The top charity and society stories from across the media.
1. Slum UK: housing crisis that shames the nation (The Independent)
Housing conditions in Britain are among the worst in Western Europe and cost the nation about 7bn a year by adding to the pressure on the NHS and other public services, according to a major study to be published today.
2. Access to cancer scans restricted (The Independent)
Health managers are restricting access to potentially life-saving scans that diagnose diseases like cancer in an attempt to save money.
3.Commissioning is damaging the voluntary sector, says NCIA founder (Third Sector)
Andy Benson of the National Coalition for Independent Action tells NCVO conference the commissioning of public services is threatening the independence of the sector
4. CAF donors more generous than ever despite downturn (Civil Society)
Major donors that give to charity through CAF Charitable Trusts donated more than 100m last financial year, the highest amount ever and a jump of 25 per cent on the year before.
5. New 10 million local anti-crime funding in England and Wales (UK Fundraising)
The Government's Home Office, working with the Community Development Foundation, has started accepting applications to its new Community Action Against Crime: Innovation Fund.
6. A quarter of National Citizen Service places were not taken up (Third Sector)
Almost a quarter of places in the first National Citizen Service pilot programmes went unfilled, according to figures given to parliament yesterday by Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society.
7. U2's Bono defend's Apple's Steve Jobs' lack of philanthropy (The Irish Times)
Jobs has a staunch defender in his old friend Bono
8. Eight-month suspended sentence for man who threatened to kill Ben Summerskill (Third Sector)
Anthony Ryan of Liverpool emailed gay rights charity Stonewall to say he would put a bullet in the head of its chief executive
9. 500,000 diabetics risk blindness by not having annual eye tests, charity warns (The Mirror)
AT least half a million people with diabetes are risking blindness by not having eye tests.
10. David Walliams' serious stomach bug hinders Thames charity swim (The Metro)
It's day four of David Walliams' charity river swim and he's falling behind schedule after coming down with a serious dose of 'Thames tummy'.
I agree entirely with the point raesid by Costas. Among the two priorities raesid it is the first one that needs the most urgent attention, that of refroming the judiciary. Without an efficiewnt court system all other reforms will become ineffective. The need for growth as a vehicle that would take Greece out of the current crisis is tautological. The debate about whether to remain or not in the euro zone is important, but it will remain academic unless there is a concerted effort (with the help of the EU in this case) to fight corruption. To do that most of the energy and effort has to be spent on reforming the judiciary. The rules of the game are such that whoever “screams the loudest” has better access to the media and the benefit of the judiciary system that is inherently incapable of ensuring a framework on which economic reforms can take place. Without contracts that are enforceable for all the parties involved, it will be futile to introduce reforms. The latter will be unravelled by the inability of the courts to enforce these contracts. For the new reality to become understood as something that requires new bold reforms to open up highly regulated markets and allow for productivity convergence between the public and private sectors, people need to be convinced that the rules of the game apply to all concerned. Until now as we speak, any attempt to bring individuals to justice who have either stolen public funds by not returning huge sums of collected VAT to the government, let alone the known income tax evaders, only results cases that are pushed into the future as these individuals are allowed to walk. The excuse here is that the judiciary is too overburdened to deal with these cases effectively and promptly. I am afraid that unless this government or any government deals with that aspect of the broken system, any reforms will never be implemented. To have any chance of success, let alone any chance to reach a climate for economic growth, there has to be a framework for enforcing contracts that is recognized and respected by all by imposing stiff penalties to all those who violate their side of the contract, whether public officials involved in corruption cases or entrepreneurs not returning the sums of VAT that they have collected on behalf of the government.One may counter, that Greece was growing until 2008 at reasonably healthy rates with the same judiciary and the same lack of contract enforceability system. Yet, even though we all recognize the reasons behind this consumption led growth engineered by easy credit, which led to the current crisis, it is the asymmetry between the upturn and downturn that obscured any need for reform. An expanding economic pie conferred benefits to all, even though these benefits also created “built in” destabilizers that now confront us all. I think, given the state of corruption as the result of lack of contract enforceability, the main reform that at this point that needs to take place, is the reform of the judiciary, for anything else to have any chance of success.
8/22/2012 4:49:53 PM