Review of the Papers, Wednesday 21 February

Government

• The government agency created to seize the assets of criminals is condemned today as a mess, having spent £65 million on collecting only £23 million. The Assets Recovery Agency has received 700 files linked to £274 million. But it has seized money from only 52 of these cases, according to a report by the spending watchdog. Millions of pounds paid in fees to receivers to manage criminal assets are expected in 12 cases to be more than the cash and assets being looked after. The National Audit Office report also found that the agency, which is to be merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, has no effective case-management system and had experienced high turnover of staff. A third of the financial investigators trained by the agency either retired or left soon after qualifying. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article1415210.ece

• All British troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of 2008, starting with the withdrawal of 1,000 in the early summer. Tony Blair is to announce the moves - the result of months of intense debate in Whitehall - within 24 hours, possibly later today, according to officials. The prime minister is expected to say that Britain intends to gradually reduce the number of troops in southern Iraq over the next 22 months as Iraqi forces take on more responsibility for the security of Basra and the surrounding areas. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,2017824,00.html
• The Home Office has started to pay out compensation - some £55,000 in nine cases so far - to foreign national prisoners who have been held beyond the end of their sentence while deportation was considered, it was disclosed yesterday. The director-general of the immigration and nationality directorate, Lin Homer, told MPs that nine months after the foreign national prisoner crisis cost Charles Clarke his job only 163 of the 1,013 inmates freed without being considered for deportation had left the UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,2017692,00.html
• Gordon Brown enjoyed a record cash surplus on the public finances last month as surging income tax receipts outweighed a fall in corporation tax revenues, official statistics show. The last public finance data before the budget next month show there was a net cash surplus of £21.4bn last month after a surge in income tax from record City bonuses. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2017635,00.html
• The future of Britain's biggest charities is being put at risk by their growing dependence on poorly-funded contracts to deliver public services, the chair of the Charity Commission will warn today. Dame Suzi Leather's stark assessment comes after a survey revealed that fewer than one in eight charities running services was confident it was being paid enough to cover its costs. An "all-party love-in" between the voluntary sector and politicians who see the sector as offering a more effective and user-friendly way of delivering public services is also threatening charities' independence, she will say. http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2017834,00.html
• A winter squeeze on NHS services across England will be enough to pull the health service out of financial deficit by the end of March, forecasts from the Department of Health indicated yesterday. They showed 132 NHS trusts are heading to overspend by £1,318m in 2006-07 - slightly more than the overspend that played havoc with NHS finances last year. But this time the deficits of the overspenders will be cancelled out by underspending in other parts of the NHS. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/story/0,,2017698,00.html
• Half-price bus and tram passes for Londoners on income support are to be financed by an oil deal with a Latin American socialist state. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, signed a deal with a Venezuelan oil company yesterday for cheap fuel for the capital’s 8,000 buses. In return, his officials will advise on street cleaning and other services. Mr Livingstone said that he would use the discount, worth £16 million a year, to give 250,000 people Oyster smart-cards allowing half-price journeys from July. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1415355.ece
• Higher earners should live alongside poorer households to achieve a better mix in housing, a Government-commissioned report said yesterday. Prof John Hills said housing policy should be changed to avoid having "rich people on one side and poorer people on the other side of the tracks". In a report to Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, he suggested that the complete redevelopment of estates might sometimes be "the only alternative".He also called for social landlords to buy housing in other areas and for vacant land on traditional council estates to be used to build private homes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?l=/news/2007/02/21/nestates21.xml
• Rogue agencies that prey on would-be models are facing a crackdown under new rules to prevent them from making millions of pounds from empty promises of celebrity. Enticed by the Big Brother culture of instant fame, thousands of women every year are falling victim to a burgeoning industry in hotel-based casting sessions and websites offering photo shoots for aspiring models. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health-medical/article2290048.ece

Olympics

• London 2012 hit back at MPs' criticism that its transport plans for the Olympic Games were vague and lacked urgency, insisting its strategy was well advanced. The Commons transport select committee said in a report yesterday that contingency plans in the event of system failures were no more than "embryonic". http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6930902c-c151-11db-bf18-000b5df10621.html

• The European Union yesterday agreed a pact to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20% within 13 years unilaterally and pledged to push for an agreement with the US and other industrialised countries to cut them by 30% by the same deadline. European environment ministers made the target for 2020 binding on all 27 EU countries, but are yet to agree on how to "share the burden" of combating climate change, with countries such as Britain and Germany making much bigger cuts and other high-growth but less developed countries allowed more leeway. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2017600,00.html