Society daily 22.03.11

Sign up to Society daily email briefing Today's top SocietyGuardian stories • Transplant patients given kidneys from donor with cancer • Equality commission to face 'major surgery' • ONS inflation slip-up leaves millions out of pocket • Kaliya Franklin: Welfare bill ignores reality of disability • Cuts protests: why we're marching • How C4's One Born Every Minute made childbirth a reality TV hit • Lorraine O'Reilly: How to make services better for children and young people • Datablog: Deficit, national debt and government borrowing - how has it changed since 1946? All today's SocietyGuardian stories Other news • Homelessness organisations face a 25% cut in council funding next year, prompting warnings that progress in tackling the problem will go into reverse, reports Community Care. A Homeless Link survey of 500 providers round the cuts are likely to lead to a 16% reduction in beds in homeless hostels, the closure of day, accommodation or support services and frontline redundancies. • Private firms could make up to £14,000 each for every long-time benefit claimant they get back into work, according to the Telegraph. It says welfare reform minister Lord Freud believes welfare-to-work providers will be able to earn "very good fees" from the benefit overhauls proposed in the welfare reform bill. He said: "Payment by results means that we can reward providers who invest successfully to get people into jobs – especially the hardest to help." • The head of Scotland's prosecution service has warned of an "apocalypse" of alcohol-fuelled crime unless the country curbs its hard-drinking culture , reports the BBC. Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini said alcohol played a part in almost every violent crime in Scotland, but reducing the availability of cheap drink would help tackle the problem. • Unions have questioned the independence of the public sector pay review bodies after they failed to challenge government recommendations on pay rises, reports Public Finance. The latest reports from the bodies covering teachers, NHS workers, prison service staff and armed forces personnel accept government recommendations in full, proposing a flat £250 increase for the next two years for staff earning less than £21,000 a year and make no recommendations for staff earning more than £21,000. • Rules that will require separating couples to consider settling legal disputes through mediation services are being rushed through , mediation providers tell Children and Young People Now. On my radar ... • The excellent debate on Kaliya Franklin's Joe Public blog , which has led me to this guest post on the I Am Typecast blog in which Emma, mother to three children with disabilities , explains her terror over impending cuts to disability living allowance : "We are worried sick, stressed, not sleeping through worry. We have tried to highlight our case publicly as generally people really do not know what the disabled of this country are facing under the Coalition ... All I want is for people to be aware of what is happening ... There is a very real danger of throwing the disabled and their carers into poverty and removing their dignity. At the same time access to decent healthcare and a basic education is also being swiftly eroded. I feel so helpless and invisible, and that the country at large just cannot see us." The welfare reform bill committee is today hearing from, among others, Policy Exchange, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Oxfam, People First, Citizens' Advice Bureau and Essex Coalition of Disabled People. Watch the session here. Meanwhile, Mind has launched a poll to assess the level of concern among incapacity benefit recipients. Mind explains: "We have already heard anecdotally from many of you about how worried you are about the effects changes to the benefits system will have on your life and your concerns about having to go through the work capability assessment. What our survey aims to do is to quantify people's feelings and provide some figures which will demonstrate the impact welfare reform anxiety is having which we can use in our media and campaigns work." • The countdown begins to 26 March , when the biggest demo since the antiwar protests of February 2003 are set to take place. UK Uncut has put together this video explaining what it's got planned for Saturday . In Manchester today Prof Luke Clements, a community care law specialist, it talking at a Mencap roadshow about public sector cuts and how to protest against them. • An interesting claim on the Inspector Gadget blog which questions how the government is financing action in Libya in this age of austerity : "The Force Duty Planners are having real trouble getting volunteers for March 26th in London. This could be where ministers learn the hard way just how much good-will is used up in the public sector. If our overtime is cut, why should we give up our spare time to deploy for public order duty? I have seen at least two begging emails now, and I know that the places are still not filled. This could be the first time I can remember where they have to order officers to deploy to London from the Counties." • This new report from Race on the Agenda (Rota), which warns that girls are being left vulnerable to gang-related sexual and physical violence . • This question posed by the Left Foot Forward blog, Could childcare cuts be the Coalition's 10p tax? "The childcare cuts are damaging for the Tories, in particular, since they have claimed to be the party of the family while Iain Duncan Smith has stressed the importance of work. Families are already facing squeezed budgets from rising prices including fuel prices, falling real incomes, and the more publicised cuts to public services and tax credits. This little talked about cut could come back to bite them more than most." • This video from the New Local Government Network's Simon Parker introducing the Commission on Next Localism : "Local government will have to fundamentally change what it does and who it does it. It will have to ask really big questions about what are councils for and what are their services for and are there better ways we can deliver those." • This debate tonight on the future of selling alcohol , organised by the Local Government Association, which is being chaired by my colleague Mary O'Hara and asks whether a minimum pricing structure should be introduced. • The No Use Empty campaign , launched five years ago by Kent county council to bring vacant properties back into use, which is now being rolled out in Bristol. Bristol city council aims to bring 2,000 empty homes back into use by 2015. In tomorrow's SocietyGuardian supplement • Using everyday activities to build trust with childeren in care is a European approach being piloted here. Madeleine Bunting asks what social pedagogy can teach us. • Lynsey Hanley on a new book charting the histories of three Norwich council estates . • The credit crunch will continue for many for years to come, writes Faisel Rahman • How are disabled people getting their dissenting voices heard? Amelia Gentleman reports • It's time to halt the filthy rich advance, writes Tom Clark • Tony Dolphin says there is an alternative to swingeing cuts • Actor Neil Morrissey tells Raekha Prasad what inspired him to be involved in a documentary about growing up in care • Reforming the NHS is essential to put and end to 'lousy' services - but ministers will have to be brave, says a new book • Bigger is not always better when it comes to commissioning services . Could a more holistic approach save money, asks Jane Dudman On the Guardian Professional Networks • Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon reckons England's NHS reforms "will end the NHS in England as we know it". • The Local Government Association says councils could save millions by introducing shared services and staff. • How grants became the nicotine of the charity sector - and quitting them in favour of donations will be as hard as giving up smoking. 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