Society daily 17.02.11

Sign up to Society daily email briefing Government publishes welfare reform bill David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith are publishing the welfare bill today - choosing Toynbee Hall, of all places, as their venue. My colleague Andrew Sparrow sets the scene on the Politics live blog: "It is routinely described as the biggest reform of the welfare state for 60 years and at its core is a plan to replace existing out-of-work benefits with a single universal benefit, which will be designed in such a way as to make it always worthwhile for people to work. This is seen as the "holy grail" of welfare reform - a wonderful idea, if it can be made to work." On the Left Foot Forward blog, Will Straw argues that the coalition's u-turn on housing benefit "masks full horror of reforms" . For useful background reading, see our recent feature on the Australian work-for-welfare programme , said to be a model for the government's reforms, and Paul Spicker's comment piece on the universal credit , which argues that the proposed system has been "oversold": "It will not be dramatically simpler than the alternatives. There is no reason to suppose that it will reduce fraud or error. There is no evidence that it will have any particular effect on helping people into work." Today's top SocietyGuardian stories • Alcohol policy in tatters as health experts revolt • Leading hospital cuts 500 jobs • Children's heart surgery units face closure • Cameron condemns ruling on sex offenders • Larry Elliott: Youth unemployment offers a flashpoint in Europe, too • Deborah Orr: It is vital these difficult cases are heard in public • Prisoner vote refusal against European court ruling 'would be like dictatorship' All today's SocietyGuardian stories Other news • The government has ruled out statutory regulation of social care staff in England, reports Community Care. The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said the compulsory registration of home care workers and the wider adult social care workforce "could not be justified" in the current economic climate. • Companies have been warned that they must "co-operate" with a drive to cut the £8bn running costs of the private finance initiative or risk losing future government business, according to the Independent. • Parts of Britain's blood bank could be sold off in the latest controversial privatisation being considered by the government, reports the Telegraph. Private companies are in talks with the Department of Health about taking over the storage and distribution of blood under the plan to make the service more "commercially effective". On my radar ... • Doing the math. Patrick Butler and Polly Curtis have unpicked Eric Pickles' announcement on senior local government salaries . The communities secretary claimed yesterday that council chief executives' pay had gone up by 78% - but the the figure actually referred to FTSE 250 bosses. There's more on town hall executive pay on the Cuts blog. And the Flip Chart Fairy Tales blog also takes up the story: "Public sector managers' pay might make for a great media story, or at least it would if ministers could get their sums right, but as a factor influencing the level of public spending it is relatively insignificant." Meanwhile, the Local Government Chronicle reports that Pickles' department has admitting that £2.2m of departmental spending had been "incorrectly coded". On the Guardian's Datablog, Labour councillor Pete Robbins pores over council job cuts data , and Peter Hetherington writes on Comment is free that local government is being fitted up as the cuts fall guy : "Rarely are Pickles or Shapps challenged on a simple fact: that less than 1% of the local government workforce, for instance, earns more than £60,000 annually; that increasingly councils are pooling services across authorities; that, even if all chief executives took massive pay cuts (and, yes, some are paid ridiculously high, indefensible salaries) the dent in the shortfall caused by the 12% cut in the government grant to councils next year would be minuscule. This is front-loading with a vengeance." For a completely different take, see Ed West on the Telegraphs site, who writes that the fantasy world of local government is about to come crashing down . • Big society fatigue . Stephen Cook on the Third Sector blog admits that "big society fatigue is beginning to set in" , adding "What's less clear is whether the big society itself is beginning to sink in - to make a meaningful impact on the public and the sector." • Sure Start. A survey by 4Children, Daycare Trust and Nursery World has found that only 40% of local authorities will commit themselves to keeping all their children's centres over the next financial year. The research follows a survey last month of 917 children's centre managers, also by the Daycare Trust and 4Children, which estimated that around 250 centres will be forced to close over the next 12 months. The Netmums site has launched a Save our Children's Centres campaign which is offering a toolkit to parents wanting to fight for their local children's centre. The online parenting support community says thousands of mothers have turned to the site over the last couple of weeks to share information and ask for help . • This contribution to the disability living allowance reform debate from Sally Bercow on the Labour Uncut blog: "One notably ruthless aspect of the reforms has caused particular outrage and been seized on by Labour (who have otherwise, it must be said, been disappointingly circumspect on the issue of DLA reform). This is the deeply unfair decision to axe the mobility component of DLA (up to £50 per week) from the 80,000 people who live full-time in care homes. This money covers the personal mobility costs of care home residents (cars, taxi fares, petrol money for staff taking them out, electric wheelchairs, mobility scooters); it enables them to get about independently and enjoy everyday activities such as going to the shops, meeting friends and visiting the local library, park or leisure centre. The government, however, seems to think that care home residents don't go out; they appear to be oblivious to the fact that removing mobility allowance will drastically impact on residents' quality of life, rob them of their independence and effectively make them prisoners in their care homes, isolated from society." On the Guardian Professional Networks • Centre-right thinktank launches scathing attack on public services reform . Events Managing Public Sector Information 2011 Making the transparency agenda happen. 1 March, London. An essential forum for professionals involved in managing, storing, use and governance of information in the public sector, when the push is for increased openness and transparency. 2 for 1 delegate place offer available. 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