Public Services Bulletin

1.  IMMIGRANT INFLUX OVERCROWDING OUR SCHOOLS

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23381245-details/Influx%20of%20immigrants%20forces%20council%20to%20build%20four%20new%20schools/article.do

Pressure from an influx of children from East European immigrants
has forced a council to draw up plans to build four new primary
schools.

Bradford council in West Yorkshire, where nearly 5,000 workers
arrived last year, is one of many local authorities experiencing
a shortfall of places in inner-city areas.

Yesterday education chiefs there said two of its existing primary
schools would need to be expanded and four new ones built to cope
with the increased demand for new places.

Bradford has the second highest birth rate of any part of Britain
outside London, and coming on top of that, immigration has left
its school system struggling, it said.

A council report said the high number of births 'has caused a
shortfall in places in some parts of the district when combined
with large numbers of Eastern European workers who are also moving
into the district, sometimes bringing their families with them'.

It added that it had been 'impossible to predict the increase in
numbers of newcomers' and finding places for them is 'becoming much
more difficult'.

Bradford is just one of many local councils reporting that it is
under strain as a result of record levels of immigration from Poland
and other parts of Eastern Europe.

One in five primary school children are now from an ethnic minority,
and some councils have been faced with massive bills to fund extra
support such as interpreters as they are legally obliged to admit
children from European Union member states.

At least 27,000 school-aged youngsters have arrived with their
parents in the UK since ten countries – including Poland, Slovakia
and the Czech Republic - joined the EU on May 1, 2004.

Elsewhere in the country, Wrexham in North Wales has reported that
its schools are facing a similar pressure - around 50 Polish children
started school there in September.

Agnieszka Tenteroba, a Polish teacher working with the newcomers,
said:'First it was the husbands coming to work. People who want to
stay then bring their families so we will have more and more
Polish children in Wrexham.'

Meanwhile in Slough, Berkshire, the council has reported that an
influx of an estimated 10,000 Poles has left it facing going £15million
in the red, with nearly 900 school pupils from non English-speaking
backgrounds.

And in Peterborough, where there were just 22 children of economic
migrants enrolled in secondary schools in January 2004, that has risen
to more than 100 with one secondary school warning it was being
'overwhelmed'.

The Government does not collect figures for the number of children
brought with them by immigrant workers, so officials in Bradford are
having to base their estimates on the number of new National Insurance
permits being issued - 4,650 last year.

The council's executive will now be asked to recommend research into
how to expand school provision to cater for the increased number of
children.

Colin Gill, executive member for children's services, said: 'In those
areas of the district where there are substantial changes in population
size and distribution, we will need to make alterations to ensure that
we provide the right number of primary school places in the right
locations.'

Bradford's birth rate, according to the latest figures, is the fourth
highest in Britain, after Birmingham and the London boroughs of Newham
and Hackney, with much of the growth thought to be within the city's
more established immigrant communities.

2.  'MUSLIMS SHOULD GET SPECIAL HEALTHCARE'

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23381411-details/Muslims+%2527should+get+special+health+care%2527/article.do

Muslims should be provided with faith-based services - including male
circumcision - on the NHS, says one healthcare expert.

Professor Aziz Sheikh is also calling for women patients to see same-sex
medics, better access to prayer facilities in hospitals and more
information so Muslims can avoid alcohol and pig-derived drugs.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, the University of Edinburgh
professor also claims Muslims should be given health advice on attempting
the Hajj pilgrimage-to Mecca which he insisted was a 'religious obligation
and not a holiday'.

The BMJ contrasts his opinions with those of Professor Aneez Esmail,
of Manchester University, who says in another article that it would not
be practical to meet everyone's demands for special services based on
religious identity.

He warned some faith groups might support practices which may be
unacceptable to the majority - such as female circumcision and the refusal
to accept blood transfusions.

3.  EU RAILWAY RULES BAD FOR COMMUTERS

http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/eu-railway-rules-bad-commuters/article-160770

With climate change and environmental issues topping the EU agenda,
there is an increasing focus on the need to develop more energy-efficient
means of transport, including rail.

Work on strengthening the European railway sector has been ongoing over
the past 15 years, with the adoption of two packages of legislation
that aim to open up rail transport to competition and harmonise
standards across Europe.

A third legislative package, aimed at liberalising international
passenger transport and improving passenger-rights protection, was
proposed by the Commission in March 2004 and is currently being
examined by the Parliament in second reading.
Issues:

The third railway package focuses predominantly on international
services and problems related to cross-border operation, despite the
fact that the rules will also, in many cases, be extended to suburban
and regional railways.

This could severely hinder the development of such domestic
short-distance operations, according to rail and public transport
operators.

A new study, conducted by the International Association for Public
Transport (UITP ) in the frame of the European Rail Research Advisory
Group (ERRAC ) and presented on 9 January 2007, reveals that there are
nine times more passengers using commuter and regional rail services
(to carry out short journeys of around 25km on average) than those on
international or long-distance trips.

Short-distance European railways carry nearly seven billion passengers
per year, against 1.25 billion passengers over the past 25 years for
France's TGV, for example.

Despite the importance of this sector, its specificities are being
ignored by EU rules, says the UITP.

A particular concern for the business sector is the Parliament's
decision to extend legislation on international passenger rights and
certification of train crews to all domestic services.

Application of ill-adapted, overly bureaucratic rules could hinder the
development of a transport sector crucial to helping European cities
deal with congestion and pollution problems.

According to UITP figures, the use of regional and commuter trains
helps Europe avoid each year:

* 24 million km of traffic jams;
* 30 million tonnes of CO2, and;
* 1,312 human deaths and 36,800 injuries.

Hans Rat, secretary-general of the International Association for Public
Transport (UITP), said that the EU focused much too much on 'glossy'
trans-European projects, such as high-speed trains. He stressed that it
needed to re-direct its attention towards regional projects that play a
'decisive role' for the revitalisation of cities and the improvement of
public transport services.

Michel Quidort, chairman of the UITP Regional Railway Committee, said:
'The trend to encompass al railways in the same policies and to request
the same inter-operability demands and technical specifications is
hindering the development of regional rail.'

He particularly emphasised that EU rules on passenger rights must not
be applied to regional rail, saying that this issue must be dealt with
inside a contract between the local authority and the local operator.
'The subsidiarity principle must be applied to avoid creating an
impossible bureaucratic situation and to accommodate very specific
local conditions,' he stressed.

Also, on certification of train crew, the UITP believes that the single
driver licence proposed by the Commission is 'in contradiction with the
need to have specific knowledge of the line and the rolling stock'.
Laurent Dauby of the UITP, in charge of the study 'Suburban and
Regional Railway Landscape in Europe', insisted that even if some
recommendations are welcome at the European level, many of the demands
made by European legislation will bring 'zero added-value for the
customer'.

While cautious about demanding the full exclusion of suburban and
regional rail from the third railway package, he insisted on 'at least
a serious economic evaluation to see if it makes sense to include this
segment in the legislation'.

The Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER)
stressed that the application of harmonised passenger rights on a
national level would prove unworkable and urged the EU to respect the
variety of national conditions and railway system realities. It gave an
example: 'Only 3% of the stations in Hungary are physically accessible
to persons with reduced mobility, compared to 75% in the UK. Hungarian
trains are on average nearly 29 years old, and inevitably less reliable
than modern trains in Western Europe…huge investments would be
necessary to achieve the same passengers' rights standards throughout
Europe. The problem is that today, in central and eastern Europe the
money is urgently needed for the basic operation of the system itself.'

However, consumers want the rules applied to all rail services. The
European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) stated: 'We do support the
application of the regulation to every passenger, i.e. international
and national as we think that every passenger should be able to benefit
from the same minimum level of protection across the EU…It would be
difficult to argue that national passengers have more limited rights
compared to international passengers.'

4.  POLICE LET OFF FOREIGN VANDALS

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED09%20Jan%202007%2009%3A42%3A35%3A507

The police officer who told a crime victim two
offenders were not taken to court because they were
jobless foreign nationals with no income is to be
given advice on diversity issues, police have
revealed.

Norfolk police conceded PC John Waterman was wrong to
give such an explanation to a man whose car was
vandalised by criminals and today insisted their
status and nationality was not the reason the men were
given cautions rather than taken to court.

As revealed first by the Evening News, UEA research
student Barry Ferguson received a letter regarding the
case where criminals were caught on CCTV camera
vandalising cars in Magdalen Street. In a letter
explaining why the men would not be prosecuted, PC
Waterman said it was because they were both
unemployed foreign nationals with no income and it was
not in the public interest to pursue due to the
expenses incurred in having a trial. But Norfolk
police today said the officer was wrong to say this.

A force spokesman said: It is not the policy of
Norfolk constabulary, nor is it legal, to administer a
police caution based on someone's ethnicity or level
of income. After careful consideration of the
evidence, it was decided to deal with the offenders by
way of an official police caution. The officer has
been spoken to by senior officers on diversity and
policy issues and how to deal with this if it happens
again. Police said when they interviewed the men,
aged 19 and 29, they also admitted eight other
offences of vandalising cars, so the caution was
effectively an admission of guilt for 10 offences as
opposed to the two police had secured evidence on.
While not a conviction, it will be added to their
police record and can be cited in court should they
re-offend, the spokesman added.

Ian Gibson, Norwich North MP, said: Rather than send
the officer on a diversity course it would be better
if the police sat down and made clear what their
policy is. There should be justice for all and maybe
we need a policy change.

Mr Ferguson, 29, of Magdalen Street, said: I am
dismayed that even though these people were caught in
the act they are getting away with wanton vandalism.
This has nothing to do with the fact they are foreign
nationals - no one should get away with this type of
thing.

What do you think about the issue? Write to Evening
News Letters, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, NR1
1RE, email eveningnewsletters@archant.co.uk

5. HOME OFFICE BUNGLES CRIMINAL DATA

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1986671,00.html

A major row broke out last night between the Home Office and senior police
officers over how more than 500 serious offenders escaped criminal records
vetting despite being convicted of offences around Europe.

Senior police officers revealed the fresh Home Office blunder yesterday
when they told MPs that data on the convictions of Britons abroad
had been sent to the Home Office in London but had simply been left
'sitting in desk files'instead of being put on the police national
computer so it could be used for vetting checks.

The 27,529 paper records containing details of British people convicted
around Europe passed to the Home Office include 525 convicted of more
serious offences. They include five murderers, 28 rapists and attempted
rapists, 29 paedophiles and 17 other sex offenders, and 29 robbers.

A Home Office spokesman said last night that this was 'a serious issue
that is now being remedied' and said it involved a backlog of notification
of crimes committed by British citizens abroad up until early 2006. 'As the
police made clear the case files of all serious offenders in the backlog
have been entered on to the police national computer.' But chief constables
last night said only half of the serious cases have so far actually been
logged: 'We are processing them but it is taking time,' said a spokeswoman
for the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Urgent checks are also to be carried out on whether any of the 525 serious
offenders have applied for jobs and mistakenly been given a clean bill of health
to work with children or vulnerable adults by the Criminal Records Bureau
despite their convictions. The disclosure last night triggered the announcement
of a 'full and immediate' inquiry. The home secretary, John Reid, is to summon
senior police officers and Criminal Records Bureau chiefs to explain what is
being done to deal with the situation.

In the face of opposition charges of a cover-up, Mr Reid had to admit that he
had only learned of the problem after chief police officers had revealed it when
giving evidence to MPs yesterday.

'This fact was not made public earlier because to the best of our knowledge this
matter was not brought to the attention of the home secretary or his ministers
until today, otherwise it would have been highlighted when he listed the reasons
why the department's systems and procedures were not fit for purpose,' said a
Home Office statement last night.

This new criminal records blunder happened after the paper records on cases of
Britons convicted of crimes abroad, mainly in other EU states, was passed to the
Home Office under new EU arrangements to share information on criminal
convictions across Europe. The data relates to crimes dating back to 1999 up
until March 2006 on convictions of British citizens in 15 countries, mainly EU
members. Paul Kernaghan, Hampshire's chief constable and an Acpo spokesman, told
the Commons home affairs select committee that the situation was 'totally
unacceptable' and a new system had been set up last May to try to rectify the
problem. Urgent checks are now going on to see if any have been given clearance
by the Criminal Records Bureau to work with children or vulnerable adults.

'Until the Acpo criminal records office was created someone could go to Germany,
commit a sexual offence and serve a sentence - and this would not be known to
any police officer when they came back to the UK. It would not be known to the
UK courts if they re-offended and it would not be reflected in their sentencing.'

Mr Kernaghan said that was a totally unacceptable position professionally and in
terms of public protection. 'The information was sitting in desk files and not
entered on the PNC. They are working their way through putting serious offenders
on a risk-assessed basis on the PNC.'

The police say that none of the convicted rapists had been notified to the sex
offenders' register: 'If these particular offenders had been the subject of
checks for employment through the Criminal Records Bureau, the search would have
returned a 'no trace'.'

The blunder happened before a new agency - the UK central authority for the
exchange of criminal records - was set up last May. Before that date the
information was sent by other European governments to the Home Office on the
grounds that it was the officially designated 'central authority for mutual
legal assistance'.

6.  ONLY ONE CRIME IN 100 PROSECUTED

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=426065&in_page_id=1770

Just one crime in every hundred now leads to the offender being caught,
charged and punished by the courts, latest statistics reveal.

The Home Office's own figures showed crime on the rise last year and
more criminals being caught by police, yet the numbers being sent before
the court dropped sharply by eight per cent year-on-year.

Opposition critics blamed the dramatic rise in the use of 'summary
justice' - instant fines or cautions and warnings handed out by the
police - and accused the Government of creating an 'arbitrary' justice
system, letting off hundreds of thousands of criminals with punishments
no tougher than a parking ticket.

In the year to June 2006 the British Crime Survey measured 11,016,000
offences against adults living in households in England and Wales - up
from 10,912,000 in 2005.

However an analysis by independent statisticians - accepted by the Home
Office - shows that the British Crime Survey counts only a third of all
crimes as it ignores all offences against businesses including
shoplifting, 'victimless' crimes such as drug possession and any
offences committed against under-16s.

The number of criminals caught and dealt with by police rose by six per
cent year-on-year from 1,428,000 to 1,516,000.

Yet the number of offenders charged and sent before the courts -
magistrates or crown courts -fell by eight per cent from 453,000 to
423,000.

More than 80,000 court cases were dropped or discontinued due to
suspects or witnesses failing to show up, and the number actually
sentenced in courts dropped five per cent from 317,000 to 306,000 - less
than one per cent of the estimated 33million-plus crimes each year.

Most were given fines or community punishments and the number sent to
jail fell from 80,000 to 76,000 last year.

Meanwhile soaring numbers of crimes were diverted into the 'instant'
justice system.

The use of police cautions or on-the-spot fines rose by more than
200,000 year-on-year.

Ministers are encouraging greater use of these rapid punishments even
for relatively serious crimes such as shoplifting, to avoid clogging up
the courts and to ease the prison overcrowding crisis.

The police also tend to favour instant punishments as they involve less
red-tape than a criminal prosecution but still count as 'solved' crimes,
helping them meet Home Office targets.

But critics claim the policy represents an increasingly soft approach
which merely encourages repeat offending, while up to a third of fines
are never paid. The number of fixed penalty notices handed out by police
is rising fast with 146,481 in the year to March, more than double the
previous year's total of 63,639.

Ministers faced fierce criticism recently for extending the use of 80
spot fines - introduced four years ago - to cover shoplifting offences
up to a value of 200.

Since the law on cannabis was relaxed three years ago police have
stopped arresting most users and instead given them a warning - which
counts as a 'detected' offence but carries no criminal record.

Last year 66,000 cannabis users received such warnings instead of being
charged, up from just 39,000 a year earlier.

Numbers of Penalty Notices for Disorder - spot fines for yobbish and
anti-social behaviour - have also rocketed to 110,000 in the year to
March, up from just 49,000 a year earlier.

And the use of cautions by police as an alternative to bringing charges
rocketed by 22 per cent 327,000 year-on-year.

Cautions can be handed out for burglary, assaults and possessing Class A
drugs. Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said: 'It is bad enough that
so many people are committing crimes, it is outrageous that so many
people are getting away with it.

'Labour have consistently undermined our criminal justice system by
effectively decriminalising many crimes.

'The solution is to simplify and reform our criminal justice system so
people can be properly and effectively punished, not to arbitrarily
divert offenders into a system where serious crimes are punished with
the equivalent of a parking ticket or warning note.'

Crime levels have begun rising since John Reid took over as Home
Secretary in May - bringing to an end more than a decade of gradual
falls.

Muggings, low-level violence and drug possession are all on the rise
after the Government relaxed the laws on drinking and cannabis, and
scrapped a high-profile robbery crackdown.

7. PRISON SERVICE DOESN'T KNOW HOW MANY PRISONERS ARE ON THE RUN

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=31332007

The head of the Prison Service has admitted he does not know
how many inmates are on the run from open prisons.

Director general Phil Wheatley said there was no system to count the
number of prisoners who absconded from such jails.

His comments, reported by the BBC, come one day after Derbyshire
Police finally agreed to release the photographs of two convicted
murderers who are on the run after escaping from Sudbury Open Prison
in Derbyshire.

The force had originally claimed releasing the pictures could breach
their human rights.

Mr Wheatley estimated almost 700 offenders absconded in the year to
last April from England's 15 open prisons.

Classed as Category D, open prisons have a more relaxed security
regime.

Mr Wheatley told the BBC the Prison Service did not have an accurate
system for those who were recaptured.

He said he was 'embarrassed' to admit he was unable to provide an
accurate figure because there was no central database for recording
numbers of recaptured prisoners.

Mr Wheatley added that the 'vast majority' of inmates who absconded
were 'arrested promptly'.

This week, the Home Office, replying to a Freedom of Information Act
request, said 401 of the prisoners remained at large when figures were
compiled last May.

A Prison Service spokesman said: 'The absconders are immediately
reported to the police and the necessary information is entered on
individual prisons' locally held databases.

'The Prison Service is taking steps to ensure the information from
those local systems is quality controlled when included nationally.
'Numbers of absconders continue to fall despite the rising prison
population.'

According to the Home Office, open prisons are the 'most effective'
way of ensuring prisoners are ready to rejoin the community before their
release.

Every inmate sent to an open jail is risk assessed and categorised as
a low risk to the public.

It said the number of prisoners who abscond in relation to the prison
population is now at its lowest level for 10 years.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'As the Home Secretary made clear in the
reform documents published last summer there is a problem with the Home
Office statistics and work is under way to improve the quality of Home
Office data and information management by making the information we use
accurate, reliable and relevant.'

8.  ONLY ONE POLICE STATION IN EIGHT OPEN ALL HOURS

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/08/npolice08.xml

Only 13 per cent of police stations - about one in eight - are
open to the public 24 hours a day, a survey by The Daily Telegraph of
the 43 forces in England and Wales has disclosed.

The figure includes the total for the Metropolitan Police, which has
the highest number and proportion of stations open around the clock.
When the Met is removed, the total falls to nine per cent.

More than a third of forces - 18 - have no stations open at all times
and 34 have fewer than five. The non-Met average is
three stations open all hours per force.

Figures for previous years are not kept, but there is wide acceptance
that chief constables - invariably citing economic necessity and the use
of phones to contact police - have reduced opening hours in recent
years.

Last month The Daily Telegraph reported that almost 900 stations had
closed in the past 14 years.

Police chiefs claim that the public does not suffer because there is
still an all-hours response by officers in stations that may not be open
to the public all the time.

But the consequences of the service's retreat from open-door access
was disturbingly illustrated when a businessman, Stephen Langford, 43,
was beaten to death yards from a station in Henley, Oxon, last month.
The station was closed to the public, staff inside did not hear the
attack and Mr Langford was found dying by officers in a patrol car.
The Daily Telegraph obtained station details from force websites, or
directly from their headquarters. The forces classed 1,538 premises as
stations. Of those, 202 - or 13.13 per cent - were said to be open at
all times. Of that total, the Met accounted for 133 stations, 74 of them
open all hours. At 57 per cent, this was the highest proportion in any
force.

The Home Office insists that opening hours are a matter for police,
and the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) says it cannot
comment because decisions are down to individual forces. Both maintain
that the public can ring 999 for assistance.

However, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg,
said: 'The public need to be reassured that the police are accessible
when and wherever needed.

'These alarming statistics show that in large parts of the country
people simply don't have the police stations they expect in their area.'
Jan Berry, the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales,
and others believe the reason for the decline in the number of open all
hours stations is financial. Mrs Berry said: 'It's important that the
police are available for the public when needed; closing police stations
is often a false economy and does nothing to reassure them. Police
stations have become a casualty of an approach by Government and chief
officers who see policing as a business rather than a service.'

She also pointed to research for the Police Federation which showed
that many 'response teams' - police on duty to deal with 999 and other
calls - were 'understaffed, overworked, chasing targets rather than
criminals and sinking in bureaucracy'.

Nick Herbert, the Tory spokesman on police reform, said: 'Forces need
to manage their resources efficiently but there is a danger that closed
stations send the wrong signal to the public. Innovative solutions are
needed, for instance the police sharing outposts with other services to
maintain a reassuring presence.'

It is also clear from the figures that a force can open a substantial
number of stations around the clock. Essex Police has 47 stations with
12 open all hours.

.