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The human cost of the cuts
Today we launch a special report on the changing map of the UK's public services. A week today, as contracts end, grants run out and budgets are reduced, thousands of publicly funded servcies will be lost perhaps forever. Read profiles of 50 different services and projects nationwide facing cuts or closure, and we'd also like your help in the coming months to track the cuts. We're aiming to recruit a team of volunteers to feed back on how the impact of the cuts is being felt in their area. Please email us at cutswatch@guardian.co.uk to volunteer for our panel. Meanwhile, Simon Jenkins is sceptical over the potential for Saturday's anti-cuts demonstration to achieve change:
"Most people nowadays take to the streets en masse only to protect their incomes or their interests. Dockers, miners and power workers have given way to white-collar workers, civil servants and, on one colourful occasion, huntsmen. Strikes by these groups hardly bring the country to its knees. In the case of students, recent demonstrations were probably counterproductive. Few people could see their problem when their "fees" had already morphed into income surtax. The 2004 pro-hunt lobby dust-up in Parliament Square succeeded in doing what only Charles I had done before, invading the actual Commons chamber. It did them no more good than their royal predecessor."
Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
• George Osborne's strategy at risk of 'being blown off course'
• Commonwealth Games row couple evicted
• Chris Huhne faces legal challenge over nuclear link to cancer in children
• Boycott under fire for comments on Yardy's depression
• NHS supplier iSoft suspends shares and puts itself up for sale
• Dale Farm Travellers eviction: the battle of Basildon
• Pensioners to lose up to £100 in winter fuel payments
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
Other news
• David Cameron has been accused of breaking the coalition's pledge to increase funding for the NHS, according to Nursing Times. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the government was "sailing extremely close to the wind" over its promise to raise NHS spending in real terms every year of the current parliament.
• Housing professionals fear funding cuts to schemes for vulnerable people will lead to increased homelessness and service closures, according to Inside Housing. It reports that the Chartered Institute of Housing's quarterly UK Housing Panel survey, due out on Monday, asked 300 UK senior housing staff about changes to Supporting People funding in their area. Six in 10 warned that services to vulnerable people would be reduced.
• Doctors' leader Clare Gerada has criticised plans disclosed in the budget to publish the details of prescriptions dispensed by individual GP practices, reports the Telegraph. Dr Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said the proposal could breach confidentiality by identifying patients in some areas who take medication for rare conditions.
On my radar ...
• This interesting tale from the outsourcing trailblazer Suffolk council. The Telegraph reports that the authority's chief executive, Andrea Hill, oversaw dozens of "gagging orders" to prevent staff detailing their experiences at her local authority and presided over payouts totalling more than £520,000 last year. The story also relates a bust-up between Hill and the leader of Suffolk's Liberal Democrat opposition group, Kathy Pollard. But, unfortunately, the picture chosen by the Telegraph to illustrate the piece, and captioned Andrea Hill shows in fact Pollard, as this version of the story from the Eastern Daily Press shows.
On her blog today, Pollard writes:
"Some people may feel the phrase about the Chief Executive becoming an object of hate on the streets is too strong. If I have caused offence I apologise. I will just say that there are some very strong views out there. There are many comments which are made to me which I would never repeat. I have also had many messages of support for my stance.
I remain saddened and depressed at the destruction of County Council services, which is totally unnecessary, even with the savings they have to make. I and my Lib Dem colleagues will continue to fight for these services, so please keep contacting us with your comments, suggestions and invitations to events."
Meanwhile, Community Care reports that Eric Pickles' review of local authority statutory duties could help Suffolk's move to outsource nearly all its public services, including child protection. Lawyers had claimed that the current legal duties on child protection were a potential obstacle to the council's proposals, says the story.
• Boris Johnson, who has said he backs soup runs - so long as they don't encourage homelessness. According to the Dods Monitoring transcript [registration required] of his question time this week:
"[Lib Dem Mike] Tuffrey asked whether Johnson agreed that outlawing soup runs and rough sleeping was not the best way to ensure homeless people got the help they need.
Johnson stated that he was in favour of soup runs, provided that they were part of measures to help people find accommodation and not encourage homelessness the streets. Tuffrey asked Johnson to voice his support of soup runs to Westminster.
Kit Malthouse (Conservative, West Central, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea) felt that the proliferation of soup runs did "keep people on the streets". He pointed out that the by-law banning soup runs only referred to the one in Westminster and that there were still others in operation in London."
• The Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which has opened in London. The Refugee Council is this weekend presenting the UK premiere of Pushing the Elephant, a documentary following the story of Rose Mapendo, a survivor of atrocities during the 1998 conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and her reunion with her daughter. A screening on Saturday 26 March at the Ritzy Cinema will be followed by a Q&A with Rose and film-makers Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel.
• Kate Winslet, who is reportedly writing a book to promote autism awareness. The Titanic actor apparently became interested in the subject after narrating a film, A Mother's Courage: Talking Back To Autism, about a mother's efforts to help her autistic son to communicate.
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• GPs in England are generally good, but there's too much variety in quality, according to new research from the King's Fund, writes the fund's chief executive Chris Ham.
• Why public and private sector organisations will have to set their differences aside to make local enterprise partnerships work.
• Joe Harley, the government's chief information officer, has told a select committee that the IT programme needed to administer the universal credit is "off to a great start".
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