Review of the Papers, Tuesday 26 June

Government

• The public sector wasted more than £400m on unnecessary procurement costs last year, according to the Commons public accounts committee on Monday. It said improving procurement could save hundreds of millions of pounds when government spends £20bn a year on goods and services. But to achieve savings OGCbuying.solutions, the government central purchasing agency, must change its status as a trading fund that has to raise revenue. Its revenue-raising status acts as a disincentive for it to promote the government procurement card - the equivalent of a company credit card, which saves billing costs. It has also failed to publicise central deals it has done that have saved public agencies money but do not yield a direct return to OGCbuying.solutions. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d2375bd4-2338-11dc-9e7e-000b5df10621.html
• The Bank of England's pre-tax profits have almost doubled after recouping most of its costs when the curtain fell last year on the long-running legal case over the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The Bank's annual report, which was published yesterday, showed that pre-tax profits in the year to February 28 rose to £191m against £99m the previous year. Of the £92m uplift, £74m was due to legal costs paid to the Bank by Deloitte, the professional services firm and liquidator of BCCI, after it unilaterally abandoned claims alleging misfeasance on the part of senior Bank officials during the supervision of the failed bank. The deal over costs was struck last in June 2006, finally bringing the 12-year case to a close. The annual report also showed a sharp drop in the Bank's legal fees to £2m from £13m the previous year. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/194f8336-2382-11dc-9e7e-000b5df10621.html   
• Ministers will pledge to tackle the "postcode lottery" in free nursing care for the elderly today as they publish new national guidelines on the issue. The guidance will apply to the continuing nursing care which is needed by elderly people to help them cope with illness, ongoing medical conditions or the aftermath of a major operation once they have left hospital. Ivan Lewis, the health minister, will today unveil national criteria for the NHS and local authorities on who should qualify for the care without having to pay. However, campaigners for the elderly voiced concern last night that the new measures - which will affect thousands of people living in care homes as well as in their own homes - will have little impact unless the Government provides extra funding for primary care trusts and councils to pay for the improvements. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/26/nelderly126.xml
• Tony Blair has landed a major diplomatic job as the international Middle East peace envoy, responsible for preparing the Palestinians for negotiations with Israel. His role, to be announced today, will be largely to work with the Palestinians over security, economy and governance. Working from an office in Jerusalem, and possibly another in the West Bank, Mr Blair will become the special representative for the Middle East quartet of UN, EU, US and Russia. The announcement comes on the eve of his departure from Downing Street tomorrow and is privately welcomed by Gordon Brown. The arrangement, which has been under preparation for weeks, is due to be agreed at a meeting of the quartet today. Friends of Mr Blair suggest he would make it a central purpose of his mission to work to restore Palestinian unity after the armed takeover of the Gaza Strip by the Islamist movement Hamas. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2111455,00.html
• Students face being charged different fees according to the universities and courses they attend in future, one of Britain's leading educational reformers will say today. Lord Dearing, who first advocated charging tuition fees ten years ago, will tell vice-chancellors that universities can only remain globally competitive if they charge "differential fees". He will add that the fees would almost certainly be considerably higher. The author of a key report in 1997 that changed the way the universities are now funded also suggests that in future students could pay some sort of graduate tax. About 95 per cent of England's universities and two-thirds of further education colleges charge the full £3,000-a-year top-up fees. However, leading research universities have complained that the fees are not high enough and must be raised to at least £5,000. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1985808.ece
• Wanted: communities to volunteer to host a giant underground nuclear bunker. Guaranteed jobs for thousands of years; attractive annual payment package; should be in geologically stable area. Need to know: £10bn plus construction package will involve excavation of hundreds of millions of tonnes of rock, and the building of new roads, railway lines and workshops. Site may attract terrorists; potential safety risk for one million years or more. The potential drawbacks did not stop west Cumbria, which has historic links to the nuclear industry, emerging as the favourite to host an underground bunker to bury nearly 500,000 cubic metres of British radioactive nuclear waste up to one kilometre below ground level. But the government stressed it was eager for other regions to compete for the plant. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2111479,00.html
• Motorists paid out more in speed camera fines last year even though fewer fixed penalties were issued. Because more fines were collected, drivers paid £114.6 million in fines in the 2005/06 financial year - one per cent more than in 2004/05. There were wide variations county by county in the number of penalties issued and the amount collected, said the Philip's Road Atlas company, which published the figures. While some counties claimed a 100 per cent success rate in converting speeding tickets into fixed £60 fines, success rates for others were much lower, with Surrey only managing a figure of 47 per cent. The money collected by Greater Manchester increased 43 per cent in 2005/06, while Derbyshire took 26 per cent less money. Actual tickets issued varied from Leicestershire, with an increase of 48 per cent, to Derbyshire with a decrease of 30 per cent. The most money collected was in London - £9.45 million. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/26/ncrime226.xml
• Falls are costing the NHS nearly £1bn a year, mainly due to older people tripping on damaged or uneven pavements, a charity warned last night. Help the Aged called on local authorities to improve paving after a survey found 2.5m people over 65 have taken a tumble recently on defective kerbs or flagstones. A third of those who fell had to be taken to hospital and another third needed to consult a GP. "For the over-75s falls are a leading cause of mortality. We estimate that one person dies every five hours as the result of a fall and it costs the NHS £981m annually," a spokeswoman said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/story/0,,2111323,00.html
• A lawyer from Birmingham has become the most highly paid legal aid barrister in the country after pulling in more than £1.1m last year. Figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Justice revealed that Balbir Singh, head of Equity Chambers, was paid £1,116,000 in legal aid fees in 2005-06. It was the second year in a row that the biggest payout to a legal aid barrister has hit seven figures. Mr Singh is the only one of the top 10 earners not to have been made a Queen's counsel (QC), the elite status which entitles barristers to charge higher fees. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/story/0,,2111454,00.html