16/06/2014 BBC Wales Today

so it's goodbye from me, and on BBC One we now

Welcome to Wales Today. Our top story:

Tonight, the calls for youth justice to be devolved to Wales.

For the first time, we film inside a children's prison.

They are the most complex, dysfunctional young people.

Swansea is the most overcrowded prison in Britain,

but the Justice Secretary rejects a call to resign.

A three-year-old girl has died in a house fire in Carmarthen -

her mother and father remain in hospital.

Tonight, an investigation is underway.

22 different ways of getting rid of your rubbish -

After overwhelmingly surviving a vote of no confidence,

can the WRU and the regions settle their differences?

And the Welsh rugby fans' banner in South Africa

that's become an internet sensation at the Football World Cup in Brazil!

The Children's Commissioner for Wales has added

his voice to calls for the Youth Justice system to be devolved.

Keith Towler says giving Wales the power to run the system -

currently run by the Youth Justice Board -

There are two secure facilities here.

Parc Prison Young Offenders Institution

Hillside Secure Children's Home, in Neath,

has 10 beds for the most complex young offenders.

The latest figures, for March, show that 49 young people from Wales

34 of them were placed here, 15 in England.

In a moment, The Children's Commissioner.

First, our reporter, Nicola Smith, has been given exclusive access

Tucked away off a quiet street in Neath -

22 boys and girls from across the UK live on three separate wings here.

His mother told me he got in with the wrong crowd

For several months now, this eight-bedded wing has been his home,

I was in the cells for a couple of days and then I was transferred

straight to the court and I was there seven hours, then saw mum

for the first time in three or four days and she was upset

and then I got upset and stuff and then I got sentenced.

I was upset but I knew it was my own fault as well,

You understood there was a reason to it?

Yeah, it's for my own safety and other people's safety as well

Some of the children here have committed robbery,

Others are here for welfare reasons, they're a risk to themselves.

they need the specialist services Hillside can provide.

Mark Lazarus has worked with more than 1,000 of them since

We're dealing with the countries most complex,

We're dealing with the country's most complex,

A lot of them haven't been correctly assessed, they present with emerging

mental health needs, learning difficulties, some are illiterate.

So what we try to do is put a plan together to support them.

That involves psychiatrists, psychologists,

It costs the Youth Justice Board just over ?4,000 per week

At Parc Prison Young Offenders Institution,

One of the main expenses here is staff -

Deborah Morgan Evans is in charge on one of the wings.

For obvious reasons, we all carry keys,

we all carry personal alarms and some staff

The personal alarm is activated if there is an issue, an emergency.

One staff member told me, at times, it can be intimidating here.

Most of the children will have seen more

of life than we can imagine, some have been entrenched in gang crime.

But I'm reminded that they're children.

Children who often arrive at Hillside unable to use

a knife and fork, tie their shoelaces, clean their teeth.

Learning basic skills is part of life here.

Step inside the classroom and you could be in any school, anywhere.

Education is a big part of life at Hillside.

Basic skills like cookery, alongside core subjects,

It's learning but it doesn't feel like it's school

and it helps you so when you go out back into the community,

you know how to do things on your own and independently and stuff.

Alun Evans has taught here for four years.

We see what their strengths and weaknesses are.

From that, we've had people come in with extremely low ability -

struggling with reading and writing and some people leave

Compared to five years ago, the number of young people currently in

Beds at places like this have been cut to reflect that.

This will always be the most expensive, intensive option.

You must deal with a lot of stereotyping -

people at home will be wondering why they deserve this treatment.

The children we work with have very complex needs.

They're children first and foremost, we're not here to judge the children

we're here to work with them and support them and enable them to get

I want to get a job and go back to college

and study mechanics cos that's what I want to do when I'm older.

And that's the aim of staff here at Hillside - to take young people

out of the criminial justice system and give them the skills to go to

Keith Towler is The Children's Commissioner.

Where's the evidence we need to change?

I think what we need to look at is the progress we have made in youth

justice in the last ten or 15 years. There fewer people being

drawn into offending behaviour. We seen massive increases, particularly

in Wales, on a preventative agenda, working with local communities. We

have seen a reduction in numbers coming through the system. We cannot

continue to work in the way that we have been working, the youth Justice

board for England and Wales manages to secure state and manages it on an

England and Wales basis was that we have so many people who are

accommodated in custody in England. They are many miles away from home.

The opportunity exists now to ask whether we can manage our own. You

just made a perfect case for leaving it as it is. It's as good as working

well and improving year-on-year. It is improving but it is the next step

you take to managing the system entirely within Wales. What we know

from the work we have just seen at that unit and the work of the youth

offending services, if you can keep some of these -- be closer to home

you can keep the junk people, the better it is. It is about improving

the lives for the children. Doing that close to home is part of the

best recipe. Close to home is a good phrase. The current idea is that

Welsh people should be kept within Wales. If you are on the border, it

is closer perhaps to go to a facility in the North of England and

to come to somewhere close to Cardiff, 3.5 hours away. Geography

plays a part here. It is already well to say it should be done on a

Wales basis. If a child in north-east Wales finds themselves in

Manchester with them education curriculum going through the prison

estate there, is that going to be the best way of a quipping that

child when he or she returns to Wales estimate what we have seen

with evolution is an increasing divergences in a way we handle

things. We just want to enjoy that when children return, things make

sense. Thank you. It is emerging that Swansea is the most overcrowded

prison in England and Wales. The situation has been described as

extremely serious. It is the prisons where inmates are

on remand or only there for short periods of time where the demand for

places is fast outstripping supply. 40 prisons across

the UK have been told they need to find spare capacity for an extra 440

inmates this summer. The only problem is most

are already full. New figures reveal Swansea prison is

the most overcrowded in the UK, with space for 242 inmates

but a current population of 446. This afternoon a tense exchange

between the city's MP and the Justice Secretary,

Chris Grayling. Will he at last they accept

responsibility for the closure of 18 jails, for the loss of 3500 prison

officers, which has led to an increase in the assaults on prison

officers and the suicide and self harm of prisoners. Will he resign?

He did not call for resignation with Revis labour Justice Secretary 's --

with previous labour Justice Secretary 's. I have provided money

to build a new prison in North Wales with the that is doing the right

thing. But building more prisons is not

the answer some are looking for. Those big prisons, if you compare

them to the committee prisons, ten to work less well and be less safe.

On the whole, that prospect is not a good one. You want a balanced

system, a view good community prisons and some excellent schemes

working in the immunity to make a difference to victims. -- to make

amends to victims. You have a situation called

warehousing, where prisoners are kept in their cells for 23 hours a

day, the maximum allowed, which leads to a stressful situation.

The comfort of prisoners is by no means a political priority.

But the risk of unrest and a summer of discontent

Hand shakes and smiles - after overwhelmingly surviving a vote

of no confidence, can the WRU and the regions now kiss and make up?

A three-year old girl has died in hospital after being rescued from a

house fire in Carmarthen yesterday evening. The child's mother remains

in a serious condition in hospital. Our reporter is in our newsroom for

us. What more do we know? What I can say is that the

three-year-old has died, that has been confirmed in the last hour. The

mother is still in a serious condition. The father managed to

jump from the window you can see the Heidi. He is also in hospital. The

fire broke out at around 6:15pm yesterday. The firemen were greeted

with a fierce fire, which took four hours to bring under control. I

spoke to people who live on the street. When the fire started, they

heard screams and the street was in chaos, there was thick black smoke

throughout and the house was engulfed in flames. Neighbours stood

by in tears and in a state of shock. It is understood that the family had

just got back from a Sunday afternoon walk and had only been

home for Brad 14 minutes before the fire started. People also told me

that the family had only just moved to the area and have only been here

for two weeks before the fire started. Extremely tragic news, a

three-year-old girl has died and her mother is still fighting for her

life. Thank you. At the weekend,

former First Minister Rhodri Morgan claimed ?10 million worth

of improvements were made to roads on the understanding that the

corporation would move to the Bay. There are calls for an

investigation. Mr Morgan claimed the work was carried out on the

understanding that the corporation would move to the Bay.

A spokesperson for BBC Wales said Mr Morgan was mistaken.

The Labour Party in Wales could decide

at the weekend how many councils it wants as part of a new local

Earlier this year, a report called for the number

Any proposal would need some cross-party support in the Assembly.

A suspected World War II bomb has been found during building work at

the retail park in Newport. Homes, schools and businesses have been

evacuated. Bomb disposal experts have been assessing the device and a

chord is place. -- a cordon. Household recycling services

in Wales are too complicated, That's according to

Welsh Government's advisor on sustainability, Peter Davies,

who says to continue to do better than the rest of the UK,

Wales needs a simpler system. It comes as Torfaen council are

considering whether to move to monthly collections

for rubbish that can't be recycled. Our Gwent Valleys reporter

Paul Heaney has spent two months following two households

in the area. Things are getting busier at

recycling plants like this one and across Wales. The recycling rate is

better than the rest of the UK, in part because of ambitious targets

from the Assembly. 52% of the rubbish we throw away what is

recycled. As of next year, the target will be 58%. Authorities are

having to find ways to encourage us to throw less into the bin. From

next year, councils will be fined ?100,000 for every 1% they are below

the new recycling target. One Welsh government adviser says having won

set of rules for recycling everywhere in Wales could help.

There are only 3 million people. There is no reason we did not have a

coordinated approach that would be much clearer, not only for the

householder but critically for the retailers as well because they have

to deal with all of these different systems as well. The Welsh

government says it is up to councils to decide how to meet targets and it

is giving them money to collaborate. On the ground, there are different

systems in place. In one area, they are considering debt options,

smaller bins, restricting the number of bags or collecting waste once a

month, with recycling every week. In an unscientific test, I followed the

habits of two families, one of those was the counsellor in charge of

collections in the area. After two weeks, he has sent barely anything

to landfill and is able to keep up with recycling. We will be fined if

we do not meet the targets. What about a family of four? What do mum

and dad do with all of the packets? They throw them in the bin. Do they

do anything else with them? They do recycle them. I recycle as much as I

can. What I know I can throw into the recycling, I put it in. Two

weeks later, I am back to find the black bin full. You can see you have

food in that. When you look at the weight of that, you can see that the

president is doing recycling of cardboard, we can provide more

recycling facilities. A family took some advice from the council and

were given an extra bin for food waste, so after another fortnight,

have things improved? It is down a bit but not enough for two weeks?

No, not enough. There is not two weeks worth of space in there. He

tells me that families will struggle with any options that are being

considered. Plastic packaging is the biggest issue. A lot of people do

not know what they can recycle. I am not 100% sure. The Welsh government

was to send no ways at all to landfill by 2050 but there is now a?

Over whether that is possible when there are still so many different

recycling systems. Claire's here now with all

of tonight's sport. In the end, it was

a resounding vote of confidence. The board of the Welsh Rugby Union

overwhelmingly survived a vote of no confidence yesterday at the EGM

in Port Talbot, prompted by former After four hours of debate,

this is how things broke down. 462 opposed the motion -

18 abstained, just four voted to Afterwards, chief executive

Roger Lewis said lessons had been It has been a dark day, instigated

by a very small minority of people. The reason I emphasise that,

hundreds of men and women supported the Welsh Rugby union today. We any

have four people against us in that vote of no-confidence. The rest are

hundreds, supported the union. That is the reflection of where we are in

Wales today. That said, we have got to continue and improve and get

better stop that is our challenge. Our reporter was following

proceedings yesterday. I asked him where things now stand. I think we

have a rather fragile peace deal between the unions and the clubs as

it stands was the union will have been glad to see off the revolt but

plenty of issues on the agenda yesterday, feelings running high and

the one thing that got people hot under the collar was the proposed

changes to the league structure. The chairman, David Pickering, has

promised that he will recommend to the board that the clubs are

balloted so they have a full chance to have their say. If they do not

like the proposed changes, further consultation will happen. The WRU

say they are listening and will improve. They will become better at

listening to what they have to say. Otherwise, as one man said at the

end of the meeting, they could be back there in five years having

another EGM, another possible vote of no-confidence. As for David

Moffett, have we seen the last of him? He has gone back to New Zealand

to lick his wounds. He might be back next year as he has a book out to

try and plug that. With the EGM over, that is done and dusted, let

us turn to the region is at the Welsh were reunion. Lots of talking

and negotiating to do on that. They have two weeks to come to some kind

of agreement. The existing participation agreement runs out on

June 30. Roger Lewis said that he feels there is a detailed proposal

on the table that meets the regions' financial needs. Speaking

to Mark Davis, the acting head of regional rugby, he did not spark and

domestic tone. Do the regions stop receiving money if they do not meet

the deadline? Do they turn the tap off? He said that those were things

he did not want to contemplate. They have not got long to sort something

out. We watch this space. Football

and they say their not thinking about world cup qualification yet,

but Wales' women will take huge confidence into their next game

against Belarus on Thursday, This goal from Sarah Wiltshire

clinched the victory, leaving Wales five points behind group leaders

England, who will automatically Wales need to finish second to have

any chance of qualifying To the cricket now. Rudolph scored

Glamorgan's first century of the season.

Rugby and Wales have arrived in Cape Town insisting they can and

will play much better in the second test, having been thrashed 38 points

Coach Warren Gatland could give players like scrum half

Gareth Davies and fly half Matthew Morgan a start for the final test.

He'll name his side to face the Springboks on Thursday.

Many fans have travelled to South Africa to watch Wales and one

group of supporters have become an internet sensation overnight.

12 rugby fans from Bedwas in Caerphilly held up this banner

before kick off on Saturday and it got re-tweeted over 40,000 times.

But, much to the disappointment of the men,

it got called the best banner of the Football World Cup by mistake!

The build up was on and Gerry Toms and friends

were in their seats, ready for the big game.

A chance to show off the banner they had printed

Of course, their wives did know where they were but a challenge had

been set in this pub to get themselves on TV before they left

and so Gerry paid ?40 and got the banner made.

For wife Liz, left doing her day job as a pig farmer,

With husband Gerry being former South Wales police chief

superintendent and ex-general manager of the Millennium Stadium,

the trip had been planned with military precision.

I came home to a number of text messages and tweets and I was

staggered. The whole thing has gone viral!

But when someone tweeted a screen grab of the men it got sent

round the social media world as the best banner of the World Cup, which

of course is going on in Rio at the same time, much to Gerry's dismay.

It is quite bizarre, we were wearing red shirts. We were clearly Welsh. I

thought it would be fairly obvious. But it just added to the interest in

the ballot itself. Back at the Church House pub

in Bedwas, they've currently lost 12 All they could talk about was their

tour. I'm sure it will the same when they come back. The last time, they

start talking about it three years after they came back.

After such a response, Gerry and mates are now planning a sequel

Let's see what the weather picture has in store for the week -

There's plenty more dry weather to come this week.

Cloud amounts will vary from day to day, but some sunny spells.

Just the odd shower and not everywhere will see those.

Some patchy cloud otherwise the sky clear.

The temperature in Powys dropping to 9 Celsius.

Tomorrow's chart shows high pressure over the Atlantic near

So here's the picture for 8am in the morning.

Elsewhere clear, bright and sunny and feeling warm

Some lovely sunshine although some cloud with breaks in it will spread

Top temperature around 22 Celsius, so nice and warm.

Cooler on the north and west coast with an onshore breeze.

Once again, the Pollen count tomorrow will be

Tomorrow night most of the country dry but there is the possibility

of a shower in the northeast and Powys during the early hours.

Perhaps some sea mist on the north and west coast.

On Wednesday probably more cloud than sunshine.

One or two showers for example in the south otherwise dry.

Bright in places with temperatures on the warm side.

Good weather if you're for working outdoors this week -

some farmers have already taken advantage of the fine conditions

The headlines, Islamist militants have captured another town in the

north of Iraq. William Hague has confirmed to MPs that Britain has no

plans for military intervention. I'll have an update for you

after the BBC News at 10pm. From all of us on the programme,

good evening.