09/01/2013 BBC News at One

A major shake-up in the way some offenders on probation are

supervised. Private firms and charities could be allowed to

monitor low risk offenders and they'd be paid by results.

The coaltion is set to publish a dossier on the progress of its

pledges revealing its successes and failures.

The Duchess of Cambridge's birthday means the union flag flies at

Belfast City Hall for the first time since a ruling to limit the

number of days. Cooler weather brings some relief

to fire crews battling bush fires across Australia, but more

scorching temperatures are forecast. And Stephen Spielberg's epic

"Lincoln" leads the way with ten BAFTA nominations. Later on BBC

London: closing 65 front counters and selling off buildings - how the

Met plans to save millions. Warnings of a huge shortfall in

paying for adult social care in the Good afternoon, and welcome to the

BBC news at One. Private companies and charities could be allowed to

supervise low risk offenders on probation in England and Wales

under plans being announced by the Government. And they'd be paid for

by results. There'll be no change though in the way high risk

offenders are monitored, but the probation union has warned the

plans could compromise public protection. Among the big changes -

responsibility for around 200,000 low and medium-risk offenders would

transfer to the private sector. But the probation service would

continue to monitor around 50,000 high-risk offenders. And for the

first time, prisoners sentenced to less than 12 months in jail will

have to undertake compulsory rehabilitation. Our home affairs

correspondent Matt Prodger reports. About two-thirds of prisoners

reoffend after release, unable or unwilling to build a life without

crime. But here at Peterborough Prison, they have been trying to

change that with a pilot scheme of payment by results.

Angela Baillie is a mentor on the project helping find jobs, homes

and support for offenders on the outside. This time might be the

difference, because we're here to help when they do come out. They've

got somebody there that's going to point them in the right direction.

Matt is a persistent offender. If he stays out of prison this time,

Angela's organisation gets paid. Before I was released from prison I

am excited but as soon as I get released, all the support I had in

prison stays in prison and you think, wow, what am I going to do

now? Payment by results is already being used by the Government to get

the unemployed back into work, for example. There is no statistical

evidence it is particularly effective, but the Government is so

enthusiastic about the idea it's planning to give the private and

voluntary sectors responsibility for rehabilitating all low-risk

offenders in England and Wales. What I want to do is capture the

best of the public sector, private sector and voluntary sector. In the

voluntary sector you find superb voluntary skills. In the public

sector you have expertise in risk management, protection of the

public. We should have all of those present in our Probation Service.

It means the Probation Service will be left managing only the most

high-risk ex-onders. That's a huge reduction in the role it's played

for more than a century. Having many agencies involved is going to

fragment, be very messy, and I feel some offenders will fall through

the cracks. You'll have a system whereby risks are taken with public

safety because the private sector may have got things wrong.

Government calls the policy a rehabilitation revolution. Critics

say it's privatisation for its own sake are no proof it works.

Our home editor Mark Easton is here. This overhaul has been triggered by

high reoffending rates? Absolutely. As Matt was saying, more than half

of all prisoners leave jail and find themselves very quickly back

in the criminal justice system again. That's the simple fact. It's

the difficult bit that. Comes next and the Government is saying we

want to reduce the amount of reoffending and at the same time

save money. That's really difficult to pull those two off together. The

idea is effect lively to privatise great chunks of the Probation

Service in England and Wales, and the hope is that the profit motive

will drive creativity, will actually bring costs down and take

efficiency up, so I think we're going to see companies like Sirco

and G4S really going for the 16 or so contracts which will be

available. These are really big changes. They would be. You've got

the unions saying this could potentially compromise public

protection? We'll see about that, obviously. The worry, I think, is

you're going to have two categories. You're going to have the state-run

sector looking after the very high- risk people and private stroke

voluntary run look after the low to medium-risk. What happens, people

say, if somebody - a drunk driver, who is involved in a reckless

driving thing, was in prison for awhile - actually, you then

discover there is a domestic violence problem. He's actually a

high-risked oner. How easily will it be to move from one to the

other? The governments say the contracts are key to this. Thank

you very much. David Cameron has promised that

this afternoon's publication of the Government's mid-term review will

be full, frank and completely unvarnished. The Labour leader Ed

Miliband says the coalition has broken several promises. As our

political correspondent Chris Mason reports, the subject caused some

heated exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions. It has

happened yet again in the most filmed street in the country. An

official is caught clutching a private document that is suddenly

not so private. It spells out the pros and cons of releasing an annex

to the mid-term review that was published on Monday. Publishing the

annex could lead to unfavourable coverage, it sea, and identify what

it calls the Government's broken pledges. It will now be released

this afternoon. So what will it say? Will Downing Street sources

tell us it will conclude that the vast majority of their promises

have been met? But in more than 70 areas, more work needs to be done.

At the first Prime Minister's Questions of the year, it was

Labour's first line of attack. the Prime Minister tell us why on

Monday when he published his mid- term review, he failed to publish

his audit of coalition broken promises? We will be publishing

absolutely every single awe audit of every single promise, all 399

pledges set out in the mid-term review, unlike the party opposite.

This will be full. It will be frank. It will be completely unvarnished,

and he will see it this afternoon. Downing Street insists it has been

their long-standing intention to publish this annex to the mid-term

review, but it's long. It's full of facts and figure, they say, and

they wanted to double-check them. No doubt advisors wandering up and

down Downing Street with secret documents in their arms will be

checking too that they're carrying them rather more discreetly.

Our political correspondent Norman Smith was at Westminster. It was

the hot topic in the Commons this lunch time. Explain why it all

matters. It matters because when this document, the mid-term review,

was published on Monday we were told it was the unvarnished review

of the Government's achievements. Now the gloss is coming off because

we discover at the same time that was published the Government had

another dossier cmu annex which presents a less rosy picture, that

the Government hasn't met 70 of its promises. The Government say we

were going to put up on the website. By the way, it shows we have met

90% of our commitments. The difficulty is many people will

raise a rather sceptical eyebrow and suspect what was going on here

was an attempt to bury broken pledges in a 34,000-word PDF

document in the corners of a Cabinet Office. Secondly it matters

because this document was meant to be a part of a Cabinet relaunch.

Now they find themselves tripped up by a self-imposed PR blunder. We

can safely say when the 70-odd broken pledges are published by

2.00pm, they'll probably receive an awful lot more attention than if

they'd been included in this document in the first place. Thank

you very much. In Belfast, the Union flag has been

raised above City Hall for the first time since the council's

decision to restrict the number of days it can fly to 18. It's been

raised today to mark the Duchess of Cambridge's 31st birthday. Last

night Loyalist protests continued and police were targeted with

fireworks and rocks. Mark Simpson is outside City Hall for us now.

Well, the flag is back. You're probably going to have to trust me

because you can hardly see it because the wind isn't blowing here

in Belfast today, but of course, this is a flag which has created

headlines right across the world during the past five week, but I

have to say, this morning here in Belfast events have been remarkably

low-key. Just before 8.00am this morning as

the city was coming to life, the Union Flag reappeared on Belfast

City Hall. There was no fanfare, no ceremony and no sign of the

controversy the issue has caused. It's flying because it's the 31st

birthday of the Duchess of Cambridge. She's been to Belfast

City Hall before. She came here just before her wedding. This is

the first of the 18 designated days that the flag will fly. It will be

raised again on January the 20th to mark the birthday of the Countest

of Wessex. Other dates include March the 17th for St Patrick's Day

and November the 14th to mark the birthday of the Prince of Wales.

The flag used to fly every day. Not just on special occasion.

Supporters of the policy change says it's the perfect comp miez,

but what do shoppers think? can't have a compromise of the

country's flag. It should stay up. It's a British country. So it is. I

don't understand why it was taken down in the first place. It's just

a flag at the end of the day. It doesn't really mean that much to me.

I think the compromise was needed. It's the same at Stormont as well.

It's just something they have to accept and move on with. Some of

the flag protests have turned violent. There's been trouble in

east Belfast six nights in a row. Police today released footage of

the crowd that confronted them last night. Although the protests have

been going on five weeks, the trouble has been localised and the

numbers falling. If we think historically back to 1985, militant

Unionists could bring a quarter of a million people out on to the

street outside City Hall. Now we're talking crowds of one to 200.

flag now seems to be turning into a tourist attraction. I have to say,

there is a very different atmosphere here in Belfast today,

and I have been speaking to a number of hard-line loyalist

protesters who say they're not going to go out protesting tonight

even when the flag comes down this evening, but they're making it

clear they'll be back out tomorrow and the next day and the next day

after that. Sophie? Mark, thank you very much.

A leading health care lawyer is to review breast care services at

Solihull Hospital after concerns were raised that hundreds of

patients could have undergone unnecessary or unauthorised

operations. Police and the General Medical Council are looking into

work done by Dr Ian Patterson, who has been suspended. Today Sir Ian

Kennedy will start talking to patients about whether mistakes

could have been identified earlier. The Care Quality Commission, which

is meant to check that all hospitals and care homes in England

are up to scratch, has been criticised by MPs for failing to

win public confidence. The Commons Health Committee says the

Commission has failed to grasp its primary role to ensure patient

safety following scandals including the abuse uncovered at the

Winterbourne View Care Home. Britain's military could be fatally

compromised by a sustained attack on computer networks. That's the

warning from a group of MPs. The Commons Defence Select Committee

says the threat posed by cyber attackers could "evolve at almost

unimaginable speed". They've called for rapid action to protect

national security. But the Ministry of Defence says it has a range of

contingency plans in place. More than 100,000 records dating

back 45 years will be examined by officials at a crematorium in

Edinburgh to investigate how it handled the remains of dead babies.

Staff at the council-run crematorium routinely told bereaved

parents that they couldn't collect their babies' ashes. Let's get more

from our correspondent who is at the crematorium. Give us the

background to this, Colin. When Edinburgh City Council find

out what was happening here, they apologised and described it as

dreadful. What was going on is when bereaved parents asked for the, a

of their dead baby, they were told the cremation process didn't leave

any, but in fact staff were taking the ashes, placing them in a

cardboard box and burying them in a garden of remembrance. The trouble

is they weren't telling the parents. This may have been going on for up

to 45 years. That's why the council decided there should be external

auditors brought in and 100,000 records examined to determine the

extent of the problem. What's the reaction from the

families involved, then? Some suspected there was something

strange going on because they knew of other cases in other places

where the babies' ashes would be handed over to parents, but when

they found out the truth of what was going on here, they were very

upset and angry. 150 have approached the council already, and

there's going to be public meetings and meetings with MSPs because, as

one mother put it, all these years, we have had nowhere to grieve no,

where to lay our flowers. Colin blain, thank you very much

Our top story this lunch time: A maik major shake-up is proposed

in the way offenders are supervised. Private firms and charities could

be allowed to monitor low-risk offenders, and they'd be paid by

results. Coming up: It was so much cooler than just landing on a feeld,

getting out of a -- field and getting into a balloon. Taking the

plunge - the Californian couple who escaped unhurt after their wedding

went adrift in a hot air balloon. Later on BBC London:

The tube is 150 years old today. We look back at how it's transformed

our lives. And 50 years since it became a

classic, Oh, What A Lovely War Fire fighters in south-eastern

Australia are still tackling widespread bushfires although

cooler weather has offered some respite. Hundreds of fires are

still burning and some remain out of control. Meteorologists have now

confirmed that yesterday was Australia's hottest day on record.

More hot weather is forecast. Nick Bryant is in New South Wales for us

now. Very different conditions over the

past 12 hours or so, where we are in one of the catastrophic areas -

that's the highest level of alert. Temperatures have really dropped.

Yesterday they were 45 degrees. The winds were ferocious. But they've

calmed down as well. But while those temperature changes have

brought relief, they haven't There's almost an end of world feel

to the sight of burning forest land, immediately after a fire front

sweeps through. These were the overnight conditions outside this

small New South Wales' Hamlet where thick bring bush was transformed

within minutes, into a black and amber wasteland.

Through the night, cooler weather brought something of a respite to

much of the state. Not that you'd have known it here.

So the residents found themselves nervously eying a fast-advancing

fire front. But most decided to fight to save their properties,

rather than flee. I'm pretty devastated. A bit shocked. I don't

know how to take it all in and what it means for the immediate future.

130 bushfires are raging still across New South Wales. 30 of them

out of control. But some of the most hazardous conditions the state

has ever witnessed, have not brought the devastation that was

feared. 24 Hours ago the fire front here was threatening two local

communities. But although it has left a lot of black and forest land

and burntout grass, whras' remarkable about these bushfires is

how few properties they've destroyed. -- what's.

Given the ferocity of the fires, it's amazing, too, that as yet no-

one has lost their life. Stories are emerging of extraordinary

escapes, especially in Tasmania, the fist state to be hit. In the

worst-affected down, one family managed to escape the approaching

flames by jumping into the sea and hiding under a jetty. We saw

tornadoes of fire just coming across towards us. And the next

thing we knew, everything was on fire, everywhere, all around us.

came from both directions. It came at us and then from the

side. Australia has been in the grip of what mete rolgss here are

calling "a superheatwave." -- meteorologists. Which is why the

fires are so intense and so widespread. Cooler temperatures in

the coming days bring the chance of containment. But the fire crisis is

not over yet. I think one of the reasons why so

few properties have been destroyed, and why we're not talking about a

death toll, nobody yet has died in any of these bushfires. Is because

so many lessons have been learned from the Black Saturday in Victoria

in 2000 2349 which 70 people were killed. People are more prepared.

People are removing combustible materials from their properties.

And they are deciding to evacuate whereas prior to that, people

stayed rather than flee. But we are watching it over the

next few days, when temperatures are due to rise. The brother of the

murdered black teenager, Stepehen Lawrence, has made a complaint to

the Metropolitan Police, claiming he's been repeatedly stopped and

searched because of the colour of his skin.

The Met say the complaint is a very serious matter which they will

investigate thoroughly and speedily. Our Home Affairs correspondent

Danny Shaw is in central London. What more can you tell us? This

complaint was received by Scotland Yard last night. It's be a

complaint from Stuart Lawrence, the brother of Stephen Lawrence, who

was murdered by a group of white youths 20 years ago. The report

into the inquiry into Stephen's murder branded the Metropolitan

Police institutionally racist. So this is a deeply embarrassing

allegation for the Metropolitan Police, which has tried and worked

hard to stamp out racism in its ranks. Now what Stuart Lawrence

says, is that in November he was stopped by police while he was in

his car in south London and that there was no reason for officers to

stop him in his car, except for the fact that he was black. He goes on

to say in the letter to the Metropolitan Police that he has

been stopped about 25 times over a number of years. And only on a few

of those occasions where they routine stops when he was at

vehicle checkpoints. So, he is saying that the Metropolitan Police

are targeting because of the colour of his skin and no other reason.

The Metropolitan Police is going to look seriously at his complaint. It

says stop and search is a useful tool to combat crime and is support

bid communities if it is used professionally and Fairley.

Thank you very much. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez was due to be sworn in

as president tomorrow but his inauguration for a new term in

office has been postponed because he's in Cuba being treated for

cancer. There's no sympathy from the opposition. They claim the

government is violating the constitution. President Chavez

hasn't been seen or heard from for almost a month. In the latest

update on his health, the Minister of Information said he was still

suffering a serious respiratory infection. After days of

speculation, President Chavez's absence from his swearing in

ceremony was finally confirmed. process of post-operative care will

extend further than January 10th of this year. Because of this, he will

not able to appear on that day in front of the National Assembley.

It was greeted with applause by the majority of the deputies from Mr

Chavez's Socialist Party, who went on to approve his absence for as

long as is necessary. The political opposition has been angered by the

delay. It believes the constitution stipulates that the precedent must

be present on 10th January, in order to continue in office. -- the

President. The opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, has called on

the Supreme Court to make a ruling on the dispute.

TRANSLATION: If the government wants to interpret the constitution

in one way, and others want to interpret the constitution in a

different way, then what happens in this case? Does everyone interpret

it as they wish? No. There needs to be a response from the Supreme

Court. Even if his inauguration is postponed, many are asking when

he'll be able to return to Venezuela.

The American cyclist, Lance Armstrong, has agreed to give a

television interview to Oprah Winfrey to be broadcast next week.

Her website says, "Armstrong will discuss the doping scandal for the

first time, which led to him being stripped of his seven Tour de

France victories last year." Until now he has always strongly denied

using any banned drugs. The racing pundit, John McCririck,

has started legal proceedings McCririck, who is 72 claims the

broadcaster axed him last year because he was too old. He has

described it as "age discrimination" and is seeking �3

million in damages. The film awards season is under way.

The BAFTA nominations have been announced and Steven Spielberg's

epic film, Lincoln, heads the list with ten nomination. Les Miserables

rabble and Life of Pi have also done well. And there were nomnai,

too, for sky fall. The winners will be revealed next month. --

nominations, too, for Skyfall. Lincoln, with its weighty subject-

matter, President Abraham Lincoln fighting to abolish slavery always

looked like the kind of film to do well with awards. And it has got

ten nominations, including Best Film and Best Actor for Daniel Day-

Lewis. It is the self-evident truth that things that are equal tlt same

thing, are equal to each other. -- equal to the same thing.

Close shiepbtd most nominated British film, the big screen

version of stage musical, Les Miserables rabble, which has nine

nominationss. Much -- Les Miserables.

Two of its star, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway are recognised, and

it is also up for Best Film. It was an expensive movie. It was a bit of

a risk. You know, it opened very well in America and is opening here

this weekend it. Feels like a lot of people want to see the film,

which is the most important thing. And a lovely bonus to get a bunch

of nominations. And also with nine nominations, including Best

Director is Life of Pi, based on the acclaimed novel about a boy,

marooned in a boat, with a tiger. With three films relatively evenly-

matched, it makes it hard to predict what will happen at the

awards. Have a really, really widespread. What that will mean, I

think, is that the ceremony will be more interesting. There is one

great big Titanic coming along to win everything. I think that makes

it more interesting. Admit it. Actually I think it is a

huge mistake. Two leading British actresss are up for awards. Helen

Mirren has a Best Actress nominations for her role as

director Alfred Hitchcock's wife in Hitchcock.

While Dame Judi Dench is up for Best Supporting Actress for her

portrayal of M in Skyfall. The Bond movie has eight nominations in

total. Again making it a possible big winner on the night. Of course

we do it all again tomorrow with the Oscar nominations and if one

film does particularly well there, that could make the difference,

with it doing well at the ceremonies, on both sides of the

Now, couples choose to get married in all kinds of unusual places

nowadays but for one couple in California, married life got off to

a very bumpy start, when they decided to tie the knot in a hot

air balloon. Soon to be married a happy couple

take to the skies for a wedding they'll never forget.

Positions everybody. Brace. Hold on. But shortly after they exchanged

their vows, the wedding party comes back to Earth with a bump.

And then an almighty crash. Fortunately no-one was seriously

injured and there was no significant damage to the house the

balloon unexpectedly dropped in on. Even before their ordeal, both

bride and groom were a little nervous about heights. She said, "I

want to arrange for to us get married in a had the air balloon."

I said, "I'm scared of heights." She said, "I am too, it'll be fun."

I thought it was pretty fast. We were all holding on in our stance

to land it. Bounced two or three times. Then we were just being

dragged by the balloon. There is always a lot of tidying up

to do after a wedding but it doesn't usually look like this.

Gathering up a had the air balloon, spread across a home and garden, is

rather more tricky than cleaning away the remains of a wedding

breakfast. For better or worse, this was a wedding with a

difference. Looking back on their big day... The couple may reflect

that while many people decide it take the plunge and get married,

they did it the other way around. Unbelievable. We are all alive.

Well, let'slike at the latest weather now with Alex. Lots of

sunshine around but you mentioned sunshine around but you mentioned

the word "snow" to me, a moment ago. The possibility, particularly the

early part of next week. It is getting colder. Temperatures

dropped off a bit over the past few days it. Feels chilly out there.

The big compensation as Sophie mentioned. Something we haven't

seen much of this year. There is some sunshine around. The far south

is still smothered with this weather front and this lump of

cloud in north-west England is fog which has caused problems. There is

a band of cloud pushing southwards across the far north of Scotland,

providing rain this afternoon across Orkney and Aberdeenshire.

For most of Scotland it is dry, good spells of sunshine in the east,

a cracking afternoon in Northern Ireland, with sunshine here. There

is that foggier, misty zone across north-west England. To the east of

the Pennines, generally sunny. Skies are brightening across the

south but along the south coast, it may well stay rather glum.

Temperatures here eight or nine Celsius. Elsewhere it is more like

five or six degrees. Those temperatures will fall sharply.

We'll see a touch of frost. The cloud will return to the southern-

most counties of England and gales and stop temperatures falling too

far. Another misty and murky night with lows of four or five.

Elsewhere temperatures tumbling, towns and cities hovering around

freezing but in rural areas, colder than last night, down to minus two

or minus four in the countryside. There will again be fog matches.

Again thick for the morning rush- hour. A greater risk in the

northern in East Midlands as well as northern England and Northern

Ireland. Overall a grey day tomorrow. Some brightness there.

Maybe North Wales and south-west Scotland. Grey in the north-east

with patchy rain. Weather into the south-west through the course of

the day. That is a weather front which will continue to nudge its

way across the country during Thursday night. As it does so, it

tends to weaken. It's really just left with a band of cloud for fri,

bringing a spot or two of rain here and there. -- for Friday.

Either side, generally dry butal cold day with highs of three or

four. Brighter on Friday but only before another area of rain

approaches. That is tied into this area of low pressure which is going

to change things a bit for the weekend. The isobars are sqeegz

together so the winds will pick up. As that -- squeezing together. As

the low drifts away, it'll get colder. Expect some increasing

winds and rain which could turn to sleet or snow particularly into the

weekend and early part of next week. The message at the moment is stay

tuned to the forecast for that. The top story: a major shake-up is

proposed on the way some offenders are -- on probation are monitored.

Still to on the BBC News Channel. Live coverage from Westminster as