Public accounts committee says cutting staff and hiring expensive outside consultants could be bad value for taxpayer

The growing practice of officials leaving the Ministry of Defence only to be re-employed as outside consultants could end up being "dreadful value for the taxpayer", a leading parliamentary watchdog has warned.

MoD spending on consultants has soared from £6m in 2007 to £270m in the last financial year, according to the latest figures. Yet the MoD is pursuing a programme of cuts unsure about the impact on continuing demand for skilled people, and the problem is exacerbated by poor morale, according to the Commons cross-party public accounts committee (PAC).

The Guardian earlier this year revealed that the money for the soaring cost of hiring specialist consultants had been drawn from the MoD's equipment budget, which is supposed to pay for the weapons, armour and vehicles needed by troops in Afghanistan and for other operations.

A confidential internal audit found the system for awarding contracts was being routinely abused. When the report was leaked to the Guardian, ministers promised to stamp out bad practice.

"The Ministry of Defence has gone ahead with cuts to its military and civilian workforce without a proper understanding of what skills it will need in the future," said Margaret Hodge, the PAC's chair. She said the committee recognised that the MoD had to make tough financial decisions if it was to reduce its spending by 7.5% a year by 2015, and that it had acted decisively.

The MoD plans to cut its civilian personnel by 29,000 and its military personnel by 25,000, in moves estimated to save £4.1bn between 2011 and 2015, the MPs report.

"We are concerned that these cuts have been determined by the need to cut costs in the short term rather than by considering the MoD's strategic objectives in the long term and the skills it will need to deliver them successfully," Hodge added. "If the department loses key skills, it may have to spend even more money on replacing them, perhaps by buying them in from external consultants."

The MPs welcomed the department's candour about staff morale. Given the scale of change in the department it was not surprising morale was low, they added.

"Morale is not in a good place. We recognise that," Ursula Brennan, the MoD's top official, said in evidence to the PAC in March.

She added: "I do recognise that there is a problem of morale in the civil service and the military. People feel battered and bruised and they feel under a lot of pressure to deliver.

"But if you look around the country at the moment, there are a lot of people who feel under pressure. The economy is putting all of us under pressure."

The MoD is engaging in what it calls a "large-scale communications effort" to allow staff to have "a clear understanding of the programme of changes the department is undertaking".

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative grew from one store to a business with six stores, a successful online shop and a turnover of £12m

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative is Scotland's longest established worker co-operative. The business is owned by and run for the benefit of the employees. Once a member of staff has worked at Edinburgh Bicycle for a year, he or she becomes a member of the co-operative with an equal share in the business and an equal vote.

Although Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative was established in 1977, it's only over the last 10 years they have grown from being a single-outlet retailer to becoming established as the dominant cycle retailer in Northern England and Scotland.

This expansion was a conscious and debated decision by the membership. The cycle industry (like most other types of retailing) was becoming more aggressively competitive with big players dominating a market previously occupied by single-outlet independent dealers. These multiples were beginning to threaten members' livelihoods so the co-operative decided to grow in order to match their competitors.

"We were a single store in Edinburgh for 24 years . . . but we felt we wanted to expand the business out beyond Edinburgh" says Jeremy. "We had lots of discussion amongst the membership and we were very divided about what we wanted to do – about 40% of the membership felt we ought to stay as a small company in Edinburgh . . .whereas about 60% wanted to grow the business, move foreword and bring more people into the co-operative."

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative now employs 170 people with a turnover of £12m. They have six stores. Each is the biggest bike shop in the city it's located: Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. The website enables anyone in the world to shop online with the co-operative.

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative membership now stands at 135 members. Its board of directors consists of 6 employees directly elected from the membership and three executive directors appointed every three years, who are also members.

Members receive an equal distribution of profits via an annual cash bonus and the pay ratio between lowest and highest paid is 5:1. Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative has also developed a Co-operative's SIP (Share Incentive Plan) to further motivate staff and reward long serving members.

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative sees a business equally owned by its employees as a good thing because ownership motivates employees in a ways difficult to replicate in a traditionally run business. As Jeremy explains, "The biggest plus for us is a staff base committed to delivering high levels of customer service and engagement."

Giles Simon is communications officer at Co-operatives UK. Co-operatives UK's new online support service is available online.

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While generals and heads of state congratulated themselves at the Nato summit, peace protesters enacted real reconciliation

General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, spoke Wednesday at the Pentagon, four stars on each shoulder, his chest bedecked with medals. Allen said the Nato summit in Chicago, which left him feeling "heartened", "was a powerful signal of international support for the Afghan-led process of reconciliation".

Unlike Allen, many decorated US military veterans left the streets of Chicago after the Nato summit without their medals. They marched on the paramilitarized convention center, where the generals and heads of state had gathered, and threw their medals at the high fence surrounding the summit. They were joined by women from Afghans for Peace, and an American mother whose son killed himself after his second deployment to Iraq.

Leading thousands of protesters in a peaceful march against Nato's wars, each veteran climbed to the makeshift stage outside the fenced summit, made a brief statement and threw his or her medals at the gate.

As Taps was played, veterans folded an American flag that had flown over Nato military operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan and Libya, and handed it to Mary Kirkland. Her son, Derrick, joined the army in January 2007, since he was not earning enough to support his wife and child as a cook at an IHOP restaurant. During his second deployment, Mary told me, "he ended up putting a shotgun in his mouth over there in Iraq, and one of his buddies stopped him." He was transferred to Germany, and then back to his home base of Fort Lewis, Washington.

"He came back on a Monday after two failed suicide attempts in a three-week period. They kept him overnight at Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis. He met with a psychiatrist the next day who deemed him to be low to moderate risk for suicide."

Five days later, on Friday 19 March 2010, he hanged himself. Said his mother:

"Derrick was not killed in action; he was killed because of failed mental health care at Fort Lewis."

On stage, Lance Corporal Scott Olsen declared:

"Today I have with me my Global War on Terror Medal, Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal, National Defense Medal and Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal. These medals, once upon a time, made me feel good about what I was doing … I came back to reality, and I don't want these anymore."

Like the riot police flanking the stage, many on horseback, Olsen also wore a helmet. He is recovering from a fractured skull after being shot in the head at close range by a beanbag projectile. He wasn't wounded in Iraq, but by Oakland, California police at Occupy Oakland last fall, where he was protesting.

On stage with the veterans were three Afghan women, holding the flag of Afghanistan. Just before they marched, I asked one of them, Suraia Sahar, why she was there:

"I'm representing Afghans for Peace. And we're here to protest Nato and call on all Nato representatives to end this inhumane, illegal, barbaric war against our home country and our people … It's the first time an Afghan-led peace movement is working side by side with a veteran-led peace movement. And so, this is the beginning of something new, something better: reconciliation and peace."

The night before the protest and the summit, Allen threw out the first pitch at the "Crosstown Classic" baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs. Members of the teams joked that Allen could join them in the dugout, if he would only quit his day job. I dare say the members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War wish he would.

After the march and the return of the medals, I caught up with Derrick Kirkland's mourning mother as she embraced her new family: those who were protesting the wars that had taken the life of her son. I asked if she had any message for President Barack Obama and the Nato generals. This quiet, soft-spoken woman from Indiana didn't hesitate:

Honor the dead, heal the wounded, stop the wars.

• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column

© Amy Goodman 2012; distributed by King Features Syndicate

Derbyshire pressed home tricky questions in following what happens in an average day at the clinic

When radio broaches the issue of abortion, it's mostly, inevitably, about strongly held views on either side of the debate. Think Moral Maze, if you can bear to. So it was extraordinary to hear a markedly different approach this week, as Victoria Derbyshire (5 Live, Wednesday) presented her programme from an abortion clinic "on the outskirts of a British city".

The location and clinic couldn't be named, for fear of reprisals. But beyond this cloak of anonymity Derbyshire eschewed moral arguments in favour of a cooler look at what happens in the average day at such a clinic, and in the lives of women who end up there for a termination. She spoke to staff and to women who had recently had abortions as she moved through the different rooms in the building, tracing the journey every woman treated there takes, from reception to recovery.

It was a revelatory listen. Whatever your thoughts on the subject – and Derbyshire pressed home some tricky questions for staff there, while the programme included a priest who described the clinic as a "killing factory" – it brought to radio a hidden world. Tellingly, not one surgeon would speak to the programme, even anonymously via email, despite the procedures they perform being legal.

Instead we heard from Karen – an immensely compassionate-sounding woman, who looks after women coming to the clinic and does referrals from initial interviews – and two women who had had abortions in recent months. "I'm a grown woman who can make my own decisions," said one, referring to protesters targeting her outside the clinic. "I'm feeling guilty because I don't feel guilty," said the other, a single parent with clinical depression who got pregnant after a one-night stand.

Bits of it were hard to listen to, not least the detailed description of a surgical procedure and discussions about the point at which a foetus might feel pain. But this was a remarkably well-judged programme: calm and careful in its tone and language as it portrayed a facet of life many know, but rarely talk about.

We applaud the National Autistic Society report, which echoes what so many families we work with tell us here at Autistica, the UK's largest autism research charity (Special needs kids deserve better than a rush to reform, 21 May). We know that early support can ameliorate the negative aspects of autism, dramatically improving quality of life and reducing distress for individuals and their families. But despite this, a third of families wait over three years for a diagnosis – missing out on vital support at the most crucial time. It is no wonder one in ten families have to resort to paying for a private diagnosis. It is clearly urgent that we both improve diagnostic methods and ensure that these are readily available to clinicians. Recently published research funded by Autistica found neurological signs of autism in infants as young as six months, helping us to understand the development of the condition. Further investment in research is clearly needed so that we can continue to explore earlier signs and the biological basis of autism with a view to providing effective treatments and interventions at a much earlier stage. Over 600,000 people in the UK deserve to have their condition understood. It is only with robust peer reviewed scientific research that we will be able to offer earlier diagnosis, effective support and proper understanding.
Christine Swabey
Chief executive, Autistica

Giving only prisoners released on temporary licence the vote may placate MPs and avert a costly clash with Europe

The latest round of the row on votes for prisoners is much ado about nothing for the inmates of Britain's jails. The vast majority of prisoners do not even want to vote. But on Tuesday the European court of human rights upheld its original ruling that the blanket ban was illegal and gave the UK a six-month ultimatum to act. So this will soon become a great to-do for the inmates of HMP Westminster.

The parliamentary mood and arithmetic has been clear ever since the Commons debate in February 2011. By an all-party majority of 212 it was resolved that the issue of votes for prisoners should be decided by our domestic legislators and not by the European court of human rights. That sound and popular decision would, at an informed guess, be supported by at least 75% of Her Majesty's past and present guests, including this one. That's because life on the wing is realistic not idealistic. In con circles as well as Conservative circles, it is accepted that a jail sentence loses you all sorts of rights, starting with the right to freedom. If any of them could be restored, voting would be way down the list. The right to send emails would be one far higher priority.

At present, the government appears to be set on having a head-on collision with the European court – great fun for Eurosceptics and great fees for human rights lawyers and lobbyists. But let's look at one alternative solution which would still leave our parliament firmly in control. I call it the encouragement of rehabilitation option.

In our jail population of 89,000 there are about 1,800 prisoners who each day are released on temporary licence (ROTL) for employment in the community. They have earned their status by good behaviour and achieving such low-risk assessments that they are considered safe and responsible enough to be sent out to work in local jobs as preparation for their re-entry into society. It would be a small and quite sensible step in their journey of rehabilitation for these inmates to be allowed the vote during this final period, usually about two years, before release.

Although this will not please those who want to stick to the established UK practice that all prisoners lose their voting rights as long as they are behind bars, there is a case for differentiating ROTL inmates, as they are already being treated differently by the prison service for rehabilitation reasons. Adding the right to vote to the right to day release seems a small and temporary concession that would also be in tune with the government's general strategy of encouraging rehabilitation.

The signs from Strasbourg are that the European court will accept that parliament can decide how much or how little voting rights can be restored to prisoners provided there is some movement from the present impasse. If so, a parliamentary bill to allow ROTL prisoners the vote seems preferable to the disproportionate financial bill of a prolonged battle with the European court.

• Follow Comment is Free on Twitter @commentisfree

You are absolutely right that the introduction of degree-level apprenticeships will raise the prestige of vocational education (A plan for apprenticeship success, 15 May). Which is why I will ensure that by 2015 at least 20,000 young people a year will embark upon degree-equivalent higher apprenticeships in sectors like aerospace and the creative industries (there were just 180 when I became the minister responsible). Not only will this create one of the best gateways to university-level study but it will change the perception of vocational education to being a highway, not a cul-de-sac.

In government I have made my belief clear that, as the cornerstone of our mission to reshape the character of learning and workforce skills, practical competence must be as valued as academic prowess. Already we are succeeding with record numbers of high-quality apprenticeships. Because quantity must be matched by quality, I've insisted all apprenticeships will be for a minimum of 12 months and that all 16-year-olds work towards English and maths at GCSE.

Lord Leitch's report on skills told us that to match our competitors we must radically reform the way we train young people. We are doing what the Labour government that commissioned his work failed to. This government understands that a skilled workforce is necessary to power economic growth and fuels social mobility.
John Hayes MP
Skills minister

• University education hasn't worked – one size doesn't fit all (Ed Miliband demands end to 'snobbery' over vocational courses, 21 May). High-value vocational learning and apprenticeships offer young people alternative pathways into professions. We have proof that rigorous and demanding vocational qualifications and apprenticeships contribute significantly to social mobility and widen the path for young people to get into the workplace.
Jane Scott Paul
Chief executive, Association of Accounting Technicians

Our political elites find the issue of social mobility to be both irresistible and intractable (Suzanne Moore, G2, 24 May). Irresistible because even rightwing politicians cannot ignore the fact that our unfair education system, through which parental wealth has a far more significant impact on life chances than ability, is neither fair nor meritocratic, and ensures that structures of power remain ossified throughout society. And intractable because in order to significantly increase social mobility, educational opportunities for less well-off children must be significantly boosted, which will necessarily lead to a diminution of the access presently enjoyed by privately educated children to the best universities and careers.

Michael Gove's speech on the "morally indefensible" dominance by privately educated people in British society, and Nick Clegg's 17 annual "trackers", are nothing more than fig leaves to cover the government's growing embarrassment at the huge chasm between the status quo of private school dominance and the equality of opportunity which any intelligent person must conclude is essential for a country like ours to be able to describe itself as "great".

I doubt this government of privately educated millionaires is up to the task.
John Slinger
Chair, Pragmatic Radicalism

• I applaud Nick Clegg's commitment to the cause of social mobility. I suspect, however, that a much braver and more radical approach will be required. For example, private schools should only be allowed to keep their charitable status if they agree to take into their schools a significant proportion of appropriately assessed children from the state sector who are entitled to free school meals. It would not be perfect but it would be consistent in that, to an extent, selection would still be based on parental income. If they refuse they should lose their charitable status and submit to the market forces so beloved of recent governments.
Gordon Morris
Sherborne, Dorset

• No major political parties are sincere about promoting social mobility because they will not tackle the privileges and powers of Oxbridge and private schools (Social mobility still leaves some living in the gutter, 24 May). But we can do something as individuals. Do not send our children to private schools or the elitist state ones. We can decline to be students at Oxbridge. We can refuse the high salaries and the connections which make us a part of the establishment and instead identify with and agitate with those who are victims of an unequal Britain.
Bob Holman
Glasgow

• Your thesis about "the slow return of rage" (Leader, 22 May) is surprising, as a lead of 5% is a disastrous showing for an opposition party in mid-term. In fact, the low turnout for the local elections shows that the public mood is one of indifference. Part of the reason may be found in a photo you recently ran in which the three leaders plus George Osborne stood side by side. They appeared virtual clones, all being about the same age and wearing the same uniform (dark suit, monochrome tie, middle-of-the road haircut) and the same sleek metropolitan look. It is not surprising that their policies are hard to distinguish, especially as Miliband refuses to tell us what his policy is.
Christopher Wrigley
Chorleywood, Hertfordshire

Home secretary becomes most senior politician to take part in Out4Marriage campaign

John Harris says children with special educational needs will lose out in a rush to reform. Far from it – they'll get a better deal

John Harris writes of the fight he had to simply get the basic support for his autistic child (Special needs kids deserve better than a rush to reform, 21 May). His experience is a story I have heard over and over again. It is precisely this problem that the coalition government is trying to fix.

John says: "It quickly became clear that NHS speech therapy was effectively nonexistent, no one mentioned my son's obvious problems with motor skills, and too often we were effectively told to go away, depend on threadbare arrangements and wait till he was eligible for school." I have heard from thousands of parents like John, who have battled to get their children's needs recognised. Parents go through repeated assessments; and all too often, even when their child's need is accepted, there are more delays as different parts of the system squabble about who should be paying for what. And when a child gets to 16 it can feel like standing on the edge of a cliff, as all the legal rights and support disappear.

I also know the system doesn't work well enough for children with less severe needs either, such as those with unrecognised language difficulties whose frustration in trying to communicate shows up as angry, even criminal, behaviour. For each child with an issue not picked up, there is one mislabelled as "special educational needs" (SEN) who is actually falling behind for another reason, perhaps because they're caring for a relative or being bullied at school.

But John's claim that the purpose of our reforms was to deliver some arbitrary reduction in the numbers on the SEN register is just scaremongering. These reforms are about making sure every child, whatever their needs, gets the right type of help early.

Neither is it true that the government's approach is "frantic" or that we are rushing into reform. We set out our plans in a green paper in March last year. Since then we have consulted carefully with parents. John says he's spoken to charities and pressure groups who reported "mounting concerns", but the detailed consultation on our plans has shown broad backing from across the SEN sector. We are now testing our plans in 20 areas, before parliament debates the legislation next year. These are the biggest reforms to SEN for 30 years and we are taking the time to get them right and to listen carefully to parents.

At the heart of our reforms is the proposal to make the current statementing process simpler and stronger – so families like John's get a much better deal from the system. John says "there are clear signs that [the new plans] will not be as dependable as what they will replace". Far from it, the new education, health and care plans will keep all the existing legal protections, but will bring health and social care needs into a single assessment process. This will be backed by a new legal requirement for councils and health services to plan services together. And that cliff edge will disappear as we extend rights for young people in education or training up to 25.

As for personal budgets, there are many parents who do want to have greater choice and control over their child's specialist support package, but no parent will be forced down this route.

Finally, I share John's frustration about the lack of early intervention. That's why we'll be drawing up a clearer definition of SEN, so schools ask why children are falling behind, and put in place the right support. Children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities deserve a much better deal. We owe it to families to get it right.

• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

Introduction of a 50p minimum price for alcohol could happen by April 2013 after Scottish National party wins Holyrood vote

Cut-price wine, beer and vodka will be outlawed in Scotland from as early as April next year after the Scottish parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill to introduce a 50p minimum price for alcohol.

The new measures setting the first legally-binding minimum price within the European Union are expected to get royal assent later next month after the Tories, Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats voted alongside the Scottish National party at Holyrood.

The legislation– which could be followed by similar price controls for England and Wales – will mean that whisky will cost a minimum of £14 a bottle, average strength wine will cost £4.69, four cans of own brand supermarket lager £3.52 and standard strength vodka £13.13 a bottle.

It will also finally stop supermarkets, shops and pubs, which are already legally prevented in Scotland from selling alcohol at bulk discounts or two for one offers, from offering single bottle cut-price promotions which push the cost of the drink under the 50p a unit level.

Labour, which had earlier signalled it could finally support the bill, became the only party to abstain after failing to win the Scottish government's support for new measures to claw back extra profits the supermarkets will now earn from higher prices.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, is now braced for possible legal challenges from the drinks industry or overseas producers which could prevent the law coming into force from 1 April next year as planned.

The Scottish government must notify the European commission about the new legislation and the legal basis for the policy within weeks. The commission will begin a three-month consultation on the measures which is expected to quickly trigger legal action by its opponents.

Sturgeon's advisers believe the commissioners will accept the price control is legal under EU law because it is a proportionate measure which will have a significant positive impact on Scotland's health and crime levels.

She said the new measures would help Scotland achieve a "cultural shift" in its unhealthy attitudes to alcohol.

"This policy will save lives – it's as simple as that. It is time to turn the tide of alcohol misuse that for too long has been crippling our country," she said. "Minimum pricing will kickstart a change by addressing a fundamental part of our alcohol culture – the availability of high-strength, low-cost alcohol."

However, individual drinks companies or overseas suppliers whose sales are based on cheap prices are now expected to challenge the measures in the Scottish courts and the UK supreme court, potentially delaying the new measures until 2014 or later.

Critics insist the legislation has an unjustified impact on responsible and less well-off drinkers, is illegal under EU and global competition laws and would also ruin the Scottish whisky industry's efforts to counter price controls and high tariffs in overseas markets. The drinks industry in the rest of the UK is threatening similar action if David Cameron presses ahead with similar measures for England and Wales.

Whisky is Scotland's single largest and most valuable export, worth £4.2bn last year, and the Scotch Whisky Association has insisted that minimum pricing is likely to be illegal, breaching European and global rules on free trade and competition.

Gavin Hewitt, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said minimum unit pricing (MUP) "has consistently been found to be illegal in Europe. It was first ruled to be a barrier to trade by the European court of justice more than 30 years ago. No doubt those opposed to MUP across Europe will draw on this case law in the coming months.

"We expect legal challenges to emerge once the Scottish government notifies its proposals to the European commission. We hope the UK government will take due note and drop its own proposals for minimum pricing of alcohol."

With alcohol abuse and alcohol related crime estimated to cost several thousand early deaths a year in Scotland, a study by health experts at Sheffield university estimated that a 50p minimum price would save about 60 lives in the first year and 300 within a decade. The cumulative social and economic benefits would see a "harm reduction" worth £942m within 10 years.

North-east of England has highest proportion of mothers who smoked, while London has the lowest rates in the UK

One in eight women in England are smokers when they give birth, according to new NHS data. The disclosure that 87,700 women who had a baby in 2011-12 – 13% of the total – identified themselves as smokers prompted warnings that their babies were potentially suffering serious harm in utero as a result. However, the proportion has fallen steadily since the 15% recorded in 2006-07. "I am pleased to see the rates of smoking in pregnancy falling but the levels are still worryingly high. Smoking in pregnancy can have serious and long-term effects on the developing baby", said Dr Janine Stockdale, research fellow at the Royal College of Midwives.The north-east of England had the highest proportion of mothers who smoked (20.6%), while London had the lowest (6%), according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

US economist says work used to back deputy prime minister's speech was 'misquoted and misrepresented'

The economist whose work the government used to back up its claim that a child's chances in life were not affected by the levels of inequality in the society they were born into, told the Guardian he has been "misquoted and misrepresented".

In a speech this week, Nick Clegg said: "Myth (number) one is that social mobility is simply a sub-set of income inequality. According to this myth, mobility will follow automatically in the wake of greater equality".

Research shows that Britain is a highly unequal society, with income inequality rising faster any other rich nation since the mid-1970s. Researchers also widely claim that opportunities for the poor in Britain to better themselves are harder to come by than almost any other developed nation.

But the government pointed to a 2002 paper by Gary Solon, a professor at Michigan State University, which it claimed had raised doubts over whether there was a link between high levels of income inequality and low levels of social mobility.

Solon was a surprise choice – he was the first academic to question whether the US, a highly unequal society, was really a land of opportunity 20 years ago. He estimated that in America if a father's income doubled then 40% of this advantage would be passed on to his child.

The government has "misrepresented" his work, he said. "My 2002 paper did not criticise the hypothesis that inequality and intergenerational immobility are related, but rather supported it," Solon added. "The government have misquoted me".

He said Clegg's speech was odd given that Barack Obama's council of economic advisers, chaired by Princeton economist Alan Krueger, published a report in February showing that in unequal societies background determines success to a far greater degree than in societies which were more equal. The study showed children from richer families more likely to be rich as adults, while their poorer counterparts were more likely to stay poor.

"We are not sure of the extent of how causal this relationship is, but I think it is a causal relationship. Sounds like if I could have voted in the UK, I would not be voting for (Nick Clegg)," Solon said.

Other experts have also questioned Clegg's broad assertions. Miles Corak, a professor at economics at Ottawa University, was at the speech and tweeting in agreement until the deputy prime minister claimed it "was a myth to suggest that reducing inequality will promote social mobility".

"It's an inappropriate representation of the role of inequality in determining opportunity. The relationship is there and we can see it in the data. We know that families and employment and the state all play a role but you cannot deny inequality is a factor," he said..

Corak added that the deputy prime minister was wrong when he asked: "Why do Australia and Canada have UK levels of inequality, but almost Scandinavian levels of mobility?"

The Canadian academic, who presented a paper before Clegg spoke, said Australia and Canada "do not have UK levels of inequality. They are more equal societies. But they are not as socially mobile as Finland and Norway. They don't have Scandinavian levels of mobility. If Clegg is saying this for ideological, political reasons then there's not much I can say."

Campaigners warned that "UK income inequality has already reached levels that has adverse impacts on our economy and society". Duncan Exley of One Society, a charity which promotes equality, said "It is now increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that excessive inequality is a huge barrier to social mobility."

A spokesman for Clegg said there was a "complex" relationship between inequality and social mobility. "In particular, we note that data for income equality has its limitations and that some countries with similar levels of income inequality achieve higher levels of social mobility than the UK.

"The deputy prime minister argued, therefore, that income redistribution is not a panacea and that we take a wider approach to improving social mobility, as well as questioning why those cross country differences arise."

Drugmakers join forces in £180m research in battle against threat from bugs' resistance to antibiotics

Britain's two biggest drugmakers have joined forces in a £180m research collaboration in the battle against the growing threat from bugs' resistance to antibiotics.

As new drug resistant superbugs such as the "New Delhi" bug have emerged, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca have teamed up with academics and other Big Pharma companies to tackle antibiotic resistance, which is becoming a major health threat around the world. For example, drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis are spreading at a frightening rate.

"You go into hospital for a knee operation or hip replacement and could get infected with bacteria that very few drugs can control," said Manos Perros, head of AstraZeneca's infection iMed. "In a world without antibiotics any minor surgery or small wound could be a death sentence."

Some 25,000 people die in Europe every year due to bugs' resistance to antibiotics, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Drug-resistant bacteria cost Europe €1.5bn annually in healthcare costs and lost productivity due to days spent in hospital.

Despite the looming crisis, drugmakers have been slow to develop new antibiotics. AstraZeneca and GSK are the only major companies that have stayed involved while others have been put off by the tricky science and unpromising commercial prospects (antibiotics are usually only taken for short periods of time). The pipeline of future antibiotics has been described by the World Health Organisation as "virtually dry".

To show it is serious about the new research collaboration – dubbed NewDrugs4BadBugs – GSK will contribute an experimental antibiotic that targets multi-drug resistant respiratory and skin infections including MRSA and is in Phase II development. Pending the results of ongoing work, AstraZeneca, for its part, plans to include a treatment for severe sepsis and septic shock, as well as a novel antibody in early stage development that targets a toxin released by Staphylococcus aureus. This is a bacterium that grows on skin and inside the nose and is usually benign – unless it gets to a wound.

The collaboration is jointly funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), Europe's largest public-private initiative, and the pharma industry. IMI will provide €109m while the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies involved have pledged to contribute assets worth €114.7m. Janssen, Sanofi and Basilea Pharmaceutica are also participating and will work alongside public research organisations and scientific experts, although at this stage only GSK and AstraZeneca will contribute experimental drugs.

Perros points out that a major problem holding back the development of new antibiotics is that patients who really need them cannot be tested on them. Normally, new medicines are tested on those that need them against older drugs, but in the case of antibiotics, they have to be tested on people for whom the old antibiotics still work – for anyone else, clinical trials could be a death sentence.

Pioneer of nursing who had a profound impact on training, research and practice

Jean McFarlane, Lady McFarlane of Llandaff, who has died aged 86, was one of nursing's great pioneers. Her work on what has come to be called the nursing process is now an integral part of every nursing curriculum and every nurse's practice. In 1974 she was appointed England's first professor of nursing, at Manchester University, where she developed a degree course and established the country's first professorial nursing unit. She was also responsible for England's first nursing research programme (the Study of Nursing Care), and was mentor to many of those who became the nurse leaders of the next generation.

Although most of her career was spent in England, Jean was born in Cardiff, the youngest of five children, and her pride in her Welsh roots was reflected in the title she took when she was made a life peer in 1979. She went to Howell's school, Llandaff, and after initial nurse training at St Bartholomew's hospital, London, returned to Wales to train and then work as a health visitor in Cardiff. The perspectives on healthcare afforded by her six years' health-visiting experience strongly influenced the nursing degree that she established later at Manchester – a four-year programme which prepared nurses to work both in hospitals and in community settings, as either district nurses or health visitors.

In the early 1960s, when Jean qualified as a nurse tutor and took a post as education officer at the Royal College of Nursing in London, the idea that nurses might benefit from a university education and even undertake research was greeted with incredulity, both inside and outside the profession. At the RCN, she became one of a small group of educators who formed the Association for Integrated and Degree Courses in Nursing and began to try to overcome these prejudices. In the absence of any university programmes in nursing, Jean took a BSc in sociology at Bedford College, London, and a master's in manpower studies at Birkbeck College.

Then, in 1967, on the initiative of Marjorie Simpson, a former colleague at the RCN then working at the Ministry of Health with a specific responsibility to develop research in nursing, came an invitation to lead the Study of Nursing Care. The enterprise was conceived as a series of linked individual projects on various aspects of nursing, in which students would also learn research methodology and gain academic qualifications. In the culture of the time, the initiative was revolutionary, and the results were equally startling. Some of the studies, produced over a number of years, are today seen as classics, and from the first cohort of six students later came the new generation of professors of nursing.

Over and above the massive task of co-ordinating the programme and supporting the students, Jean's particular contribution was her book The Proper Study of the Nurse (1970), which was both a synthesis of the first six studies and an argument for nurses to undertake research into their own practice and to develop the academic discipline of nursing.

In 1969 Jean handed over the project to become the RCN's director of education, then perceived as the leading post in nursing education in the UK. But following an internal reorganisation, she resigned – and was immediately snapped up by Manchester University. She remained there, as professor of nursing and head of department, until her retirement in 1988. She was able not only to initiate some of the most exciting developments in nursing – the first degree in nursing, the first professorial nursing unit, the first joint appointments for nurses between a university and a hospital, the development of "grand theory" in nursing, the introduction of the systematic problem-solving approach known as "the nursing process" – but also to act as support and mentor to many who were struggling in a still-hostile environment.

My personal debt to Jean is immense. I was a rebellious and arrogant young student nurse, and she took me under her wing, listened patiently to my sometimes wild ideas, supported me when those ideas got me into trouble and encouraged me to pursue them. Later, she guided and encouraged my research and academic career. I am proud to have been one of her "babies".

Jean's influence extended far beyond Manchester. Between 1976 and 1979 she served as a member of the royal commission on the NHS. She was one of the first fellows of the RCN, and the first chair of the RCN representative body (now called RCN congress). In the House of Lords, she was a member of four select committees. She served on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and was national president of the Girls' Brigade. She was a committed Christian, a staunch member of her local church, and between 1990 and 1994 a member of the general synod of the Church of England. She took particular interest in the hospice movement, and was until 2008 vice-president of St Ann's hospice in Heald Green, Cheshire.

• Jean Kennedy McFarlane, Lady McFarlane of Llandaff, nurse, born 1 April 1926; died 13 May 2012

Home secretary becomes most senior politician to take part in Out4Marriage campaign

Theresa May, the Conservative home secretary, has pledged her personal support for gay marriage, becoming the most senior politician yet to take part in a cross-party video campaign supporting a change to the law.

The video, in which May says she believes that "marriage should be for everyone", was released on the day it emerged that David Cameron has decided to give his MPs a free vote on the government's plans to legalise gay marriage, thereby avoiding a showdown with Conservative colleagues, including some ministers, strongly opposed to the idea.

A free vote will allow MPs and ministers to vote according to their conscience rather than being directed by party whips. The shadow Commons leader, Angela Eagle, criticised the move, saying it now meant Cameron's "flagship policy on equal rights" would have to rely on Labour backing to become law.

The Home Office began a formal consultation on how civil marriage will be reformed in England and Wales earlier this year, but the proposals have proved controversial for some within Cameron's government, with the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, being the first cabinet minister to state his opposition.

In a video for the Out4Marriage campaign, released on Thursday, May said she recognised the "strong views on both sides of this argument", and intended to listen to them in consultation. But the home secretary, who also serves as minister for women and equalities, went on: "I believe in marriage. I believe marriage is a really important institution; it's one of the most important institutions we have.

"Marriage binds us together, it brings stability, I think marriage makes us stronger. But I believe also in commitment and in fidelity in marriage, I think these are good things and we should enable them to flourish.

"That's why I believe if two people care for each other, if they love each other, if they want to commit to each other and spend the rest of their lives together then they should be able to get married and marriage should be for everyone and that's why I'm coming Out4Marriage."

The Out4Marriage campaign records YouTube videos with politicians, celebrities, religious leaders and members of the public explaining why they support changing the law. The campaign says it has so far secured the support of 10 Conservatives, including ministers Nick Herbert and Quentin Blunt, who are expected to take part in videos next week.

A spokesperson said it also has "a few more cabinet ministers" – both Liberal Democrat and Conservative – lined up for filming.

Mike Buonaiuto of Out4Marriage said the organisation was grateful May had given her "very significant backing" to the campaign.

Other supporters so far include Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, and the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, as well as Sir Richard Branson and girl group The Saturdays.

Cameron is personally supportive. A vote is unlikely to arise in the next year since a bill for the reform of civil marriage was not included in the Queen's speech earlier this month, but Downing Street stressed again this week the government's determination to get it onto the statute book before the end of the parliament.

The Commons leader, Sir George Young, confirmed on Thursday that a vote on this issue would be treated as a matter of conscience and would not be whipped.

Paterson became the first cabinet minister to air his opposition. In a letter to a constituent, recently published on the PoliticsHome website, he wrote: "Having considered this matter carefully, I am afraid that I have come to the decision not to support gay marriage."

Opposition to the plans within government has also been aired by Tim Loughton, the children's minister, who last week made the case for the issue of gay marriage to be a matter of personal conscience "rather than of party political line or institutionalised agenda".

He wrote on his website: "The prime minister has clearly set out his reasons for being in favour of gay marriage and I respect his right to do so. But, I particularly respect his acknowledgement that this should be a matter of personal beliefs and that Conservative MPs at least will be free to make up their own minds.

"As such, I have to say that my instinct is not to support these proposals and, as it stands, I intend to vote against measures to legalise gay marriage".

Knitted bathing costumes and weird 1960s fashions in trigger lively debate among those whose minds are winding down

Yorkshire's exceptional collection of home movies has found a new use, in the treatment of elderly people whose minds are not what they were.

Working with the Alzheimer's Society, Methodist Homes for the Aged and Age UK, the Yorkshire Film Archive has created a 'memory bank' of clips collated according to subjects which stimulated most enthusiasm in trials.

At 62, you begin to take an increasing interest in such bright ideas, and there is much fun to be had in speculating about my generation's likely choice of films to stave off the worst effects of dementia. The current ones, which feature in the first package from the bank, include knitted bathing costumes, free school milk, 1960s fashion mistakes, favourite fireworks and clocking on at work.

Sue Howard, director of the archive says:

They became the immediate hot topics for conversations after test audiences watched the films. As one Memory Bank user involved in the pilot told us: 'It's like the years peeling back – the memories are all still there; they just need a trigger.'

The bank has been divided into themed sections on Holidays, Schooldays, Sporting Fun, Working Life and Domestic Life after the trials at St Leonard's hospice in York, care homes across the region and lively get-together organisations such as the Dementia Cafe Group in Penistone. Howard says:

Memory Bank is about opening up our collections to a huge range of older people, many of whom face a number of age-related challenges, and who often have very few opportunities to see and enjoy films such as these.

Reminiscence therapy and memory work play an invaluable role in improving a sense of personal identity and wellbeing, and stimulating communication and sociability. We're fortunate to have a fantastic visual record of everyday life over the decades – just the sort of films that trigger all of our collective memories.

The gerontologist Prof Dianne Willcocks calls the bank:

a compelling and fun way for people to reclaim their lived past – and to share it with family, friends and carers alike. It works both for those living with dementia and for those simply living with rich memories.

It may also contain me. We gave our family's home movies to the archive some years ago. They go back to the 1920s and I think that they do indeed contain at least one knitted bathing costume.

And talking of those, check out this film from 1926 in which they feature, kindly provided on YouTube by the British Film Institute.

By 2025 an estimated 5 million Britons will have diabetes – yet local NHS bodies are not being held to account for poor care

Eleven years ago the Department of Health set out a vision for diabetes services in England to be delivered by 2013. This vision offered a thoughtful approach to diabetes from diagnosis all the way through to managing complications and almost everyone involved with the condition agrees it was a good thing.

Yet with only one year to go, those agreed standards of care are light years away from being a reality. Why? It's a question Diabetes UK has been asking repeatedly but only successive governments and local health bosses can answer.

The diabetes timebomb isn't so much ticking as exploding around us. Since 1996, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK has doubled, and the stark truth is that 24,000 people with diabetes a year are dying unnecessarily early as a result of poor healthcare.

It's not that there's not enough money. The problem is that the money is being spent on the wrong things. The NHS is pouring massive amounts into treating avoidable diabetes complications such as blindness, amputation, stroke and heart disease, which are devastating for the people affected and expensive for taxpayers. In fact, an estimated 80% of NHS diabetes spending goes on complications. Yet, with early diagnosis and good care most of these complications are avoidable.

The NHS should be concentrating on making sure people with diabetes get the checks and services that can prevent complications happening in the first place. Effective risk assessment programmes should be a priority, to identify people at risk of Type 2 diabetes and prevent the progression of the condition.

But while incidence of Type 2 diabetes is higher in areas of high deprivation, in terms of diabetes outcomes it doesn't seem to matter if you live in a poorer area or a more affluent one. Your chances of getting good care are less affected by the size of your wallet than how good local health services happen to be. There is a postcode lottery around diabetes care. In terms of both the percentage of people getting the nine checks and services recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) and the number of people developing diabetes-related complications, there are huge variations from place to place.

Take rates of lower-limb amputations. Recent research shows huge regional variation in the rates for people with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Some of the places with the highest amputation rates in people with diabetes are actually relatively affluent. On the other hand, Newham in East London is an example of an area with high levels of deprivation that offers really good footcare for people with diabetes.

The variation is likely to come down to how local services are organised. Regular foot checks are needed to pick up problems early on and specialist teams need to be in place to ensure that any foot problems are dealt with immediately. It seems to be whether or not these systems are in place, rather than how wealthy your area is, that determines the amputation rate among people with diabetes.

It is not just the case with feet. While the fact that just half of people with diabetes are not getting the basic checks and services they need, in the worst performing area just 6% of people are getting this level of care. The lack of specialist diabetes teams, shortages of diabetes specialist nurses, and poor co-ordination between GPs and specialist services are all factors.

All this raises big questions about why local NHS bodies are not being held to account for letting down the people with diabetes in their area. As the new National Audit Office report on diabetes healthcare makes clear, the fact that thousands of people are dying unnecessarily early because of their care is just not good enough.

After 10 years of pressing for improvement, we are pleased that the government's own value-for-money watchdog has backed up our concerns. With the planned shakeup to the NHS it is even more crucial that new systems are put in place to address failure at a local level.

It is unacceptable that crossing over into your neighbouring county could make all the difference to the quality of life, and the likelihood of premature death, for people with diabetes. It is estimated that by 2025 there will be 5 million people with diabetes. They all need, and are entitled to, the best possible healthcare. We cannot wait any longer. The government needs to ensure that all areas of the country provide excellent standards, and urgent action is needed now.

• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

News, comment, blogposts and tweets across the sector

5.24pm: Lizzi Easterbrook writes

The sunshine is beckoning so that's almost all from us for today.

Before we go, those of you interested in public health might want to apply for our next free event looking at the changing roles of commissioners when it comes to public health. We'll be looking at how to work effectively with stakeholders and deliver services tailored to the needs of the community.

The event is open to attendees from health, local and central government, charities, social enterprises and industry and consists of a panel debate followed by discussion groups. You can find out more about the event and apply to attend here.

4.11pm: Jessica Fuhl writes

Did you know that as well as dementia awareness week, mental health awareness week and NHS diversity week that it is also national condom week?

The Lesbian and Gay Foundation have produced short videos to pass on the safe sex message this week, called 'quickies'.

Peter Boyle, sexual health coordinator at The Lesbian & Gay Foundation said:

Gay and bisexual men are bombarded with safer sex messages on an almost daily basis, and sometimes the message just gets lost. LGF Quickies are bite-sized, two minute videos that get the message across quickly and in an engaging way. People can watch them online, on their smartphone, or on their tablet. And we're asking guys to spread the word.

You can catch the videos online here.

2.09pm: Lizzi Easterbrook writes

The Department of Health, amongst others, are tweeting from the Dementia Challenge Champion's Group this afternoon.

You can follow updates from the day using #dementiachallenge

1.46pm: Clare Horton writes

A BBC story about the NHS apparently spending £17 on gluten free pizza bases is doing the rounds on Twitter today. It's worth referring back to a similar story from last year, when tabloids reported that the health service was spending £32 on loaves of bread. The FullFact site notes that the story was "half baked" and the Daily Mail later published a correction, as in fact the loaves cost £2.82.

1.07pm: Lizzi Easterbrook writes

A quick round up of the lunchtime news.

The designs for the redevelopment of Alder Hey Hospital are due to be unveiled later today. The new hospital will have 270 beds, including 48 critical care beds for patients in ICU, HDU and Burns and will be built in Springfield Park. Louise Shepherd, chief executive at Alder Hey said:

The designs for the hospital have been inspired by children and it was a drawing from one of our patients which inspired the design we will see today.

The Telegraph is reporting that women on the pill are 'more likely' to fall pregnant than those on long acting, reversible methods.

And on the site, our live discussion about engaging patients in clinical research is now underway. You can put your questions to the panel and there have already been some interesting points raised about co-production and ensuring that research reflects the needs of patients.

11.27am: Jessica Fuhl writes

One of our colleagues has pointed us in the direction of a new Department of Health cinema advert for their 'Start4Life' campaign.

A blog on their website explains:

The film partnership with Start4Life explores many of the issues parents-to-be experience and encourages them to protect the health of their baby during pregnancy by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Start4Life adverts are running in all cinemas where the film is being shown.

You can watch the advert here:

The Start4Life website has been revamped to provide advice and top tips for a healthy pregnancy also, take a look at it here.

10.08am: Jessica Fuhl writes

We're running an online live discussion on the network today about engaging patients in research. It starts at midday, but feel free to post your questions ahead of the debate.

We've already had a few commments already, including one from Carol Rhodes:

I am the patient and public coordinator at Keele University where they do research into osteoarthritis and back pain. We have quite an active group of about 30 patients aged from 50 - 82 who really get involved here in advising on research projects.
So I will be interested to see what comments come from the public on their perceptions of involvement in research, particularly in different health areas.
I look forward to reading the comments.

9.27am: Clare Horton writes

Good morning and welcome to the daily round-up from the Guardian healthcare network, a digest of news, comment, blogposts and tweets across the sector.

Yesterday's blog came from the King's Fund NHS Leadership and Management Summit, if you missed it - or if you were at the event, do have a read back through the day's events.

On the network this morning, Edward Davie, Labour councillor and chair of Lambeth council health scrutiny committee, writes about the BMA ballot of doctors on whether to take industrial action over pension reforms. Health professionals have an advantage over other public sector pension scheme members, he says, adding:

This is a good starting position for doctors. The NHS reforms aside, the government has shown, from forest sell-offs to jets on aircraft carriers, it will perform embarrassing U-turns if the public clamour is great enough.
The hugely unpopular NHS reforms provide doctors with the best chance of winning because without their co-operation the change to the new system cannot work. Doctors should strike by actually working more, for patient care, in the time saved by withdrawing from the transition work to the new arrangements under the Health and Social Care Act.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that babies born by caesarean section are twice as likely as those born naturally to become obese, according a US study of 1,255 mothers and their babies, reported in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal.

And Amelia Gentleman reports that GPs voted unanimously in favour of scrapping the controversial test that determines who is eligible for sickness benefits, to prevent harming "some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society".

Making headlines elsewhere this morning, the BBC reports that a growing number of NHS trusts are placing restrictions on access to eye surgery, according to figures obtained by the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

And the Telegraph says married men eat healthily at home to keep the peace – but love to gorge on junk food when away from their wives. It says a new study suggests doctors should realise wives play a central role in what men eat at home and trying to get men involved too.

If there's an event, report, story or blogpost you'd like to share, please add a comment below the line, or tweet us @Gdnhealthcare.

Joe Simpson engages in online spat with 'vile' GCSE students after they rubbished his book Touching the Void

Even the most successful authors have to suffer the occasional fit of spite from critics and readers. Few, however, have to contend with the twin indignities of being branded a "crevasse wanker" and having their accounts of preternatural mountain endurance rubbished by sulky teens.

Fortunately, as befits a man who has outshuffled the Grim Reaper in both the Andes and the Himalayas – and who chose an automated alcohol dispenser as his luxury on Desert Island Discs so that he could drink himself to death rather than endure a protracted insular exile – Joe Simpson is not the sort to sulk.

When a gaggle of GCSE students used Twitter to fume at being made to study Simpson's account of how he spent days crawling off a Peruvian mountain with a broken leg, he decided to engage with his adolescent critics.

Asked by one why he had chosen to call the book Touching the Void, he tweeted back: "I wanted to piss kids off having to do exams on it!"

His response did not impress his questioner, who replied: "Bet I know more about how you put tension in the first chapter than you do."

"I just write the shit," came the response.

Not all the tweets he received were so polite.

"Your book is shit and you should feel bad," wrote one. "Three chapters of crawling didn't inspire me to write about your book in my exam," confessed another. "It was rather boring really."

Other correspondents were even more blunt: "YOUR BOOK IS THE REASON MY ENTIRE YEAR WILL FAIL OUR ENGLISH EXAM!!," screeched one. "LEARN TO WRITE ILLITERATE FOOL!"

By far the most lively was Simpson's exchange with a young Turk studying English.

"I wrote you a few months ago. I said I had an exam about your book," ran his plaintive tweet. "I failed because of you. You owe to me!"

Oddly, Simpson's reply – "Nope, you're just crap at English" – failed to smooth things over.

"I am a student who learn English," he shot back. "But you are a stupid who fell down on the mountain. We are waiting you in Turkey!"

By Wednesday night, however, the author appeared to be tiring of the abuse and tweeted: "A lovely day of children writhing in their hellish hormonal middens … good night vile innocents may you all seethe in bilious acid pus ... "

Despite the tone of the tweets, Simpson told the Guardian he had actually found them quite funny. "If I'm brutally frank about it," he said, "I really don't give a toss what people think about what they think I went through. Nobody has the first idea, really.

"The book and the film were as accurate as they could be and they don't come anywhere near describing what it was like. [But] a bunch of spotty schoolkids who can't read and can't pass their exams – and who start calling me a 'crevasse wanker' – I find really quite amusing actually."

Although he dismissed most of his correspondents as "kids who are stamping their feet and displaying their hormones", he pointed out that he had received more than a few tweets from students praising the book.

Simpson also said the Twitter abuse was not a new phenomenon, and seemed to follow the pattern of exams.

"It's been happening for ages," he said. "At one point I thought it was a great honour to have your book slated for the GCSE and now I'm beginning to think it's a pain in the arse, frankly."

If the worst came to the worst he said, he might "block the little fuckers" or stop tweeting altogether.

Still, he mused, there was an odd irony to the situation – albeit one that was probably lost on his critics. "I've never had children; I made it specifically impossible to have children – and I'm being hassled by children," he said. "Maybe it serves me right."

British woman now critically ill in hospital was seen by GP and visited A&E before being diagnosed

A hospital has launched an inquiry into how a woman now diagnosed with rabies and seriously ill at another specialist hospital was treated by its accident and emergency department and reportedly sent home on two occasions.

The woman, who lives in Bexley, south London, had been bitten by a dog while abroad and is now at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in central London. Relatives of the woman, said to be in her 50s, and health staff who saw her before the diagnosis have been offered vaccination against the disease, which is extremely rare in Britain but common in south Asia, where she had recently visited.

Darent Valley hospital in Dartford, Kent, confirmed that the woman had visited its A&E department and that five staff were being vaccinated as a precaution.

It said in a statement: "The UK is rabies free. If a patient does present at hospital with vague symptoms, a doctor is unlikely to consider rabies as a diagnosis unless the patient highlights wild animal contact in an at-risk country. The hospital responded to the information supplied by the patient at the time.

"We have launched an investigation into the circumstances around this lady's attendance at the emergency department and we are working closely with the Health Protection Agency."

The woman is reported by the Sun newspaper to be of Indian ethnic origin and had been in India with her husband when she was bitten by a puppy.

The Hospital for Tropical Diseases, based at University College Hospital, said it was "currently looking after a British patient diagnosed with rabies following a trip abroad. The patient is in a serious condition.

"We would like to reassure our patients, visitors and staff that there is no risk to them as a result of this case."

The South London Healthcare NHS trust, responsible for the Queen Elizabeth hospital, said: "A patient attended the emergency department at Queen Elizabeth hospital, Woolwich, last Friday, with possible rabies.

"The Health Protection Agency was notified and measures to ensure the immediate safety and prompt treatment of the patient were agreed. The patient was later transferred to a specialist centre for infectious diseases where rabies was confirmed.

"The HPA has stressed that there is no risk to the general public as a result of this case or to patients and visitors at our hospital. Despite there being tens of thousands of rabies cases each year worldwide, there have been no documented laboratory confirmed cases of human-to-human spread. Therefore the risk to other humans or animals from a patient with rabies is considered negligible.

"However, to take every possible precaution, on the advice of the HPA, healthcare staff who had close contact with the patient whilst they were in our emergency department have been reassured, assessed and offered vaccination if appropriate.

"We are very proud of our staff for the professional manner with which they provided care for this patient, and our thoughts are with the patient and their family at this time."

As a matter of routine, if the woman had any pets at home, tests would have been carried out on them to check the virus had not been passed on, a spokesman from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

The NHS in Bexley sought to reassure other patients and people living there that "there is no risk to their health as a result of this particular case". In a statement to the Guardian, it said health professionals who had been in contact with the patient had been vaccinated as a precaution.

Since 1946, 24 cases of rabies have been reported in the UK, all imported. Only four cases have occurred since 2000. Two unconnected cases occurred in 2001, imported from the Philippines and Nigeria. A case in 2005 followed a dog bite in India and a case in December 2008 followed a dog bite in South Africa. In November 2002, David McRae, who had handled bats for years, died in Scotland from a rabies-like infection caused by a bat virus.

A new Liberal Democrat London assembly member has exposed the hollowness of the Tory mayor's pledge on employment in the housing sector

Liberal Democrat newcomer Stephen Knight scored a good hit on Boris Johnson during the first City Hall of his second term on Wednesday. He was also given his first taste of the way Mayor Jolly Goodfun responds when members of the London Assembly - or anyone else, for that matter - catch him out.

Knight questioned the arithmetic behind the Mayor's election plans for "creating 200,000 new jobs over the next four years." This pledge was part of the Johnson "nine point plan," which is already legendary for, among other things, containing a made-up figure about the amount of council tax Mayor Johnson spared Londoners during his first four years in power. Knight now demonstrated that the "200,000 new jobs" claim is at the very least semi-bogus.

Johnson's manifesto pledged that around half of these "new" jobs - 104,000 (see page eight) would be created "through my housing programme to deliver around 55,000 affordable homes by 2015" (see page nine).

Knight pointed out that the mayor's draft revised housing strategy for 2011-2015 anticipates delivering only 87 more affordable homes per year in London than were delivered per year in 2008-11 - 13,710 compared with 13,623. The core of his case was that the construction of this additional 87 homes per year for four years seems unlikely to create work in the construction trade for an additional 104,000 people - an average 25,500 each year - during that time.

You can see the problem: divide 25,500 "new" jobs by 87 new homes and you get 293 "new" jobs per new home. Knight observed that the government's estimate for the number of additional jobs created by each increase in the number of homes being built - an estimate Johnson has accepted - is actually no more than two. By this reckoning, the number of "new" jobs the Mayor will be "creating" for each 87 more homes built will be a rather modest 174.

Before that, Knight showed that in any case the figure of 104,000 was a blatant case of "quadruple counting." In the first place it pretends that around 25,000 people aren't already employed in building affordable homes in London, which they are. In the second, it pretends that these 25,000 or so jobs can repeatedly be termed "new" ones "created" for every year that they continue to exist - hence the work of imagination distilled in the number 104,000.

"You seem to have counted each year's employment as a new job," said Knight. "Do you think that most Londoners consider that you will have four jobs as mayor of London over the term of this office or just the one?"

The mayor replied that Knight was "miscounting," but failed to impress when asked to elaborate. Later, he reverted to type by misrepresenting what Knight had said and mocking him on the strength of it. This got a few guffaws from the diminished Conservative contingent in the chamber, but did not conceal the rather large falsehood that the Lib Dem AM had exposed.

The episode also provided a reminder of the inadequacy of Mayor Johnson's approach to the funding of affordable homes in London at a time when the need for them is escalating alarmingly. Rather than pretending that his programme will create tens of thousands of new jobs he should be upbraiding the government for not investing in a far larger funding programme - one that would stand a chance of making a much bigger contribution to tackling London's deepening housing crisis but really could create more than a handful, if that, of genuinely new jobs too.

Private sector service providers joining forces with local authorities need to understand the values of council staff to remain competitive

In a previous post I explored the possibility of establishing a joint venture between employees and a private sector organisation. Now, there is some evidence that this is happening. Joint ventures free employees from the restrictions of state employment and furnish them with the skills and investment of private sector partners.

It is important to establish what a joint venture is supposed to achieve, and what the private sector partner and the employees are able to bring to the table.

Does the partner want to use this as a way of building market share in public services, with an end goal of shedding employee participation? Or does it have a longer term view of profiting from providing support even after the initial phase, acting not as a provider of services to the consumer but as a supporter of the provider?

Employees also need to identify a reason for going down this route, rather than establishing a structure where the responsibilities and opportunities are shared among employees alone.

Is the long-term strategy to exit the joint venture and become a free-standing, employee-owned enterprise? This would enable the employees to learn from the experience of the private-sector organisation and take the business forward on their own.

In local government, the first joint venture of this kind is taking place with Hammersmith and Fulham, City of Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea councils searching for a private sector partner to join an employee mutual and act as a joint venture provider of education support.

Under recent legislation these services will no longer be commissioned by the local authority, leaving an open market for schools to buy the services from whichever provider offers them the most attractive option. Instead of simply selling the department to a trade purchaser, the councils seem to be giving the employees a piece of the action and allowing them to have a say in their own futures.

In the open market in which the employee mutual will be trading, councils likely to benefit from having a big brother to aid the transition from being a deficit funded provider of a public service to being a business trading in education support services. But at what point does that transition come to an end, and on what terms does that schism happen?

If the future is to be one of exclusive employee ownership, the terms on which the private sector partner can be asked to exit must be agreed at the outset. These will include time, price and future relationship, including use of know how and any confidential information that could potentially be used in any competitive way.

As the three London councils will be involved in the procurement of the private sector partner, they must take steps to take into account the wishes of the employees who will have to work with them. Any partner considering this kind of investment will be keen to understand the attitude of employees: how they are organised and how are decisions made; have they been asked, or even encouraged to think about, the process?

Once again it comes down to the question of whether councils are empowering employees to take control. This sort of leadership is likely to be highly productive and valued with a private sector partner, and could drive the business to the schism point and beyond.

Ross Griffiths is a partner at Cobbetts LLP

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Ed Miliband is now more popular (or perhaps more accurately "less unpopular") than David Cameron according to recent polls, - and as our parliamentary sketchwriter Simon Hoggart notes, his performances in the Commons are getting stronger. Even the usually hostile Spectator is starting to take seriously the prospect of a Miliband premiership.

In the studio to discuss Ed Miliband's change in fortunes are Guardian columnists Gaby Hinsliff and Zoe Williams and the Observer's Nick Cohen.

Also up for discussion this week is the enduring appeal of an EU referendum. Ed Miliband has been floating the possibility of including an in/out vote on Europe in the next party manifesto. But could the tactic designed to destabilise the Tories backfire?

Plus we look at the Beecroft report on employment, in which a prominent Conservative donor argues that workers should be made easier to fire in order to make them more appealing to hire.

Leave your thoughts below.

Join our experts, from 1pm to 3pm, to discuss the issue of fraud in the voluntary sector and how charities should respond

Concern about fraud in the voluntary sector is increasing. Figures show that in 2010-11, charites lost around 1.7% of their annual income to financial crime.

But it is not just the monetary effects of fraud that are wreaking havoc. As Sam Younger, chief executive of the Charity Commission, writes: "These crimes cause distress to trustees, staff, volunteers and beneficiaries. They may damage the charity's reputation and affect fundraising prospects. Our research into public trust and confidence in charities shows that bad news about a single charity can detriment confidence in the sector as a whole."

With this in mind, our live Q&A will look at:

• Common types of fraud

• Measures to prevent fraud

• How to appropriately handle cases of fraud

• What help and support is available

You can leave your views and questions in the comments section below, or come back to join the discussion live from 1pm to 3pm on Tuesday 29 May. To join our experts on the panel, email Kate Hodge.

If you'd like to read more about charity fraud, check out this blog by Marcus McCaffrey from Baker Tilly.

Expert panel

Geoff Eales – senior manager of the investigations and enforcement team, the Charity Commission

Melora Jezierska – policy and public affairs officer, Charity Finance Group (CFG)

Cath Lee – chief executive, Small Charities Coalition

Elizabeth Chamberlain – policy officer, NCVO

David Tyler – chief executive, Community Matters

Anne Davis – head of charity and voluntary sector, The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the voluntary sector network, click here.

Training for inexperienced landlords would support the private rented sector, but rogue agents must be driven out

As someone in the slightly unusual position of being both an experienced landlord and a long-term tenant, I probably have a more balanced view of the private rental market than most.

I can certainly tell you that it's a very rare landlord who deserves the modern robber baron stereotype. Most of us are just trying to supplement failing pensions, or keep a foothold on our local property ladder while seeking employment elsewhere during the recession.

The vast majority of the UK's residential landlords own only one investment property, and this is increasingly likely to have been the landlord's own much-loved and well-maintained former home. Tenants, meanwhile, are buffeted by market forces. Benefits claimant soon find there is no room for them in the private sector inn, and even the most expensive lets can prove problematic. My husband and I pay almost £40,000 a year for the lease of our family house, but our patience is still continually tested by our landlord's inexperience and her letting agent's incompetence.

Inexperience is a problem easily solved. Landlords' mistakes tend to be errors of ignorance and omission, rather than malice or greed. Nonetheless, their blunders can have lethal consequences, which is why initiatives such as Tessa Shepperson's School for Landlords, and Shelter's campaign for private landlord licences are both so welcome.

Once all residential landlords are trained, fully aware of their responsibilities and – crucially – accredited by an independent body that tenants can trust, they will be much better equipped to manage their leases safely, fairly and efficiently. We could draw our own conclusions about those landlords who refused certification and the ultimate sanction of prosecution would continue to safeguard the public.

Professional incompetence is harder to control. Even poor landlords have a financial interest in keeping their tenants content. Rogue letting agents, however, have no such incentive; their business is most profitable when tenants keep moving. Unlike landlords, agents are also difficult to sue.

There is no proficiency or indemnity requirement for letting agents and their industry is not answerable to the Property Ombudsman. It remains unfettered by legislation or regulation and is a honeypot to shady characters.

When the law finally caught up with Middlesborough agent Peter Hall, it was because he had failed to declare his very extensive criminal record on his consumer credit licence. The Office of Fair Trading, which had brought the high court case against him, succeeded merely in revoking the licence; it was powerless to prevent him from continuing to work in lettings.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) positions itself as the trustworthy alternative to the industry's cowboys, but should also be treated with caution by landlords and tenants alike. It claims to be a "reputable and recognised" training and regulatory body, and its slick marketing mimics the most august professional institutions.

Yet unlike the Law Society, for example, ARLA has no minimum standards of qualification, behaviour, or integrity. It fails to CRB check its members and bestows awards with a remarkable generosity.

I have met ARLA members so unfamiliar with the concept of exclusive occupation that they risk criminal charges every time they fail to give a tenant adequate notice of access requests, conflate notice with consent to access, or leave a last-minute voicemail "assuming it's okay to let myself in with the key."

The worst penalty it can dispense is expulsion from ARLA membership – hardly an effective deterrent when membership is not a practising requirement for letting agents.

Landlords constantly grumble about the extortionate cost of finder's fees, management fees, renewal fees and ever more inventive one-off charges, but tend to accept them as unavoidable business expenses. HMRC allows them to be offset against rental income, which makes them easier to swallow.

By contrast, tenants find letting agency charges a very bitter pill. Credit checks and reference verification at the start of a tenancy can cost hundreds of pounds yet any knowledgeable landlord can carry out the same checks for less than £20. Once a tenant is in place, agents can charge landlords additional fees for inspections, check-ins, check-outs, attendance and waiting – some scheduling as many poorly-timed, non-routine visits as they can.

Letting agents will also take every opportunity to negotiate rent increases. The commission they charge your landlord is a direct percentage of your rent, and as your direct debits grow, so does their profit. Rent increases rarely reflect local inflation, but what the letting agent thinks the tenant can afford.

It is not the rising cost of buy-to-let mortgages pushing up rents, but escalating letting agency fees for both landlords and tenants. Landlords can bypass these charges by choosing to self-manage, but tenants may feel they have little alternative.

In Scotland, it is unlawful for agents to charge tenants any of these fees. Shelter is helping tenants reclaim the fees paid to unscrupulous letting agents over the years, and the campaign may well put many of the industry's sharks out of business.

Unfortunately, tenants in England and Wales are not protected in the same way. It is difficult to understand why. There is still no requirement for either landlords or letting agents to undergo CRB vetting, there is still no mechanism for taking legal action against a landlord or letting agent that does not first involve losing the roof over your head. The coalition government initially promised statutory regulation of letting and managing agents, but the proposal was inexplicably dropped. Perhaps David Cameron and Nick Clegg were too busy laughing all the way to the bank to worry about those who can't afford to buy – or even feel safe – in their homes.

The Landlord is a private sector landlord with a small portfolio of rental properties, and a private tenant

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Cabinet secretary tells MPs that 10% of poorly-performing Whitehall staff could face the axe under tough new plans

More than 40,000 civil servants who are deemed to be performing poorly will be at risk of losing their jobs under a tougher performance management regime being introduced by the government.

Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood told MPs on the Commons public administration select committee that the forthcoming white paper on civil service reform, due to be published in June, would tackle the issue of poor performance in the civil service by identifying and potentially getting rid of the bottom 10% of poorly-perfoming officials.

Earlier this month, the Daily Telegraph reported that civil service managers would be "forced" to rank the performance of all their staff under a more rigorous assessment regime. Heywood said the plans to improve performance management would not go as far as that, but said it was legitimate to assess civil servants' performance. "We need to be tougher with ourselves on how we tackle poor performance," said Heywood. "If we identify the bottom 10% and give them a year to turn around and if not, it would be time for them to go."

He added that "nothing annoys the civil service itself more than bad performers staying on year after year. We won't push them out of the door, but we will address this."

Heywood said many departments were using performance management techniques, but the new regime would be "much firmer". The plans will apply to the 434,000 officials who work for government departments, agencies and quangos.

But Heywood denied that it was government policy to slash the number of civil servants and said Downing Street "shared the anger" over reports suggesting the white paper could see cuts of up to 90% of Whitehall jobs. "That does not reflect the policy of the government," he said.

Heywood also said he had asked Jon Day, who in March became the chair of the joint intelligence committee, to look at whether there was enough long-term thinking across Whitehall. "I think there is a case for the civil service upping its game on strategic thinking," he said.

MPs on the committee asked about reported tensions at the top of the government machine, following the recent resignation of Ian Watmore, the Cabinet Office permanent secretary. Heywood strongly denied that Watmore's decision to leave was due to any conflict with the prime minster's former adviser Steve Hilton.

"The way Steve operates is to challenge; he's a very challenging person," said Heywood, who added that Watmore had done a "good job" in building the Cabinet Office efficiency and reform group, which he described as "pacy". A successor to Watmore will be appointed at the end of July or early in the autumn, he said.

Heywood said Watmore's departure would prompt a "short, sharp review" of the structures in place in the Cabinet Office and Downing Street, but said he did not expect any major change.

He also defended the decision to split the role of cabinet secretary in two, between himself and Sir Bob Kerslake, the head of the civil service. The two men are driven to work together, which gives them a good opportunity to catch up at the beginning of each day, he said. "Would the relationship with Bob work if we didn't get into a car together every morning? It would survive," he said, describing Kerslake as a "tough, visible leader" and adding "we work a lot together. It's certainly not dependent on car journeys."

The split in roles had provided "extra bandwidth", said Heywood. "It gives me an opportunity to serve the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the cabinet as a whole, while Bob can focus on the capacity-building side of the civil service. It is working very well."

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Married men may be eating healthily at home only to 'keep the peace', according to researchers. Is your partner pressuring you to eat healthily?

We asked Guardian readers whether they would be joining in with the Queen's diamond jubilee celebrations or staying away

Anna Walker, UK Uncut member 'This is a national sedative'

David Cameron wants to see "the mother of all parties". The Queen is old – celebrate! The Olympics are in town – celebrate! But whatever you do, don't remember the unemployment figures, the disabled people whose benefits are being stopped, the number of services you use that are being scrapped or that this government has driven us back into recession. Don't dissent. Don't resist. Don't protest. If you do, you are unpatriotic, a killjoy, a "dangerous anarchist".

UK Uncut also wants to party – but for completely different reasons. We want to undermine the government's propaganda. The idea of UK Uncut holding street parties of resistance came from anger that the government will use jubilee celebrations as a national sedative. We want people to remember and to resist the cuts being rammed through by the government.

We want to remind people that cuts and austerity are not an economic necessity, but a political choice. If we stopped tax-dodging by corporations and the rich (£95bn/year), ended taxpayer subsidies to banks (£100bn/year) or introduced a wealth tax to raise money from the £4 trillion held by the richest in our society (£800bn), we could cover the whole of the government's cuts programme (around £100bn) and help pay for the creation of jobs and services, providing welfare to all. As opposed to the sedative effect of jubilee parties, UK Uncut's street parties on 26 May are intended to wake up new ideas, new connections and new collective power. They are about defiance and the definition of a future that we want to see, a future shaped by us all, not by a cabinet of out-of-touch millionaires. Everyone's invited.

Tam Dougan aka jediperson 'A very English village fete'

We will have a street party for the whole parish to celebrate the jubilee, a village fete. It will be free. The road beside the green will be closed from midday to midnight. All the usual suspects – the school, the church, the Women's Institute, the cricket and football clubs – have organised events, though I'm personally not quite sure what a WI "washing line game" is. We will also be having a photo opportunity followed by a communal picnic, as well as a drama production followed by a pig roast and an evening of live music.

It will kick off with a bell-ringing session and ends with a raffle. It all seems so very English. Included will be the "throwing a teddy from the tower" event – an homage to the times when certain members of royalty were imprisoned in various towers, and occasionally ejected from them. Defenestration is surprisingly common in history.

However in one respect our diamond jubilee event will be a poor shadow of our 1995 VE day celebration where one villager managed to borrow a tank for the day. Our vicar, Kerry, dressed up as Winston Churchill, complete with mega-cigar glued to his positively grinning mouth, and pulled off a victory "rumble" through the village atop the tank. The photo still takes pride of place, beside the portrait of the queen, in the village hall. Glory days. These days a village notable would not dare to appear, smoking, at a major public event.

Rebecca Smith, aka Steorra 'Most of us struggle daily. It's not right'

In 1997, when the Queen's stoic response (or lack thereof) to Diana's death had the tabloids running polls on how many people thought Diana had been murdered, the nation revolted. Down with royals. Down with this shady, unelected outfit.

Turns out, all it takes is a photogenic young woman and a balding-but-you-still-would prince to turn it all around. People coo over Kate Middleton's clothes and eyebrows; it's cool to love the royals. The BBC produces sycophantic, biased documentaries on the Queen – a person who is paid to shake hands, like some overcompensated border collie.

What's happened to us? Most of us struggle daily in this recession to juggle often meagre finances to pay rent or a mortgage, council tax, bus fare, utilities and food costs. But don't despair: Will and Kate have a completely refurbished multimillion-pound flat for their first home as a married couple. Phew. They deserve it, after all that hard work.

Why aren't I celebrating? Because it's not fair. It's not right. We don't live in a democracy, and in 2012, that's shocking. It hasn't been an easy 12 months for this republican, but I've scrimped, saved and called in a favour from an American friend. During the jubilee weekend, my friends and I will be driving along the Californian coast, enjoying the sun and the Pacific, the lack of bunting and the tantalising illusion of New World freedom.

Claire Sheppard, posts as ClaireShepps 'Why not revel in it?'

I never knew I was such a fan of the monarchy until the royal wedding last year. Spent watching on the big screens in Hyde Park, we were all impressed with the effort put into throwing a good party and the amazing atmosphere by such a huge crowd of suddenly patriotic Londoners.

Spurred on by the success, I am determined to celebrate the jubilee just as the royals have intended: standing by the riverside, frantically waving a union flag at the hundreds of boats sailing past, whooping until I lose my voice, and generally feeling like I'm really part of something. Yes, it will be me lapping up the tasteless merchandising, drinking copious amount of champagne and then going back for more at the Buck Pal balcony appearance.

It kicks off a summer of equally patriotic events for the country this year, so why not revel in it? People try to argue with me about the rights and wrongs of having a monarchy, but to be honest all I really care about is the Queen: I think she's remarkable. She was my age when she ascended the throne and has dedicated her life to representing our country. She has seen tumultuous times and has faced wavering popularity, but represents constancy and stability. She may believe it's her divine right to be Queen, but it's not a life she chose. When a woman has spent 60 years ruling, travelling, advising, meeting – working – and is still going strong at 86, why shouldn't such a life be celebrated?

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Parents of disabled children take out loans for basics

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Today's top SocietyGuardian stories

• A third of parents of disabled children took out loans to buy basics last year
• Cable dismisses Beecroft proposals for outsourced public sector workers
• Around 2,400 senior civil servants being paid 'off-payroll'
• GPs call for work capability assessment to be scrapped
• Newborn twins' hospital death avoidable, says mother
• UK to resist giving prisoners the vote despite European court ruling
• Rabies case confirmed in UK
• Babies born by caesarean section more likely to become obese, say researchers
• Doortje Braeken: We should teach young people about more than the mechanics of sex
• John Sutherland: Iain Duncan Smith's plan for 'suspected' alcoholics won't work
All today's SocietyGuardian stories

On the Guardian Professional Networks

• Metropolitan police goes live with mobile fingerprint scanners
• How can public services make the most of their properties?
• A day in the life of a foster carer
• Doctors have the upper hand in the pension dispute, says Edward Davie
• Marcelle Speller, chief executive of Localgiving.com, explains how online marketing and donation tools can help grassroots organisations survive the current economic difficulties
• David Hall, architect of the reform of council housing finance, identifies the old issues arising from the new funding system

On my radar ...

• SocietyGuardian writer Amelia Gentleman, who has won the Orwell prize for journalism, for her "delicate and respectful" reporting on issues including carers, welfare and youth justice. You can find the archive or her reports here. Commiserations to Kaliya Franklin, who writes at Benefit Scrounging Scum, who was nominated in the blogging category. That prize went to Rangers Tax Case blog for its efforts to investigate the financial scandal surrounding the football club.

• An excellent piece on social mobility by Suzanne Moore, who argues that the dream of moving on up manifests only in popular culture not in actuality:

Doublethink – "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them" – is vital for those nominally "in charge" right now. Thus we have Nick Clegg and Michael Gove and their cohort gnawing at the edge of this problem with genuine concern while enacting policies that take us even further away from the grail of social mobility. Clegg rightly raises the issue of snobbery but, for the Tories, the very mention of class is awkward. Thus Eric Pickles is wheeled out as the guarantor of authentic Tory diversity. The reality, of course, is that class is not loosening but tightening its grip via the education system that is systematically choking off the exit routes for anyone not born to rule.
I really don't need another public schoolboy brandishing his mea culpa. These people can move over and make way for some bright sparks if they mean it. After a lifetime of being patronised, made to feel that I should have a bath or bow down to their je ne sais quoi, middle-class "guilt" is part of this self-indulgent pretence.
Many of my friends, like me, were socially mobile, and we did not do it through bleedin' grammar schools, with which the right are obsessed. We did it through further education, which led on to degrees. As we speak, further education is being silently decimated in the name of "vocational training".

• Some number crunching on the Liberal Conspiracy blog, in which writer Unity looks at Andrew Lansley's plan to concentrate NHS funding in areas with the largest elderly populations. She compares Office for National Statistics population estimates for local authorities in England for people over retirement age and health deprivation indices for each local authority and concludes:

Age-based funding would give Kensington and Chelsea a boost in funding of around 16% while Richmond and Twickenham could expect an increase of just over 30%.
Meanwhile, Tower Hamlets would see its funding cut by 19-20%%, as would Newham and Hackney, while the worst hit areas in England would be Knowsley, Liverpool, Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent, all of which could expect to see anything from a fifth to a quarter of their current funding heading south – literally.
By using age to determine allocation of health funding, Andrew Lansley is not-so-subtly shifting money from poorer, Labour areas to richer Conservative areas, even when there's no evidence that people in latter areas have higher health needs.

For the Independent, Jeremy Laurance urges another look at the details:

The most deprived parts of England may have the highest rates of death relative to their populations. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have the greatest need for healthcare. The highest rates of chronic illness are actually to be found in areas with older, more affluent populations – because it is the elderly who get sick.

• A curious tale from the Sutton Guardian, which reports that a GP has apologised to care services minister Paul Burstow over his daughter's comments about the MP on Twitter. Jessica Freeman, the daughter of Dr Howard Freeman, accused Burstow of "slating" her father, who is leading a review of health services in south-west London. A spokesperson for the review told the Sutton Guardian:

The teenage daughter of one of the GPs leading BSBV got carried away on Twitter supporting her father, without him being aware.
He has discussed this with her and she is very sorry for any upset or embarrassment she may have inadvertently caused and apologises to Paul Burstow.
She has assured her father there will be no recurrence.

(thanks to Adrian Short for the link, who points out that the Twitter account has now been deleted. "A particularly insidious form of digital and social exclusion courtesy of the local #NHS," he says.)

• A heartwarming story about a nine-year-old Scottish girl who has been campaigning for better school dinners. Martha Payne, who's earned the support of Jamie Oliver, started her Never Seconds blog to show photos and vital statistics about her lunch each day. The blog has been seen by more than a million people worldwide, and children from countries including Japan and Taiwan have shared pictures of their dinners with Martha. The Seattle-based Grist site reports that as a result of the blog, Martha's dad had a meeting with the local council, which has agreed to let pupils have unlimited salad, fruit, and bread. (thanks to Mary Hamilton for the link)

Other news

• BBC: Re-offending rates reach record level
• Children & Young People Now: Quarter of councils plan cuts to deaf children's support services
• Community Care: Social workers reveal reality of adoption scorecards
• Independent: Government U-turn to boost jobs for disabled youngsters
• Inside Housing: Shapps: housing supply will not meet demand
• LocalGov.co.uk: Neill calls for pay transparency in local government
• Telegraph: Public money 'systematically misused' by A4e
• Third Sector: Charity Commission scheme for school merger created 'unnecessary risks', says charity tribunal

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Identifying, measuring and demonstrating social value

Tuesday 12 June, Kings Cross, London

The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 highlights the need for the public sector to ensure suppliers can demonstrate social, economic and environmental concerns are at the heart of public sector contracts.This seminar looks at the importance of measurement and assessment techniques, embedding social values through tendering and contract management, and a variety of evaluation and monitoring tools.

Scrutiny: making an impact

Tuesday 26 June, Kings Cross, London

This interactive seminar challenges traditional approaches to scrutiny, demonstrating in-depth questioning techniques and exploring the use of video evidence. It also considers the difference between a finding and a recommendation, how to word recommendations so they can't be ignored and work through good practice to evaluate each scrutiny process.

Making the most of social media for social housing

Friday 29 June, Kings Cross, London

This overview of social media channels will show you how to use them to maximum effect, with clear, practical examples of ways to save money, improve your communications and form a social media campaign

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