Society daily 19.10.11

Sign up to Society daily email briefing Today's top SocietyGuardian stories • Local authority cuts: one year on • Peers demand tougher rules for EU medics • Children lost from care in trafficking cases • Wales debates ban on smacking • Dale Farm residents prepare for last stand against eviction • Malaria vaccine could save millions of children's lives • Patrick Butler's Cuts blog: Ministers take an axe to the social enterprise bill • Alison Garnham: Edwina Currie's poverty claims are a chilling blast from the past • Michael White: Housing shortage: are oldsters 'hoarding' 25m bedrooms? • Gangs and knife crime through young people's eyes - in pictures All today's SocietyGuardian stories In today's SocietyGuardian print pages • Library closures: what can local people do? • MP paves the way for more social enterprises to deliver public services • Mark Johnson: How to prevent riots: invest in young people, don't criminalise them • David Brindle: Why social care providers want their stars back • Will the new head of the civil service be in a weakened position? • Is the health lottery good news for charities? • Plus: special focus on social care - new agendas for the support of young and old Other news • BBC: Call for care homes 'revolution' • Children & Young People Now: Pickles issues warning to councils that delay plans for troubled families • Community Care: 'Cut social workers' planning role to empower users' • Independent: Families now spend half their income on rent • Inside Housing: Task force to examine social mobility and housing • Localgov.co.uk: Shapps should be 'ashamed' of failings in housing policy • Public Finance: Public sector pay slumps as inflation rises • Telegraph: Cutting NHS drug errors could save 16,000 lives a year • Third Sector: Former Charity Commission chair calls for Atlantic Bridge investigation to be reopened On my radar ... • Social care. The sector is debated at the National children and adult services conference in London, which opens today, follow it on Twitter using the hashtag #ncasc . Our special supplement looks at the key policy and practice issues facing professionals. Meanwhile, a new report from Demos and Sue Ryder looks at personalisation and the subject of personal budgets. The report's author, Claudia Wood, writes for our Joe Public blog that personal budgets are not the only answer for those in residential care: Co-design of services, democratic structures, imaginative use of collective spaces to encourage greater independence within care homes are all viable ways of turning care homes from sites of collective disempowerment and passive service use into "micro-communities", which, very much like housing co-operatives, are run by a powerful residents' association to ensure services are organised and meet the needs of the collective. Such settings could even be compatible with the pooling of personal budget funds. Of course, individuals may have to give way to the majority now and then – but this natural give and take of human society is a far cry from sacrificing one's individual preferences due to management diktat and organisational routine. Until the government shakes its fixation with personal budgets as the only and most effective method of achieving personalisation, however, these alternatives will remain fatally under-developed. And as personal budgets are rolled out, personalisation will increasingly become an exclusive right to be enjoyed by the few, rather than the many. And on the Beanbags and Bullsh!t blog, David Floyd writes about the faltering attempts to introduce personalisation : The underlying point here is not that personalisation is failing, it's that in many areas it is not being the given the chance to either succeed or fail. While the government is 'disseminating best practice' to local authorities there are not currently any mechanisms to ensure that they follow it. The worry for those of us who see personalisation – in the best case scenario – as being a mechanism to enable people to take control of the services and support provided to them, is that genuine personal choice may only be offered in those local authority areas where council leaders and officers are specifically enthusiastic about the agenda. Elsewhere, where councils are (to be charitable) confused about the purpose of personalisation or even whether it should be implemented at all, people relying on social care services are currently faced with an unholy mess. As with the Big Society agenda, the danger with personalisation is that the government's approach will not extend beyond making some suggestions and then hoping that other people whose actions they are not directly responsible for decide to follow those suggestions. Given the number of vulnerable people relying on social care services, we have to hope they've got a slightly better plan than that. • Libraries. A judge this morning has ordered an urgent hearing of an appeal against last week's high court decision giving the go-ahead for Brent council's closure of six libraries. Attempts are being made to arrange the appeal for early next month. My colleagues on the newsdesk will have more information soon. • A new report from the University of Glasgow, which finds that there has been a significant increase in the amount of negative reporting of disability issues in the print media. Commissioned by disability equality organisation Inclusion London , the report - Bad News for Disabled People: how newspapers are reporting disability - looked at newspaper stories from 2004-05 and compared them with coverage of disability issues over the last year. It found fewer articles "which describe disabled people in sympathetic and deserving terms", while the number of reports on disability fraud had risen. Researchers also hosted focus groups, at which the frequency of stories of "benefits cheats" was highlighted. Anne Kane, policy manager at Inclusion London, said: The findings of this research will strike a deep chord with disabled people who have to live with the daily reality of offensive, hate-filled and false media coverage – coverage that is becoming more offensive in rhythm with the savage impact of government spending cuts on disabled people. The researchers at Glasgow University have done a great service by analysing the disturbing way in which bad government policy finds its reflection in pejorative language and an increasing portrayal of disabled people as 'undeserving'. The disabled people questioned in the study said they felt threatened by the changes in the way disability is being (mis)reported and by the planned cuts to benefits – with these two assaults combining and reinforcing each other. This points to the action that needs to be taken: a stop to cuts that threaten more isolation and poverty and a stop to media coverage that stigmatises and breeds fear. • Word of the day: gervais. Writer and comedian Ricky Gervais is continiuing his use of the word "mong" in his frequent Twitter updates, as mentioned by Society daily earlier this month . Gervais told the Sun today he "would never" use the word to mean Down's syndrome, adding: "The meaning of words change over time — 'gay' for example. The modern use of the word 'mong' means dopey or ignorant — it's in slang and urban dictionaries." On the Trabasack blog, Duncan suggest adding a new word to the lexicon, gervais – a dirty ugly word " People are using it as a term of abuse, the disabled community are 'reclaiming' the word 'gervais' as a new swear word. I am using it to mean a disablist bully who is running out of jokes. And on the Benefit Scrounging Scum blog, Kaliya Franklin compares Gervais' unfunny jokes with this week's episode of Channel 4's Shameless , which featured a group of actors with learning disabilities: Gervais was making jokes about 'mongs'. Had he had the class to shrug his shoulders, admit that the joke wasn't funny in the way he intended it to be and accept that for many 'mong' is a word associated with hate and fear that would have been the end of it. But he didn't. Gervais moved on to whip up his twitter followers to 'prove' that the word mong totally, doesn't like mean anything to do with disability and is just, y'know all about monging around. Well yeah, sometimes it can mean that, but Gervais then went on to post photos on twitter pulling contorted 'mong' faces to prove his point that it absolutely definitely did not have any connection to learning disability and couldn't possibly be offensive. Other comedians stepped up support those disabled people already pointing out that for many people mong was a hateful term, still used commonly in an abusive fashion. And that's when it got really nasty. Gervais was inciting his followers to 'prove' that mong was fine and his followers were dutifully following suit. One tweet I saw directed at Richard Herring made comments about how stupid it was to think that mong had any connection with anything...and ended by calling him a 'fucking mongoloid' for being stupid enough to think it did. Gervais insisted in a whiny way that 'it was all about jealousy of his success' and continued to insist he was funny. • Troubled families. In the latest post on the new Not So Big Society Blog, writer Ermintrude looks at the government's appointment of Eric Pickles and Louise Casey to tackle troubled families . She looks at the Cabinet office's definition of a troubled family: Let's see. Unemployment, poor housing, poor education.. oh look, mental health has been thrown in there too to add to the stigma as well as disability and low income. Hmm. That is a 'problem' family. Well, has it ever occured to the government that removing access to a comprehensive and supportive benefit system and social housing and decent education might actually cause some of these compounded 'troubles' rather than tackling the so-called 'troubled' families that arise from these social and financial circumstances. Surely the proverbial 'prevention is better than cure' maxim applies? In which case, why doesn't the government tackle the issues behind poverty rather than exacerbating them and marginalising and stigmatising poverty and the effects of poverty by dismissing families who grow up with these issues as 'troubled'. Labelling hurts. Labelling by a government is pure discrimination and playing politics with peoples' lives is worse yet. Troubled maybe, but troubled to whom? I don't say these families should not receive further help. Of course they should but they should on the basis of the poor housing, low incomes and ill-health rather than because they are 'problems'. Meanwhile, the Full Fact site has looked into the claims that the government spends £8bn a year on 120,000 problem families . • Two highly recommended blog posts on mental health. In this post on the Purple Persuasion blog, writer Charlotte writes a frank account of being "captured and put in the cupboard again" after three weeks of relative normality. And on his Dippyman blog, Paul Brook - whose post on Stress, depression and Star Wars featured in my World Mental Health Day round-up - asks do brains have a mind of their own and describes his "evil twin Paul Brookes". Paul Brookes takes the vivid imagination of his almost-namesake and crafts big, fat lumps of worry from it. He finds a hint of self-doubt and gleefully magnifies it. He unearths unhelpful memories and plays them on repeat. Nasty Paul Brookes: Brookes is a hungry boy. He always wants feeding. He is like the biggest bird with the most wide-open beak in the nest, guzzling twice his share of caterpillars while his sibling shivers behind him, squawking feebly. But – and forgive me for going back to my Star Wars analogies – Brookes's powers are weakening. A new hope, the mentally malnourished Brook, is slowly rising from the shadows. His time will come. Before then, there are mighty battles to be fought. If there's going to be an explosion, I fully intend Brookes to be first in the firing line. • Christmas. Homelessness charity Crisis has just launched its festive e-card campaign . The charity, which marks its 40th anniversary this year, has put together an "e-pantomime" starring Matthew Kelly, Joe Swash, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and boy band Blue. It hopes to raise4 more than £650,000 to fund its Christmas centres offering food and services to 3,000 homeless people. On the Guardian Professional Networks • Live discussion from midday - Is local democracy in crisis? • The Institute of Fundraising is launching its first bespoke course for direct marketing fundraisers , reports Debbie Andalo • The Commons public administration select committee supports the need for pay restraint among senior public appointments , but says a system should be implemented to assess level of salaries, writes Jane Dudman • Do councils believe the transparency agenda has made them more accountable to the public ? Sade Laja reports • Changes to the adoption system should boost social workers' professional status , while doing a better job for children, writes government adviser Martin Narey SocietyGuardian blogs Patrick Butler's cuts blog Joe Public Sarah Boseley's global health blog SocietyGuardian on social media Follow SocietyGuardian on Twitter Follow Patrick Butler on Twitter Follow Clare Horton on Twitter Follow Alison Benjamin on Twitter SocietyGuardian's Facebook page SocietyGuardian links SocietyGuardian.co.uk Guardian cutswatch - tell us about the cuts in your area Public Leaders - the Guardian's website for senior managers of public services The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs SocietyGuardian editor: Alison Benjamin Email the SocietyGuardian editor: [email protected] SocietyGuardian.co.uk editor: Clare Horton Email the SocietyGuardian.co.uk editor: [email protected] Interested in education policy and news too? 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