Society daily 12.03.2010

Today's top Society Guardian news and comment Man with learning disabilities "tormented to death" Mercy killing wife takes her own life Pensioners promised £80 rebate on heating bills Study reveals Liverpool's capital of culture bonanza Tom Shakespeare: the cruel toll of disability hate crime Peter Beresford: Politicians must raise level of social care funding debate All today's Society Guardian stories Other news • A government-commissioned report says the government's Pathways to Work programme aimed at getting people off incapacity benefit provides only a "bare minimum service" to the hardest to help job seekers , according to the Financial Times. • The FT also reports that senior government figures are split over Health secretary Andy Burnham's insistence that NHS organisations are preferred providers' of NHS care - potentially debarring private and voluntary sector providers from competing for contracts. It says opposition from Lord Mandelson and Liam Byrne, chief secretary to the Treasury, means that guidance to the health service on the issue will be "watered down". • The NHS has been accused of "colluding" with commerical companies to allow sales reps onto maternity wards to sell goods and services to new mothers , says the Times Society Guardian events The Public Procurement show . The UK's leading event for public sector procurement. 15-16 June, ExceL, London Society Guardian links Sign up to Society daily email briefing Society on Twitter SocietyGuardian.co.uk Public - The Guardian's website for senior public sector executives Get ahead: the Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs Email the SocietyGuardian editor: [email protected]