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British
National
Party
Public Services News Bulletin w/c January 15, 2007
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1. IMMIGRANT INFLUX OVERCROWDING
OUR SCHOOLS
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23381245-details/Influx%20of%
20immigrants%20forces%20council%20to%20build%20four%20new%20schools/article.do
Pressure from an influx of children from East European immigrants
has forced a council to draw up plans to build four new
primary schools. Bradford council in West Yorkshire, where
nearly 5,000 workers arrived last year, is one of many local
authorities experiencing a shortfall of places in inner-city
areas. Yesterday education chiefs there said two of its
existing primary schools would need to be expanded and four
new ones built to cope with the increased demand for new
places. Bradford has the second highest birth rate of any
part of Britain outside London, and coming on top of that,
immigration has left its school system struggling, it said.
A council report said the high number of births 'has caused
a shortfall in places in some parts of the district when
combined with large numbers of Eastern European workers
who are also moving into the district, sometimes bringing
their families with them'. It added that it had been 'impossible
to predict the increase in numbers of newcomers' and finding
places for them is 'becoming much more difficult'. Bradford
is just one of many local councils reporting that it is
under strain as a result of record levels of immigration
from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe. One in five
primary school children are now from an ethnic minority,
and some councils have been faced with massive bills to
fund extra support such as interpreters as they are legally
obliged to admit children from European Union member states.
At least 27,000 school-aged youngsters have arrived with
their parents in the UK since ten countries – including
Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - joined the EU
on May 1, 2004. Elsewhere in the country, Wrexham in North
Wales has reported that its schools are facing a similar
pressure - around 50 Polish children started school there
in September. Agnieszka Tenteroba, a Polish teacher working
with the newcomers, said: 'First it was the husbands coming
to work. People who want to stay then bring their families
so we will have more and more Polish children in Wrexham.'
Meanwhile in Slough, Berkshire, the council has reported
that an influx of an estimated 10,000 Poles has left it
facing going £15million in the red, with nearly 900
school pupils from non English-speaking backgrounds. And
in Peterborough, where there were just 22 children of economic
migrants enrolled in secondary schools in January 2004,
that has risen to more than 100 with one secondary school
warning it was being 'overwhelmed'. The Government does
not collect figures for the number of children brought with
them by immigrant workers, so officials in Bradford are
having to base their estimates on the number of new National
Insurance permits being issued - 4,650 last year. The council's
executive will now be asked to recommend research into how
to expand school provision to cater for the increased number
of children. Colin Gill, executive member for children's
services, said: 'In those areas of the district where there
are substantial changes in population size and distribution,
we will need to make alterations to ensure that we provide
the right number of primary school places in the right locations.'
Bradford's birth rate, according to the latest figures,
is the fourth highest in Britain, after Birmingham and the
London boroughs of Newham and Hackney, with much of the
growth thought to be within the city's more established
immigrant communities.
2. 'MUSLIMS SHOULD GET SPECIAL
HEALTHCARE'
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article23381411details/
Muslims+%2527should+get+special+health+care%2527/article.do
Muslims should be provided with faith-based services - including
male circumcision - on the NHS, says one healthcare expert.
Professor Aziz Sheikh is also calling for women patients
to see same-sex medics, better access to prayer facilities
in hospitals and more information so Muslims can avoid alcohol
and pig-derived drugs. Writing in the British Medical Journal,
the University of Edinburgh professor also claims Muslims
should be given health advice on attempting the Hajj pilgrimage-to
Mecca which he insisted was a 'religious obligation and
not a holiday'. The BMJ contrasts his opinions with those
of Professor Aneez Esmail, of Manchester University, who
says in another article that it would not be practical to
meet everyone's demands for special services based on religious
identity. He warned some faith groups might support practices
which may be unacceptable to the majority - such as female
circumcision and the refusal to accept blood transfusions.
3. EU RAILWAY RULES BAD FOR COMMUTERS
http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/eu-railway-rules-bad-commuters/article-160770
With climate change and environmental issues topping the
EU agenda, there is an increasing focus on the need to develop
more energy-efficient means of transport, including rail.
Work on strengthening the European railway sector has been
ongoing over the past 15 years, with the adoption of two
packages of legislation that aim to open up rail transport
to competition and harmonise standards across Europe. A
third legislative package, aimed at liberalising international
passenger transport and improving passenger-rights protection,
was proposed by the Commission in March 2004 and is currently
being examined by the Parliament in second reading.
Issues:
The third railway package focuses predominantly on international
services and problems related to cross-border operation,
despite the fact that the rules will also, in many cases,
be extended to suburban and regional railways. This could
severely hinder the development of such domestic short-distance
operations, according to rail and public transport operators.
A new study, conducted by the International Association
for Public Transport (UITP ) in the frame of the European
Rail Research Advisory Group (ERRAC ) and presented on 9
January 2007, reveals that there are nine times more passengers
using commuter and regional rail services (to carry out
short journeys of around 25km on average) than those on
international or long-distance trips. Short-distance European
railways carry nearly seven billion passengers per year,
against 1.25 billion passengers over the past 25 years for
France's TGV, for example. Despite the importance of this
sector, its specificities are being ignored by EU rules,
says the UITP. A particular concern for the business sector
is the Parliament's decision to extend legislation on international
passenger rights and certification of train crews to all
domestic services. Application of ill-adapted, overly bureaucratic
rules could hinder the development of a transport sector
crucial to helping European cities deal with congestion
and pollution problems. According to UITP figures, the use
of regional and commuter trains helps Europe avoid each
year:
* 24 million km of traffic jams;
* 30 million tonnes of CO2, and; * 1,312 human deaths and
36,800 injuries.
Hans Rat, secretary-general of the International Association
for Public Transport (UITP), said that the EU focused much
too much on 'glossy' trans-European projects, such as high-speed
trains. He stressed that it needed to re-direct its attention
towards regional projects that play a 'decisive role' for
the revitalisation of cities and the improvement of public
transport services. Michel Quidort, chairman of the UITP
Regional Railway Committee, said: 'The trend to encompass
al railways in the same policies and to request the same
inter-operability demands and technical specifications is
hindering the development of regional rail.' He particularly
emphasised that EU rules on passenger rights must not be
applied to regional rail, saying that this issue must be
dealt with inside a contract between the local authority
and the local operator. 'The subsidiarity principle must
be applied to avoid creating an impossible bureaucratic
situation and to accommodate very specific local conditions,'
he stressed. Also, on certification of train crew, the UITP
believes that the single driver licence proposed by the
Commission is 'in contradiction with the need to have specific
knowledge of the line and the rolling stock'. Laurent Dauby
of the UITP, in charge of the study 'Suburban and Regional
Railway Landscape in Europe', insisted that even if some
recommendations are welcome at the European level, many
of the demands made by European legislation will bring 'zero
added-value for the customer'. While cautious about demanding
the full exclusion of suburban and regional rail from the
third railway package, he insisted on 'at least a serious
economic evaluation to see if it makes sense to include
this segment in the legislation'. The Community of European
Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER)stressed that
the application of harmonised passenger rights on a national
level would prove unworkable and urged the EU to respect
the variety of national conditions and railway system realities.
It gave an example: 'Only 3% of the stations in Hungary
are physically accessible to persons with reduced mobility,
compared to 75% in the UK. Hungarian trains are on average
nearly 29 years old, and inevitably less reliable than modern
trains in Western Europe…huge investments would be
necessary to achieve the same passengers' rights standards
throughout Europe. The problem is that today, in central
and eastern Europe the money is urgently needed for the
basic operation of the system itself.' However, consumers
want the rules applied to all rail services. The European
Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) stated: 'We do support
the application of the regulation to every passenger, i.e.
international and national as we think that every passenger
should be able to benefit from the same minimum level of
protection across the EU…It would be difficult to argue
that national passengers have more limited rights compared
to international passengers.'
4. POLICE LET OFF FOREIGN VANDALS
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=
ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED09%20Jan%202007%2009%3A42%3A35%3A507
The police officer who told a crime victim two offenders were
not taken to court because they were jobless foreign nationals
with no income is to be given advice on diversity issues,
police have revealed. Norfolk police conceded PC John Waterman
was wrong to give such an explanation to a man whose car was
vandalised by criminals and today insisted their status and
nationality was not the reason the men were given cautions
rather than taken to court. As revealed first by the Evening
News, UEA research student Barry Ferguson received a letter
regarding the case where criminals were caught on CCTV camera
vandalising cars in Magdalen Street. In a letter explaining
why the men would not be prosecuted, PC Waterman said it was
because they were both unemployed foreign nationals with no
income and it was not in the public interest to pursue due
to the expenses incurred in having a trial. But Norfolk police
today said the officer was wrong to say this. A force spokesman
said: It is not the policy of Norfolk constabulary, nor is
it legal, to administer a police caution based on someone's
ethnicity or level of income. After careful consideration
of the evidence, it was decided to deal with the offenders
by way of an official police caution. The officer has been
spoken to by senior officers on diversity and policy issues
and how to deal with this if it happens again. Police said
when they interviewed the men, aged 19 and 29, they also admitted
eight other offences of vandalising cars, so the caution was
effectively an admission of guilt for 10 offences as opposed
to the two police had secured evidence on. While not a conviction,
it will be added to their police record and can be cited in
court should they re-offend, the spokesman added. Ian Gibson,
Norwich North MP, said: Rather than send the officer on a
diversity course it would be better if the police sat down
and made clear what their policy is. There should be justice
for all and maybe we need a policy change. Mr Ferguson, 29,
of Magdalen Street, said: I am dismayed that even though these
people were caught in the act they are getting away with wanton
vandalism. This has nothing to do with the fact they are foreign
nationals - no one should get away with this type of thing.
What do you think about the issue? Write to Evening News Letters,
Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, NR1 1RE, email eveningnewsletters@archant.co.uk
5. HOME OFFICE BUNGLES CRIMINAL
DATA
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1986671,00.html
A major row broke out last night between the Home Office
and senior police officers over how more than 500 serious
offenders escaped criminal records vetting despite being
convicted of offences around Europe. Senior police officers
revealed the fresh Home Office blunder yesterday when they
told MPs that data on the convictions of Britons abroad
had been sent to the Home Office in London but had simply
been left 'sitting in desk files' instead of being put on
the police national computer so it could be used for vetting
checks. The 27,529 paper records containing details of British
people convicted around Europe passed to the Home Office
include 525 convicted of more serious offences. They include
five murderers, 28 rapists and attempted rapists, 29 paedophiles
and 17 other sex offenders, and 29 robbers. A Home Office
spokesman said last night that this was 'a serious issue
that is now being remedied' and said it involved a backlog
of notification of crimes committed by British citizens
abroad up until early 2006. 'As the police made clear the
case files of all serious offenders in the backlog have
been entered on to the police national computer.' But chief
constables last night said only half of the serious cases
have so far actually been logged: 'We are processing them
but it is taking time,' said a spokeswoman for the Association
of Chief Police Officers. Urgent checks are also to be carried
out on whether any of the 525 serious offenders have applied
for jobs and mistakenly been given a clean bill of health
to work with children or vulnerable adults by the Criminal
Records Bureau despite their convictions. The disclosure
last night triggered the announcement of a 'full and immediate'
inquiry. The home secretary, John Reid, is to summon senior
police officers and Criminal Records Bureau chiefs to explain
what is being done to deal with the situation. In the face
of opposition charges of a cover-up, Mr Reid had to admit
that he had only learned of the problem after chief police
officers had revealed it when giving evidence to MPs yesterday.
'This fact was not made public earlier because to the best
of our knowledge this matter was not brought to the attention
of the home secretary or his ministers until today, otherwise
it would have been highlighted when he listed the reasons
why the department's systems and procedures were not fit
for purpose,' said a Home Office statement last night. This
new criminal records blunder happened after the paper records
on cases of Britons convicted of crimes abroad, mainly in
other EU states, was passed to the Home Office under new
EU arrangements to share information on criminal convictions
across Europe. The data relates to crimes dating back to
1999 up until March 2006 on convictions of British citizens
in 15 countries, mainly EU members. Paul Kernaghan, Hampshire's
chief constable and an Acpo spokesman, told the Commons
home affairs select committee that the situation was 'totally
unacceptable' and a new system had been set up last May
to try to rectify the problem. Urgent checks are now going
on to see if any have been given clearance by the Criminal
Records Bureau to work with children or vulnerable adults.
'Until the Acpo criminal records office was created someone
could go to Germany, commit a sexual offence and serve a
sentence - and this would not be known to any police officer
when they came back to the UK. It would not be known to
the UK courts if they re-offended and it would not be reflected
in their sentencing.' Mr Kernaghan said that was a totally
unacceptable position professionally and in terms of public
protection. 'The information was sitting in desk files and
not entered on the PNC. They are working their way through
putting serious offenders on a risk-assessed basis on the
PNC.' The police say that none of the convicted rapists
had been notified to the sex offenders' register: 'If these
particular offenders had been the subject of checks for
employment through the Criminal Records Bureau, the search
would have returned a 'no trace'.' The blunder happened
before a new agency - the UK central authority for the exchange
of criminal records - was set up last May. Before that date
the information was sent by other European governments to
the Home Office on the grounds that it was the officially
designated 'central authority for mutual legal assistance'.
6. ONLY ONE CRIME IN 100 PROSECUTED
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=426065&in_page_id=1770
Just one crime in every hundred now leads to the offender
being caught, charged and punished by the courts, latest
statistics reveal. The Home Office's own figures showed
crime on the rise last year and more criminals being caught
by police, yet the numbers being sent before the court dropped
sharply by eight per cent year-on-year. Opposition critics
blamed the dramatic rise in the use of 'summary justice'
- instant fines or cautions and warnings handed out by the
police - and accused the Government of creating an 'arbitrary'
justice system, letting off hundreds of thousands of criminals
with punishments no tougher than a parking ticket. In the
year to June 2006 the British Crime Survey measured 11,016,000
offences against adults living in households in England
and Wales – up from 10,912,000 in 2005. However an
analysis by independent statisticians - accepted by the
Home Office - shows that the British Crime Survey counts
only a third of all crimes as it ignores all offences against
businesses including shoplifting, 'victimless' crimes such
as drug possession and any offences committed against under-16s.
The number of criminals caught and dealt with by police
rose by six per cent year-on-year from 1,428,000 to 1,516,000.
Yet the number of offenders charged and sent before the
courts - magistrates or crown courts -fell by eight per
cent from 453,000 to 423,000. More than 80,000 court cases
were dropped or discontinued due to suspects or witnesses
failing to show up, and the number actually sentenced in
courts dropped five per cent from 317,000 to 306,000 –
less than one per cent of the estimated 33million-plus crimes
each year. Most were given fines or community punishments
and the number sent to jail fell from 80,000 to 76,000 last
year. Meanwhile soaring numbers of crimes were diverted
into the 'instant' justice system. The use of police cautions
or on-the-spot fines rose by more than 200,000 year-on-year.
Ministers are encouraging greater use of these rapid punishments
even for relatively serious crimes such as shoplifting,
to avoid clogging up the courts and to ease the prison overcrowding
crisis. The police also tend to favour instant punishments
as they involve less red-tape than a criminal prosecution
but still count as 'solved' crimes, helping them meet Home
Office targets. But critics claim the policy represents
an increasingly soft approach which merely encourages repeat
offending, while up to a third of fines are never paid.
The number of fixed penalty notices handed out by police
is rising fast with 146,481 in the year to March, more than
double the previous year's total of 63,639. Ministers faced
fierce criticism recently for extending the use of 80 spot
fines - introduced four years ago - to cover shoplifting
offences up to a value of £200. Since the law on cannabis
was relaxed three years ago police have stopped arresting
most users and instead given them a warning – which
counts as a 'detected' offence but carries no criminal record.
Last year 66,000 cannabis users received such warnings instead
of being charged, up from just 39,000 a year earlier. Numbers
of Penalty Notices for Disorder - spot fines for yobbish
and anti-social behaviour - have also rocketed to 110,000
in the year to March, up from just 49,000 a year earlier.
And the use of cautions by police as an alternative to bringing
charges rocketed by 22 per cent 327,000 year-on-year. Cautions
can be handed out for burglary, assaults and possessing
Class A drugs. Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said:
'It is bad enough that so many people are committing crimes,
it is outrageous that so many people are getting away with
it. 'Labour have consistently undermined our criminal justice
system by effectively decriminalising many crimes. 'The
solution is to simplify and reform our criminal justice
system so people can be properly and effectively punished,
not to arbitrarily divert offenders into a system where
serious crimes are punished with the equivalent of a parking
ticket or warning note.' Crime levels have begun rising
since John Reid took over as Home Secretary in May - bringing
to an end more than a decade of gradual falls. Muggings,
low-level violence and drug possession are all on the rise
after the Government relaxed the laws on drinking and cannabis,
and scrapped a high-profile robbery crackdown.
7. PRISON SERVICE DOESN'T KNOW
HOW MANY PRISONERS ARE ON THE RUN
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=31332007
The head of the Prison Service has admitted he does not
know how many inmates are on the run from open prisons.
Director general Phil Wheatley said there was no system
to count the number of prisoners who absconded from such
jails. His comments, reported by the BBC, come one day after
Derbyshire Police finally agreed to release the photographs
of two convicted murderers who are on the run after escaping
from Sudbury Open Prison in Derbyshire. The force had originally
claimed releasing the pictures could breach their human
rights. Mr Wheatley estimated almost 700 offenders absconded
in the year to last April from England's 15 open prisons.
Classed as Category D, open prisons have a more relaxed
security regime. Mr Wheatley told the BBC the Prison Service
did not have an accurate system for those who were recaptured.
He said he was 'embarrassed' to admit he was unable to provide
an accurate figure because there was no central database
for recording numbers of recaptured prisoners. Mr Wheatley
added that the 'vast majority' of inmates who absconded
were 'arrested promptly'. This week, the Home Office, replying
to a Freedom of Information Act request, said 401 of the
prisoners remained at large when figures were compiled last
May. A Prison Service spokesman said: 'The absconders are
immediately reported to the police and the necessary information
is entered on individual prisons' locally held databases.
'The Prison Service is taking steps to ensure the information
from those local systems is quality controlled when included
nationally. 'Numbers of absconders continue to fall despite
the rising prison population.' According to the Home Office,
open prisons are the 'most effective' way of ensuring prisoners
are ready to rejoin the community before their release.
Every inmate sent to an open jail is risk assessed and categorised
as a low risk to the public. It said the number of prisoners
who abscond in relation to the prison population is now
at its lowest level for 10 years. A Home Office spokesman
said: 'As the Home Secretary made clear in the reform documents
published last summer there is a problem with the Home Office
statistics and work is under way to improve the quality
of Home Office data and information management by making
the information we use accurate, reliable and relevant.
8. ONLY ONE POLICE STATION IN
EIGHT OPEN ALL HOURS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/08/npolice08.xml
Only 13 per cent of police stations - about one in eight
– are open to the public 24 hours a day, a survey by
The Daily Telegraph of the 43 forces in England and Wales
has disclosed. The figure includes the total for the Metropolitan
Police, which has the highest number and proportion of stations
open around the clock. When the Met is removed, the total
falls to nine per cent. More than a third of forces - 18
- have no stations open at all times and 34 have fewer than
five. The non-Met average is three stations open all hours
per force. Figures for previous years are not kept, but
there is wide acceptance that chief constables - invariably
citing economic necessity and the use of phones to contact
police - have reduced opening hours in recent years. Last
month The Daily Telegraph reported that almost 900 stations
had closed in the past 14 years. Police chiefs claim that
the public does not suffer because there is still an all-hours
response by officers in stations that may not be open to
the public all the time. But the consequences of the service's
retreat from open-door access was disturbingly illustrated
when a businessman, Stephen Langford, 43, was beaten to
death yards from a station in Henley, Oxon, last month.
The station was closed to the public, staff inside did not
hear the attack and Mr Langford was found dying by officers
in a patrol car. The Daily Telegraph obtained station details
from force websites, or directly from their headquarters.
The forces classed 1,538 premises as stations. Of those,
202 - or 13.13 per cent - were said to be open at all times.
Of that total, the Met accounted for 133 stations, 74 of
them open all hours. At 57 per cent, this was the highest
proportion in any force. The Home Office insists that opening
hours are a matter for police, and the Association of Chief
Police Officers (Acpo) says it cannot comment because decisions
are down to individual forces. Both maintain that the public
can ring 999 for assistance. However, the Liberal Democrat
home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said: 'The public need
to be reassured that the police are accessible when and
wherever needed. 'These alarming statistics show that in
large parts of the country people simply don't have the
police stations they expect in their area.' Jan Berry, the
chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales,
and others believe the reason for the decline in the number
of open all hours stations is financial. Mrs Berry said:
'It's important that the police are available for the public
when needed; closing police stations is often a false economy
and does nothing to reassure them. Police stations have
become a casualty of an approach by Government and chief
officers who see policing as a business rather than a service.'
She also pointed to research for the Police Federation which
showed that many 'response teams' - police on duty to deal
with 999 and other calls - were 'understaffed, overworked,
chasing targets rather than criminals and sinking in bureaucracy'.
Nick Herbert, the Tory spokesman on police reform, said:
'Forces need to manage their resources efficiently but there
is a danger that closed stations send the wrong signal to
the public. Innovative solutions are needed, for instance
the police sharing outposts with other services to maintain
a reassuring presence.' It is also clear from the figures
that a force can open a substantial number of stations around
the clock. Essex Police has 47 stations with 12 open all
hours.
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