Chancellor orders asset freezing action against two terrorist groups

Mar 24: Chancellor Gordon Brown today instructed the Bank of England, as agent for Her Majesty's Treasury, to direct financial institutions that any funds which they hold for or on behalf of five senior members of Hamas must be frozen. The individuals are; Musa Abu Marzouk, Imad Khalil Al-Alami, Usama Hamdan, Khalid Mishaal and Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

This action has been taken because the Treasury have reasonable grounds for suspecting that four of the individuals are, or may be, persons who facilitate or participate in the commission of acts of terrorism and one, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, is or may be a person who
commits, facilitates or participates in such acts.

In addition, the Chancellor has instructed the Bank of England to add to its list of individuals and terrorist groups subject to an asset freeze the names "Kadek" and "Kongra-Gel" as aliases of the terrorist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which is already subject to such a freeze.

The UK has already taken extensive action to combat the financing of terrorism, including:

* Both before and after September 11, 2001 the UK froze a total of around £70 million of terrorist assets. The bulk of these assets have now been unfrozen, and made available to the legitimate government in Afghanistan.

* At present, 38 bank accounts are currently frozen in UK institutions under Treasury powers to implement UN measures against terrorist financing.

* New legal powers to target terrorist funds have been introduced, including the Terrorism Act 2000, the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 and Orders in Council implementing UN Security Council Resolutions 1373 and 1390.

* The UK has so far funded £3.65 million of counter-terrorist training abroad. UK financial investigators continue to work closely with their counterparts in the United States, Europe and in other countries.

Chancellor Gordon Brown said:

"The UK has been a leading country in implementing UN freezes of terrorist assets and taking appropriate domestic action. And I can announce that I have today instructed the Bank of England, under the Terrorism Order, to add further names to the list of those whose assets are to be frozen, including two aliases of a Kurdish terrorist group and five senior members of Hamas." -Keralamonitor.com

£3.5 billion boost for new affordable housing

Mar 24: The Government has today announced a major new affordable housebuilding programme worth nearly £3.5 billion over the next two years.

The funding, announced by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, has been allocated to the Housing Corporation's Approved Development Programme and should deliver 67,000 new affordable homes across the country. In addition English Partnership's London Wide initiative will provide 2,000 key worker homes across the capital during the next 2 - 3 years.

The cash injection follows yesterday's launch of the £690m Key Worker Living programme which will help key workers to buy or rent a home in London and the wider South East, where the high cost of housing is undermining recruitment and retention in education, health and community safety.

John Prescott said:

"The Government has doubled funding for affordable housing since 1997. In addition to working with the sector and looking in the Spending Review at how we can encourage efficiency, for the first time we have given the Housing Corporation approval for a two-year programme. This will provide greater stability and more certainty for housing associations, helping them to provide homes where they are needed most.

"The Sustainable Communities Plan committed to delivering more affordable homes, in particular housing for those who work in front line public sector jobs. The London Wide Initiative builds on the new Key Worker Living programme and will help us meet this pledge".

English Partnership's London Wide Initiative commits to delivering some 3,500 houses across London through a pilot scheme with private sector developers. The initial pilot scheme, for which brownfield sites have been targeted, will include a mixture of housing tenures, such as homes for low cost home ownership, homes for affordable rent and homes for sale at market value. -Keralamonitor.com

 

£50M single fund for young people with drug problems

Mar 24: A £50 million single pot fund has been created to ensure young people get drug treatment, education and early intervention where it is needed, faster and more effectively, the Home Office announced today.

£50 million has been merged into one fund which Drug Action Teams can spend specifically on under-19's. The fund pulls together money from the Home Office, departments for Health and Education and the Youth Justice Board and forms part of the total £155 million available this year for young people's substance misuse.

The new single pot will be used to fund a whole range of substance misuse work from education, to early intervention through to treatment and will allow better planning and commissioning of drugs services in each local area.

Speaking at the third national Young People's Substance Misuse conference in Leeds, Home Office Drugs Minister Caroline Flint said:

"Getting and keeping young people away from drugs is the highest priority of the Government's Drug Strategy. Drug Action Teams will now be able to apply for one grant, rather than six or seven, to fund
all their young people's treatment needs - something which the DATs themselves asked us to change. This will cut bureaucracy and make sure young people get the help they need more quickly and effectively.

"Young people who use drugs are very much in the minority and for those who need advice the Government have created FRANK, a source for children and their parents for information about all drugs. In February FRANK received 35,000 calls - that's an average of almost 1,150 calls a day.

"We want to reduce the number of people taking drugs. Education, prevention and treatment all work and we will continue to try to reduce the number of young people who go on to become serious drug users. More than 4,000 pupils in the North West and East Midlands are taking part in Blueprint classes - the biggest research programme into drug education ever to be run in this country.

"Last year 16,000 vulnerable young people received support for drug problems and we want to increase that to 50,000 by 2006. The key is to intervene early and Positive Futures, our sports programme which runs in the most deprived areas, does just that. Since it began in 2000, 35,000 young people have participated and many have gone back to school, found a job or entered training."

Figures for 2002/03 show that class A drug use among young people (16 to 24 year olds) has been broadly stable since 1996 with recent falls in class A drug use, particularly ecstasy. In 2002/03 around 5.4 per cent of young people had used ecstasy in the past 12 months - a reduction of 21 per cent on the previous year.

The Home Office is also today publishing two research reports:

"Understanding problem drug use among young people accessing drug services" and "Vulnerability and involvement in drug use and sex work". -Keralamonitor.com

Alun Michael launches drive on rural pensioner poverty with £1.25M fund for voluntary groups

Mar 24: Pensioners suffering financial hardship in rural areas will receive fresh encouragement to take up benefits and allowances to which they are entitled through a new £1.25m fund launched by Rural Affairs
minister Alun Michael.

"Evidence suggests the elderly form the biggest single group of rural residents suffering financial hardship. One of our key priorities for rural communities is to help them develop local capacity to provide support for the individuals in most need of assistance," Mr Michael said in a speech to the National Council of Voluntary Organisations in London today.

The £1.25m fund will be available over two years to a range of voluntary and community organisations, and is launched jointly with the Department for Work and Pensions, whose Partnership Fund tackles social exclusion nationally among older people.

Defra's contribution will be targeted at the most deprived parts of rural England. These include areas such as East Lindsay in Lincolnshire, Bolsover in Derbyshire, Penwith & Kerrier in Cornwall, Copeland in Cumbria and Wear Valley in County Durham.

The fund exists with a view to helping organisations reach eligible older people, and encourage them to claim benefits including pension credit, attendance allowance, carers allowance and council tax benefit.

Alun Michael said: "This government has made great strides in helping those who are in most need of help - the young, the old or the infirm.

"A lot of work has been focussed in urban areas, but while the numbers are smaller there are people living in poverty within rural areas.

"This fund allows Defra to play its part in targeting help for those most in need - our pensioners.

"Voluntary organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, Help the Aged and many others have an important part to play in getting our message across - that there is help available if people are able to come forward and claim what is rightly theirs." -Keralamonitor.com

Hewitt launches drive to stamp out workplace bullies

Mar 24: Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt today announced the world's largest project to stamp out bullying and discrimination at work.

The trade union Amicus will lead the project, worth £1.8m, and will work with some of Britain's biggest employers to develop practical guidance to help all employers tackle bullying.

Half the project's funding - almost £1m - will come from the DTI's Strategic Partnership Fund, which helps strengthen employer-employee relationships and improve business performance. It is believed to be the largest study ever, anywhere in the world, of discrimination at work.

The project will provide support, advice and training to organisations trying to deal with bullying by:

* training employees as counsellors and investigators of bullying and harassment;
* devising and promoting a voluntary charter on 'dignity at work';

* promoting examples of excellent employers in the UK and lessons to learn;
* producing a benchmarking tool enabling organisations to measure their success in achieving dignity; and

* producing a 'ban bullying' pack.

Speaking at a conference in London organised by Stonewall, the gay equality organisation, Ms. Hewitt said:

"We must tackle discrimination from the cradle to the grave. People's lives should not be made a misery by bigots fuelled by hate and ignorance."

"For too many people discrimination begins at school. And for many, the discrimination, harassment, victimization and violence that they experience at school is something they have to deal with through their whole lives - particularly in the workplace.

"The best employers already know prejudice stops talented individuals reaching their full potential and this is bad for business. Equality and economic success go hand in hand.

"I congratulate the ten partners who have already joined Amicus and urge many more to get on board and stamp out bullying in British workplaces."

Chris Ball, National Secretary of Amicus, said:

"We're delighted the Government shares our concerns about combating workplace bullying and is prepared to work with us to eradicate it. Of course working in partnership has to be the best approach.

"I'm convinced we'll find very many employers willing to work with us to develop human respect and dignity as the appropriate denominator in all workplace relationships."

The project has ten partners including British Aerospace, Royal Mail, Legal and General, and British Telecom, Remploy, and will be supported by Government agencies such as Acas and the Health and Safety Executive.

The promotion of dignity at work can have several business benefits, including:

* time spent on promotion of dignity at work is more productive than time spent on dealing with complaints of bullying and/or harassment;

* getting rid of discrimination can reduce in the number of grievance cases and the time and money dedicated to processing them; and

* employers can make productivity improvements through improved morale along with reduced sick leave and absenteeism.

Ben Summerskill, the Chief Executive of Stonewall, said:

"We warmly welcome this initiative. Bullying and harassment still blight the working lives of thousands of gay people in the UK workforce." -Keralamonitor.com

New report shows dramatic progress on heart disease

Reid sets out next steps to further improve cardiac services

Mar 24: Health Secretary John Reid today published a new report showing massive progress in the treatment of coronary heart disease.

The report - Winning the War on Heart Disease - reveals that deaths from cardiovascular disease fell by more than 23 per cent between 1995/97 and 2000/02.

It says that the treatment of heart attack patients has been revolutionised in the past four years. Eight in 10 heart attack patients received life-saving thrombolysis treatment within 30 minutes of hospital arrival in 2003 - compared to less than four in 10 in 2000.

And the report says it's expected there'll be no heart patients waiting over six months for an operation by the end of March 2004 - compared to over 2,700 waiting that long in 2002.

John Reid said:

"Seven years ago, cardiac services were in a terrible state. Patients could wait years for diagnosis and over two years for surgery.

"Few people suffering a heart attack were getting the right treatment at the right time and those needing life-saving drugs did so through good fortune rather than a good system.

"Today's report shows that, thanks to the hard work of NHS staff, we're making real progress in delivering better cardiac services. Fewer people are dying and emergency care is vastly improved."

John Reid announced a package of measures to build on this success:

- £1 million to scope the possibility of providing a national 24/7

primary angioplasty service - a procedure to unblock the arteries - on hospital admission, which if implemented would be the first of its kind on the world;

- from April 2005, for the first time patients will be given the choice of where they have surgery as soon as they're told that they need an operation - instead of having to wait six months for that option as at present; and,

- £20m to provide new cardiac facilities in Dorset & Somerset and Newcastle Primary Care Trusts - bringing spending on new or expanded heart surgery hospitals to £600m.

John Reid said:

"Today's report shows that we've made excellent progress. Recent years have too often been about catching up after decades of under-investment.

"We have now turned the corner, but we're committed to improving services further. We need to ensure that every heart attack patient receives optimal treatment and that progress is consistent across the country. There is much further to go, but tackling heart disease remains a top priority."

Welcoming the report, Professor Sir Charles George, of the British Heart Foundation, said:

"The National Service Framework is helping to effect some big changes in the way coronary heart disease is treated in the UK.

"There have been some significant improvements in the availability of rapid access chest pain clinics for people with new symptoms. When someone is thought to have had a heart attack, confirmation of diagnosis and application of thrombolytic therapy is much quicker.
And the improvement in secondary prevention after a heart attack has been particularly impressive." -Keralamonitor.com

New reports show that standards of care for older people in care homes are improving

Mar 24: New regulations and inspections for care homes, to protect older people, are raising standards of care according to an independent report from the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) published today.

How do we care provides information about the capacity and quality of care homes and children's homes registered with the NCSC. Main findings of the report are:

more than 50 per cent of standards are met by almost 68 per cent of registered care homes for older people;
the number of places in registered care homes for older people increased between April 2002 and October 2003; and the number of older people's homes meeting all the standards has improved from 25 percent in 2002/03 to 48 per cent 2003/4

Welcoming the NCSC report, Health Minister Stephen Ladyman said:

"The NCSC report refutes the claim that there is a crisis in the care home market. It's clear now that the number of registered care home places for older people increased between 2002 and 2003 and there is no evidence of a national shortage of places.

"This NCSC report also shows that new regulations and inspections set by Government are needed to ensure vulnerable people are safeguarded and are forcing up standards. But it's also clear there is room for improvement which is why the standards and inspections have to stay in place.

"And we must never forget over 80 per cent of older people say they want to be cared for in their own home - since 1998 there has been a 34 per cent increase in households receiving intensive home care. As older people exercise their choice by demanding alternatives to care homes, more care homes may find they will have to close due to a reduction in demand.

"We are ensuring older people can have real independence by providing councils with an extra £1billion a year to expand home care services, community equipment, services for carers, intermediate care and extra care housing. Extra care housing provides older people with their own front door, access to meals, domestic support, leisure and recreation facilities with 24-hour security and support from social care and health teams where necessary. I predict that extra care housing will become an increasingly attractive choice for older people as an alternative to residential care in the future.

"We expect the new Commission for Social Care Inspection, which takes over from the NCSC in April, to work with homes that failed to meet the regulations in order to continue raising standards." -Keralamonitor.com

Wicks - Helping DC Scheme make the most of their pension

Mar 24: The Government are considering whether to remove Limited Price Indexation from defined contribution schemes in order to help scheme members make the most of their pension.

Speaking today at the Institute of Economic Affairs Conference, Malcolm Wicks, Pensions Minister said:

"As the cost of DC indexation falls on the individual saver, LPI affects the size of the annuity they have to purchase, leaving many with a lower starting pension than would otherwise have been the case.

"The annuity choices that people make affect their income in retirement and therefore their quality of life. It is vital that we promote a better understanding of the choices that individuals need to make about annuities.

"We know that the removal of LPI on DC schemes would be welcomed by many scheme members and many within the pensions industry. We have always said that we welcome contributions and advice and are prepared to listen. That is why we will be giving this issue our careful consideration." -Keralamonitor.com