Society daily 24.06.10

Budget 2010: how will it affect public services? News and reaction to this week's budget Politics live blog – follow the latest developments Budget will hit poor harder than rich, says IFS Osborne hints at further cuts to welfare bill Benefit caps will tip poor into homelessness, warn charities All budget 2010 stories Budget 2010: comment and analysis Editorial: tough but unfair Letters: the budget numbers do not add up Letters: pain and little gain in the regions Tom Clark: we're all in it, but the poor take the biggest hit Seamus Milne: Osborne's "fairness" claims exposed as a fraud Anne Wollenberg: myths about disability living allowance Deborah Orr: it's not all bad... Datablog: Budget 2010 costs and savings Today's top Society Guardian news and comment State pension age for men could rise to 66 by 2016 Test pregnant women for smoking, says Nice Justice secretary announces plans to close 157 courts Herbert outlines new thinking on policing Probation staff admit to serious failures over sex offenders All today's Society Guardian stories Other news • The UK's poorer regions have been warned that they will struggle to generate private sector jobs to replace those lost in the public sector , reports the Financial Times • Huge structural changes to the health service being planned by the government may be a "triumph of hope over experience", the NHS Confederation has warned , according to the Financial Times • Parents with criminal records, histories of substance misuse and housing problems face higher risks of sudden infant death syndrome, according to a five-year police study seen by Community Care • The writer Richard Dawkins says he is interested in setting up an atheist "free school", reports the Daily Telegraph I read... • This call to arms for the voluntary sector by Ed Cox, director of IPPR north . Essentially, Cod says, don't look to the government for guidance on the big society: it can't help. We're on our own, which might, actually, be a good thing... • This blogpost by Michael Schrage in Harvard Business Review, which suggests that having less money might force us to create better services (thanks to Ruth Kennedy for the tip): The surest, albeit not the nicest, way to shock teams into revisiting their innovation roots is by ruthlessly annihilating their existing relationship with money. In truth, most innovators need more money like a fish needs a bicycle. Instead of desperately scrambling for additional funds, smart teams should step back and cut back. The awkward instant when innovators wished they had "more" is precisely the moment they should imagine how they'd succeed if they had "less". Slicing 15% from a spreadsheet leaves teams little choice but to make hard choices and revisit once-cherished assumptions. • David Clark of Solace reflecting on the "transparency bureaucracy" springing up in the wake of the ministerial order that councils must publish online all in invoices and contracts over £500... • Blogger Rick at Flipchart Fairy Tales on how public services will cope with the likelihood of 25% cuts to budgets : "Is there anyone in the public sector who knows how to reduce spending by a third over four years? Come to think of it, I don't know of many organisations anywhere that have cut costs on that scale over such a short period. Most managers in the public sector have only ever known year on year real-terms funding increases and have little or no experience of such drastic downsizing. They will have to learn fast." • This report of the reaction of some Islington school headteachers to Coalition plans for academy schools . I took a personal interest in this quote from Mary Gibson, veteran head of Yerbury primary school (to declare an interest, two of my children go there): "This school will become an academy over my dead body." Note to education secretary Michael Gove: as my kids will attest, you mess with Mrs Gibson at your peril... Society Guardian blogs Joe Public Sarah Boseley's global health blog Guardian awards Guardian Public Services awards 2010 Guardian charity awards 2010 Society Guardian social enterprise summit We are starting to plan this year's Society Guardian social enterprise summit. Last year's summit was a great success – you can read about it here . Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us whom you'd like to see and what you would like discussed. Email [email protected] . 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