stephen Dorrell's "electrifying" - and pretty subversive intervention on the pace of reform.

• Photographer Eric de Mare, whose photographs of British industrial buildings forced postwar architects to look again at the landscape. His work is on show at Riba in London and you can see some highlights from the exhibition in this gallery

• Blogger Fighting Monsters, who gives the government's vision for social care the once over:

"Generally, it's a mixed bag that tells about lots of hope and plans as expected in a vision. There isn't much suggestion or explanation yet but that will come with time. Some elements are clearer, some even foggier than they were before and my brief thoughts have been less brief than I imagined."

Today's SocietyGuardian supplement highlights

Cockermouth, a year on from the floods

David Brindle says pressing ahead with personal budgets is a risk worth taking

Healthcare special focus: The future challenges for patients and professionals

Read all the features and comment from today's SocietyGuardian section

Guardian and Observer Christmas Charity Appeal 2010

Nominations are now closed for our Christmas appeal 2010, which will support 10 charities working with vulnerable teenagers and young adults. Many thanks to everyone who applied.

The appeal will launch towards the end of November and run until mid-January.

Events

Transforming Blue Light Services Innovating ICT for the emergency services, 24 November, London - Free places available. Discover how the innovative use of technology will improve performance and response in difficult financial times. Speakers include Dr Timothy Brain, former chief constable of Gloucestershire; Andy Marles, chief fire officer from South Wales fire and rescue; Jason Killens, London ambulance service's deputy director of operations; Steve Whatson, director of ICT for the Olympics at the Metropolitan police service and Olympic security directorate.

"Big Society" and its role in local government 7 December, London. This is an essential seminar for managers and leaders looking for a practical definition of big society and how it will work within local government. As well as a keynote speech from the government's adviser on big society, Lord Wei, delegates will also hear first hand accounts of how other local government managers are implementing big society in their councils and the best practice they have developed.

Transforming Social Care through IT Finding your way in a changing service environment 8 December, London.

This conference brings together best practice examples, policy leaders and industry experts to discuss the challenges facing social care providers and IT support teams. Our line-up of expert speakers includes Terry Dafter, service director adult social care, Stockport metropolitan borough council; Jennifer Bernard, consulting director, SCIE; Nick Johnson, chief executive, Social Care Association; and Sian Walker, service director, Adult Care Operations, Wiltshire council.