An assessment of fire services in England has found they are continuing to improve and are preventing more fires and saving more lives. But the Audit Commission also found the gap between the best and worst services was getting wider.

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Three leading charities have claimed that spending on social care services for vulnerable elderly people has been so severely cut that thousands of people have been left without the support they need. The claim has come from Help the Aged, Counsel and Care and Carers UK which have launched the Right Care Right Deal campaign to highlight what they have branded a disgraceful drop in funding.

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By Geraldine Blake, John Diamond, Jane Foot, Ben Gidley, Marjorie Mayo, Kalbir Shukra and Martin Yarnit,

Government policies and the efforts of local councils aim to secure a greater degree of community engagement. But as well as engaging communities there is also a need to build cohesive communities. This is particularly challenging where there are newcomers from EU countries and elsewhere. Community engagement and community cohesion policies have been developed in parallel, but they have not been integrated. The authors describe what must change for this to happen.

Read more on BRINGING TOGETHER COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNITY COHESION…