Society Daily: 21.09.10

Follow Society Guardian on Twitter Follow Patrick Butler on Twitter Sign up to Society Daily email briefing Today's top Society Guardian stories Doctors and nurses among 1,700 staff sacked at Department of Health Global dementia costs hit £388bn 'Right to buy' scheme puts coalition at loggerheads Parents who split up damage children's welfare by using them as ammunition Clegg announces new borrowing powers for local councils New alcohol restrictions needed, say emergency doctors Dave Hill: impact of housing benefit reforms on Londoners revealed All today's Society Guardian stories Other news • David Cameron is giving civil servants and special advisers at No 10 desks alongside departmental spending teams , the Financial Times reports. • The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, cites analysis by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies that the growing use of out of court punishments, such as on the spot fines and cautions, will consign magistrates to history . On my radar... • Dermot Finch's personal blog , which I've just discovered. Once head of Centre for Cities, now head of public affairs at Fishburn Hedges, Dermot is a seriously astute analyst of politics, economics, regeneration and local government. Well worth following. • This piece in the US magazine Mother Jones, on the "new unemployables" - jobless, educated north Americans over the age of 55 (thanks @bendygirl ) • Artist Mark Wallinger, who has taken a knife to a famous painting by Turner to protest against cuts to the arts . • And here's BendyGirl (author of the blog Benefit Scrounging Scum ) interviewed about benefit cuts on Granada Reports . A refreshing experience, she finds: "It's really fantastic to see the viewpoint of people who will be affected by the cuts being represented in a fair way, a refreshing change to all the 'benefit scrounger' rhetoric." • Guardian datablog's fascinating UK population change graphic : where are all the Burnley people going? • Blogger Redundant Public Servant's deconstruction of BBC Panorama's public sector "Fat Cats" programme aired last night: "I may have unwittingly given the impression that Panorama's programme about senior pay in the public sector would be a TV tabloid hatchet job. I apologise. I should of course have described it as a lazy TV tabloid hatchet job." • And here's blogger We Love Local Government on the same programme's obsession with the prime minister's pay as a benchmark for public sector top pay (thanks @rich_w ). "As a football fan it's the equivalent of saying that no-one can earn more than the manager; how many football clubs would survive if that were the case?" • Craig Dearden-Phillips, blogging from Liberal Democrat conference (he's a Lib Dem councillor) on coalition attitudes to the 'big society' . I was particularly struck by this observation: " [I've been]... a bit disenchanted with the rather simplistic and un-inclusive approach of the administration to date. This seems to paint the charity establishment as a fat, left-leaning, self-regarding force of conservatism which mustn't be allowed into the tent. Naive stuff, if you want this agenda to fly." • Reports I must read: How to deliver high-quality, patient-centred, cost-effective care : 10 charities identify five key ways in which the NHS and social care can be improved. • The Salford Star has published paparazzi-style photographs of the new Department for Communities and Local Government permanent secretary, Sir Bob Kerslake, "partying" with regeneration tycoon Tom Bloxham in the latter's "opulent bubble house" in the south of France (in 2008). It must have been hot in that shirt and tie, Bob... • Meanwhile blogger Rich Watts has come across Winston Churchill's assessment of the Local Government Board (Kerslake's department as it was in 1904): "There is no place in the government more laborious, more anxious, more thankless, more cloaked with petty and even squalid detail, more full of hopeless and insoluble difficulties..." Highlights from tomorrow's Society Guardian supplement • Ciara Leeming on how housing renewal schemes in the north are grinding to a halt due to lack of funds • Alan Travis on a partnership between mental health and probation services that has halved prison recall rates for high-risk offenders • Peter Hetherington on an uprising brewing in Lib Dem town halls • Westminster council on why it has launched its own social care commission • Interview: the housing minister, Grant Shapps, insists that scrapping targets and rewarding local people for building in their back yard will lead to a housebuilding spree. • Faisel Rahman on why poor people rely on community schemes to save • Craig Dearden-Phillips on the pension liabilities facing social enterprises that want to 'step out' of the public sector. Guardian and Observer Christmas Appeal 2010: help us decide which youth charities to support This year our Christmas appeal will support charities working with vulnerable teenagers and young adult s. That bit we've decided on. What we don't know yet is which ones to support. And that's where you come in. There are around 8,000 UK charities out there who operate in this area. We are looking for 10 projects which do innovative, effective work with young people at risk aged 13-24. So if you work for a charity, and you fit the bill, please apply ( you can find the link to the pdf download on this page ). If you know of a charity which you think we ought to support, then encourage them to apply or nominate them on this blog , and we'll contact them on your behalf. Applications close on 8 October, the appeal will kick off in December. Events Driving efficiencies in public sector ICT , 30 September, London: a one-day conference for senior IT professionals to re-examine the way they work, cut costs and deliver vital efficiency savings. Public sector online , 4 October, London: a one-day conference examining how public sector professionals can engage with their audience to deliver services more effectively and strategically online. Society Guardian blogs Joe Public Sarah Boseley's global health blog Guardian awards Guardian Public Services awards 2010 Guardian charity awards 2010 Society Daily blog Society Daily blog editor: Patrick Butler Email the editor: [email protected] Society Guardian Links SocietyGuardian.co.uk Public - the Guardian's website for senior public sector executives The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs Society Guardian editor: Alison Benjamin Email the SocietyGuardian editor: [email protected]