Monday

Town halls face a £2.5 billion “black hole” in their budgets after thousands of companies stopped paying business taxes to councils. Households may face higher council tax bills and cuts in services after local government chiefs said that companies were asking to defer payments or were failing to pay.

Family doctors are being paid cash bonuses to stop them sending a patients to hospital, despite NHS research showing that it reduces the quality of care. Incentive schemes for doctors have been set up all over Britain, despite the warnings. Overall hospital referrals by GPs increased by 16 per cent last year.

Tuesday

The number of people that will die from diabetes is forecast to rise from one in ten to one in seven in less than 20 years unless obesity rates can be reduced significantly, according to figures released by Diabetes UK, a charity. The number of patients has risen to 167,000 in 2007-08 from 83,000 in the previous year.

Wednesday

Money-saving cuts in the living space of athletes in the 2012 Olympics are being considered. The 4,200 flats designed for the Olympic Park, would be reduced to 2,700. The Government has expressed concern, saying the success of the Games depends partly on the quality of the Olympic Village.

The number of undergraduates studying maths, physics, chemistry and engineering is on the increase after years of decline, thanks to an injection of £350 million of government money. Figures from the Higher Education Funding Council for England suggest that action by universities, schools and the Government to boost interest in sciences is starting to pay off.

Thursday

A design flaw found in thousands of places on the country’s rail network is putting passengers at risk of a catastrophic derailment similar to Potters Bar. The Office of Rail Regulation ordered Network Rail to correct the problem four months ago but thousands of trains a day continue to pass over flawed sections of track.

Police forces lost more than one million days to long-term sick leave last year. The absences cost £90 million, an increase of 20 per cent over the past five years. The main causes were stress, depression, back pain, and musculo-skeletal disorders.

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