News

The Government is abolishing Council Tax Benefit and Southwark Council is required to adopt a Local Council Tax Support scheme in its place from 1 April 2013.

The Government is also reducing the amount of money it contributes to the new scheme by at least £2.8 million locally.

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The Copplestone Centre will be closing its doors for two weeks in August to get some maintenance work done. During this time none of the usual activities and appointments will be taking place (except Sundays).

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Spending in real terms on mental health has declined for the first time in a decade, a report for the Department of Health has found.

Although one of the coalition’s first big policy announcements was to declare that mental health ought to have “parity with physical health in the NHS”, investment in mental health for working-age adults dropped by 1%, once inflation is taken into account, to £6.63bn. For the elderly the recorded fall in real terms spending was 3.1% to £2.83bn.

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Author of Special Needs Jungle and co-chair of Family Voice Surrey, Tania Tirraoro is closely involved in the SEN reform process. In this guest blog, she tells us where the reforms are up to, what to do if you want to apply for an assessment now and what to expect from the new system…

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Weight training helps to prevent type 2 diabetes in men, research suggests.

Researchers found regular weights reduced the risk by up to a third, in the study of more than 32,000 men published in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal.

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A GIRL aged five has been ­registered as a carer by a county council.

The astonishing youth of some under-18s looking after relatives has been revealed in a freedom of information request which shows the true extent of Britain’s hidden army of child carers.

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The expert in charge of the controversial ‘back to work’ tests for incapacity benefit claimants is to quit after warning that the system needs to be made more ‘fair and humane’.

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Living it up on benefits – we’ve all seen the footage. The woman who said she needed a wheelchair dancing the night away at a wedding. The police officer off sick with a bad back, running hell for leather at five-a-side.

Successive governments have struggled with a spiralling disability benefit bill. It currently stands at £13 billion a year.

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Panorama investigates the government’s plans to end the so-called ‘sick note culture’ and their attempts to get millions of people off disability benefits and into work. In Britain’s modern welfare state, millions are being paid to private companies to assess sick and disabled claimants but is the system working? Or are new tests wrongly victimising those who deserve support the most?

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An increasing number of young people are benefiting from improved mental health services throughout the UK. This is according to Care Services Minister Paul Burstow, who was speaking about progress made regarding the delivering of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) for children and young individuals.

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