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Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
• Charities scared to speak out amid cuts, says report
• Ed Miliband urged to start 'bigger and blunter' debate on public spending
• Charities press for ringfencing of money for vulnerable people
• MPs call for two alcohol-free days each week and clearer guidelines on drinking
• Stepping Hill hospital nurse bailed
• Sue Marsh: Disabled people listened to on welfare plans? It's a government sham
• Peter Preston: Stephen Lawrence and the melting pot of south London
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
The pick of the weekend's SocietyGuardian news and comment
• Barbara Ellen: David Cameron, shame on you, for this 'brave' attack on nurses
• Public sector pensions dispute at 'pivotal moment', says Serwotka
• Boris Johnson attacks planned cuts to disability payments
All Sunday's SocietyGuardian news and comment
All Saturday's SocietyGuardian news and comment
Other news
• BBC: Ambulance break row talks set to continue
• Children & Young People Now: Ofsted tightens training requirement for registered childminders
• Community Care: Don't forget needs of older children in care, urges charity
• Independent: The Big Society emerges at last – as a musical
• Inside Housing: Affordable housing registrations falter
• Public Finance: Business rate plans 'not fit for sudden change'
• Telegraph: More than half of hospital beds cut were for elderly patients
• Third Sector: Work Programme contract bans charities from 'attracting adverse publicity'
On my radar ...
• A major new report on the government's welfare proposals, Responsible Reform, published today by disability campaigners including Sue Marsh and Kaliya Franklin. Researched, written, funded and supported by disabled people, the report (which is being dubbed the #spartacusreport on Twitter) reveals the overwhelming opposition to the coalition's planned reforms disability living allowance. Activists submitted Freedom of Information requests to gain access to the the responses to the government consultation on its reform plans and found the "overwhelming majority" were opposed to reform. Most surprisingly, the most high profile voice of dissent came from the London mayor, Boris Johnson, who warned in his submission that reforms could:
... potentially condemn the parents of disabled children and young people, and the children themselves, to a life of financial hardship rather than financial assistance.
The Broken of Britain's blog says:
Much of the [welfare reform bill] is predicated on the assumption that sick and disabled people are workshy scroungers who need to be forced into the workplace. There are no workable proposals to alter working practices to fit with the demands of sickness and disability, no incentives for employers to make it more affordable and attractive to employ sick or disabled people, just ever increasing conditionality and sanctions to cure us of the scrounging nature we so clearly inherit with our medical conditions.
On the TUC's Touchstone blog, Richard Exell adds his support to the campaign, writing:
The Welfare Reform Bill has almost finished its passage through the House of Lords. This is our last chance to reach the Lib Dem and Crossbench peers who can stop this huge cut in its tracks.
Meanwhile, Welfare Advocate tweets this graph, which shows that disabled adults are twice as likely to be on low income, and have been throughout the last decade. (thanks to Pat's Petition for the link)
• Question of the day, posed by the We Love Local Government blog: Do we have a failing social care system or just a failing funding model? Following an open letter from charities, faith-based groups and senior figures in the NHS and local government in the Telegraph last week calling for social care reform, the writer of this post says:
I'm no social worker but whenever we look at the council budget it is hard to avoid the feeling that the social care element of the budget is a ticking time bomb that at any time might just blow up a council's budget; especially when cuts are being made.
However, I don't think social care is failing; I think the funding of social care within the local government budget is failing.
That is not to say there are not regulatory or market problems or that the structure of adult social care could not be strengthened or indeed that the standard of care in some areas could not be improved. I just have a lot of time for the people I know who do that job and the work they do and can't help but feel that describing that aspect of it as failing does them, and the services they provide, a massive dis-service.
• An amusing response to the prime minister's proposals to overhaul nursing from Michael O'Shea on Twitter:
I've worked as nurse in the NHS since 79 and every year we have a "Radical Shake Up"
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• As the Panel of Independence in the Voluntary Sector publishes its first assessment, Dame Anne Owers urges the sector to remain independent despite the pressures of restricted funding and increased demand
• Successful policies will need greater change in Whitehall: David Walker urges the Institute for Government to keep stacking up the ammunition
• Why do dropouts make good social entrepreneurs, asks Claire Taylor, marketing and community director of THNK, the Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership
• The chief executive of Home Group explains why the organisation is happy to publish its expenditure over £500 – and calls on all housing providers to do the same
• Councils may look to local asset backed vehicles to solve the problem of funding infrastructure. Localis chief executive Alex Thomson explains
• South Yorkshire police have been using mobile social media to engage with protesters in Sheffield
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From Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
From Same Difference
From The Mental Elf
From We Love Local Government
