25 July 2008
Health minister Ivan Lewis has announced the 25 local authority schemes that will share the £80m Extra Care Housing Fund for 2008—2011. The fund is paid to councils to help them provide specialised purpose-built housing for older people and others with care needs. 'Extra care housing will give people a choice about how and where they choose to spend their later life,' Lewis said, as he announced the winning bids on July 21. 'Too often I hear of cases where a couple who have been together for over 50 years are forced apart because one requires care and has no choice but to enter residential or nursing care, leaving their partner at home,' he said. The Department of Health is now committed to allocating £227m to local authorities for extra care housing between 2004 and 2010.
The government plans to be the first in the world to make all its computers carbon-neutral. On July 16, Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson announced 18 measures to change civil servants' habits, including using computers that turn off automatically, reusing equipment and auditing data centres for energy efficiency. 'Worldwide, computers are responsible for the same quantity of carbon emissions as the airline industry,' said Watson.
A £2.7bn investment programme aimed at transforming the way Revenue and Customs works might not pay off in full, the National Audit Office has said. In a report published on July 18, the NAO said R&C had spent £851m on the reform, with estimated savings of £2.4bn. But most of this had come from the Gershon efficiency review and not from the new programme, the report said. It added that estimates of additional tax yield from new programmes were volatile.
Kent County Council leader Paul Carter has been elected chair of the South East England Regional Assembly. He replaces Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire, who stood down after three years. Carter, a Conservative, pledged to continue working with government while using his role to oppose its bid to transfer assembly planning powers to the region's unelected development agency. 'We have opposed the transfer of planning powers away from the leadership of elected councillors all
along and will continue to fight, to ensure any new regional arrangements have a strong democratic focus,' he said. 'It is important that the regional assembly provides a cohesive group that represents the Southeast on these important strategic issues.'
The O2 arena, a central part of plans to regenerate the Greenwich Peninsula, has become a highly successful entertainment venue that has boosted local employment, according to the National Audit Office. But housing development in the area is taking longer than originally expected, and financial returns to the taxpayer are likely to be lower as a result, the NAO found. In a report published on July 16, it says that housebuilding is two years behind the original forecasts. The delay increases the risk that English Partnerships might not meet its forecast of 4,250 housing units by 2016. NAO chief Tim Burr said: 'English Partnerships needs to safeguard returns to the taxpayer.'
Former education secretary Charles Clarke has said there is a strong case for extending user charges in health, education, transport and social care to help meet rising demands and expectations. In a paper published by the consultancy KPMG, Clarke said the principle could apply to 'non-core' NHS treatments and a 'rational system' of education charges to reduce costs to the general taxpayer.
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