The Government has introduced a draft Modern Slavery Bill which is aimed at making it simpler to prosecute human traffickers and which will bring in life sentences for such offences. But who are the victims of modern day slavery in the UK and how organised are the gangs who prey upon them? While much concern has focused on people trafficked into the country, Jane Deith reveals how the most vulnerable in society such as the homeless and people with learning difficulties are being targeted by gang...
May 13, 2014•37 min
With local authority elections due in May, Allan Urry investigates claims of organised vote rigging. Earlier this year, the Electoral Commission identified 16 areas in England with wards that are at particular risk of electoral fraud. File on 4 visits some of those towns and cities and hears first hand evidence of intimidation and the widespread abuse of postal votes - including allegations that some people are being pressured into handing over their vote to party activists. A candidate who succ...
Mar 11, 2014•37 min
The UK is said to have more accountants than almost any other nation on earth. Thanks to reforms in the way the public sector is run, the "Big Four" accountancy firms and the accountancy profession generally has become more powerful and more influential than ever before. But what do these accountants actually do and what does it mean for taxpayers? To find out, Simon Cox meets the residents of Birmingham, who are dealing with the reality of the accountants' decisions. And he speaks to the nation...
Mar 04, 2014•37 min
Each year the number of deaths in every hospital in England is recorded and compared with national averages for the range of patients and conditions treated. The results are published by a company called Dr Foster in The Hospital Guide. The Guide has a solid reputation. Its findings are studied and used by leaders of the NHS. Dr Foster's statistical expert says that high mortality statistics should act as a 'smoke alarm' raising investigation of standards at a hospital. The Care Quality Commissi...
Feb 25, 2014•37 min
Probation staff are currently being told where they will be working under a radical reform of the service. The government is transferring the management of low and medium risk offenders to private companies and high risk cases will be handled by a national probation service. The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, says the reforms are necessary to cut reoffending rates and save money which will be ploughed back into providing support to all prisoners who have served less than 12 months. But oppon...
Feb 18, 2014•37 min
Flights grounded. Trains cancelled. Roads flooded. It's becoming a familiar story every winter as Britain's transport systems are battered by the weather. While rainfall this winter has been unusually high, has some of the disruption that we've seen been caused by a lack of strategic planning and routine maintenance? Should a flooded river have been able to knock out power supplies at Gatwick, catching airport authorities by surprise? Were the drainage systems adequate on some of the railway emb...
Feb 11, 2014•37 min
Ministers have promised a new focus on home care for the elderly and disabled amid concern that 15-minute calls and a low-paid, underskilled workforce are leaving vulnerable people at risk. From this Spring, inspectors will ask how councils' commissioning practices are affecting the daily lives of those they care for. But with authorities under pressure simultaneously to cut costs, will quality continue to suffer? Fears have been mounting about whether the basic needs of vulnerable people are be...
Feb 04, 2014•37 min
A year after the horsemeat scandal there are calls for a new police force to fight food fraud amid concerns that organised crime is increasingly targeting the sector because there are huge profits to be made at the expense of the consumer. Prof Chris Elliott, who was commissioned by the government to investigate the UK's most serious food scandal in recent years, says criminals are committing more food fraud because there's little risk of detection or serious penalties if they're caught. Gerry N...
Jan 28, 2014•37 min
Last month a report by a government advisor, Lawrence Tomlinson, accused The Royal Bank of Scotland of forcing some viable businesses into insolvency. The Bank has denied Tomlinson's claims and has asked a leading law firm to carry out an independent investigation. With their findings due to be published shortly, File on 4 assesses the evidence. Jane Deith speaks to families who claim their companies were unfairly forced to the wall and their lives ruined as a result of the actions of the Bank's...
Jan 21, 2014•37 min
As water companies submit their spending plans for the next five years, Lesley Curwen investigates what happens to the money once the household water bill has been paid. Half of England's water companies are now in the ownership of global investment funds. In many cases these corporate bodies are run and financed from abroad behind closed doors. They use a web of companies some in off-shore tax havens to provide a steady flow of dividends to their shareholders. But is their mechanism for generat...
Jan 14, 2014•37 min
As a complex operation continues to destroy the remainder of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, how much will we ever know about the supply routes through which the Assad regime acquired the basic ingredients for its arsenal? Vast quantities of chemicals are traded around the world every day, so what chance do we have of controlling their use by rogue states and terrorists? In the first of a new series, Allan Urry reports from the headquarters of the OPCW - the organisation set up to stop the s...
Jan 07, 2014•37 min
The biggest ever slice of the NHS is up for grabs in Cambridgeshire. Ten bidders, including NHS hospital trusts and private companies Serco, Virgin Care and Circle, are competing for a five year contract to run older peoples' services. It will be worth a minimum of £700,000. The successful bidder will provide everything from podiatry and occupational therapy to dementia treatment and end of life care. The stakes are high. But how much will patients be told about how the bid was won? With commiss...
Nov 12, 2013•37 min
The Work Programme is the Government's flagship scheme designed to help the long term unemployed off benefits and into lasting jobs. But how well is it working - both for those at whom it is aimed and for the private companies who are paid to deliver it? Official figures paint a patchy picture and some companies have already been sanctioned for not meeting targets. Their record has been particularly poor for claimants whose illness or disability makes it hard to find a job. Despite this, the Cha...
Nov 05, 2013•37 min
What's behind the recent death of a clubgoer in Manchester who's believed to have taken a bad dose of the drug ecstasy? He's one of 12 in the area in the last year who've died after using illegal stimulants with toxic new additives, prompting the Government's Chief Medical Officer to issue a formal alert. Police are concerned organised crime is hiring backstreet chemists to cook up their own toxic amphetamines. Allan Urry investigates. Producer: Carl Johnston.
Oct 29, 2013•37 min
Ministers have set a target of 170,000 new affordable homes in the next two years. But the Housing Associations which must take a major part in delivering them are under increasing financial strain. With their incomes squeezed by benefit reform and grant cuts, many are taking a more commercial approach. But there's concern some are taking too many financial risks. And MPs have voiced fears that the regulator charged with monitoring the associations' viability is not up to the job. Fran Abrams in...
Oct 22, 2013•37 min
It is estimated more than 100 British people could be fighting with opposition forces in Syria. At least one is known to have been killed in action earlier this year. File on 4 investigates who these men are and why they have gone to fight. While some are believed to have strong Syrian connections and are motivated by personal opposition to the government, there are concerns that others have travelled there to join hardline Islamist groups. Jenny Cuffe examines how fighters are recruited and the...
Oct 15, 2013•37 min
The government is stepping up its support for HS2, the high-speed rail project due to link London and Birmingham by 2026 with extensions to Manchester and Leeds by 2032. The cost is officially estimated to be £42.6bn and could rise to more than £51bn if, as expected, the scheme incurs VAT. Opponents foresee further increases and have predicted an eventual bill of £80bn for taxpayers. Who stands to gain from the project and who will be the losers? The government has published detailed maps of the...
Oct 08, 2013•38 min
The Government wants more wind power and nuclear energy to supply our electricity, but how well is it delivering that plan? In Scotland where conditions for renewable sources are good, there's been a rush to cash in on generous subsidies for wind farms. But the infrastructure can't cope so companies are also being paid handsomely to dump the energy they produce. And, deals which include subsidies are being concluded behind closed doors between Government officials and the nuclear industry for a ...
Oct 01, 2013•37 min
Recent revelations about secret mass surveillance programmes have raised fears about potential abuses of individual privacy in favour of national security. With requests to intercept personal communications data on the rise, just who is collecting the information and for what purpose? Even local authorities can now use surveillance powers to track employees and monitor the activities of residents. So what rights do people have when they feel they have been unfairly targeted? Jenny Chryss examine...
Sep 24, 2013•37 min
Will the Rana Plaza factory tragedy mean Bangladeshi garment workers no longer have to work in death traps? It's five months on from the collapse of the 8 storey building in Dhaka, in which more than a thousand workers died, and several thousand lost arms or legs or were paralysed. Jane Deith reports from Dhaka on what's happened since. Just how much medical and financial help have survivors and families of the dead received? Campaigners said the disaster should be a "game changer" in forcing in...
Sep 17, 2013•37 min
Psychiatric hospitals have a duty to keep their patients safe, which means taking extra care with patients suffering acute depression who may be at risk of self-harm. So campaigners argue that when a patient commits suicide, it is vital that a thorough investigation should discover any failings by doctors and nurses and any weaknesses in hospital systems of communication or levels of staffing. But, unlike deaths in prison or police custody, fatalities in psychiatric units are not reviewed from t...
Jul 30, 2013•38 min
The amount of coal burned in Britain's power stations rocketed in 2012 with ministers relying on the fuel to help keep the lights on in the next few years. But coal mining in Britain is now in deep trouble. Two of the UK's major mining firms have collapsed and a third is in trouble following a huge underground fire in February. The fire was at Daw Mill in Warwickshire, one of the few remaining deep mines in the UK. Coming on the back of competition from cheap coal from abroad, the costly fire pl...
Jul 23, 2013•37 min
Last week, the Government dropped plans to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes in England. It said it wanted to wait and see what happens in Australia where the measure was introduced earlier this year. Labour and health campaigners accused the Government of caving in to the tobacco lobby. A claim it has denied. In Europe, too, MEPs are considering a new law aimed at deterring young people from smoking. The Tobacco Products Directive proposes, among other things, a ban on flavoured cigarett...
Jul 16, 2013•37 min
While the G8 summit of world leaders has agreed a global deal to ensure big business pays its dues, concerns about tax avoidance go wider. A group of MPs has just examined the case of the Cup Trust, a charity which tried to claim £46 million in tax relief but spent just £55,000 on good works. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge, concluded the Trust's purpose "was to avoid tax". And she said this wasn't an isolated case. The Committee heard that HMRC investigates around 300...
Jul 09, 2013•37 min
NHS hospitals in England are back in the spotlight with a crisis in A&E and a growing number of cancelled operations. But does the real problem lie in the way the Government is currently funding them? The Department of Health uses a system called Payment by Results to try to ensure better patient care is delivered more efficiently. However Allan Urry hears from hospitals which say they're being treated unfairly and losing millions because of perverse tariffs which short-change them. Critics ...
Jul 02, 2013•37 min
The way in which oil is traded on commodities markets is coming under close scrutiny. Last month, officers of the European Commission raided the London offices of BP and Shell along with Norway's Statoil company and the leading price reporting agency Platts. They said they were investigating claims of collusion to manipulate the prices of oil and biofuels on the international markets. A leading city insider tells File On 4 that the price-reporting mechanism for oil is 'wide open to abuse' So are...
Jun 25, 2013•37 min
Local authorities across the UK are facing tough decisions as they try to balance their books in the face of unprecedented funding cuts - with many opting to sell land and buildings to reduce spending and bring in much needed capital. But, one person's white elephant is another's much loved local facility, so the choice of what goes on the market often causes great public resentment. Jenny Chryss visits four local authorities where announcements about asset sales have caused serious questions to...
Jun 18, 2013•37 min
In the latest high profile grooming trial, 7 men from Oxford will be sentenced later this month for sexually exploiting and raping 6 schoolgirls. Police said the girls - some as young as 12 - were 'abused to the point of torture' for years. One girl was injected with heroin. Another was forced to have a backstreet abortion. The police praised the young women for finding the strength to give evidence against the gang and protect other girls. But, after the legal process ends, what support is ther...
Jun 11, 2013•38 min
Operation Jasmine was the UK's biggest ever care home abuse investigation. But in January this year proceedings against two key figures in the case collapsed, leaving dozens of families asking if they will ever get justice. While relatives demand a public inquiry into what happened in the six Welsh care homes at the centre of the case, 12.5 metric tonnes of unpublished evidence lie in a Pontypool warehouse. Experts say prosecutors too often face insurmountable difficulties in bringing people acc...
Jun 04, 2013•37 min
There's mounting concern over the Iranian nuclear programme. Is Tehran is simply playing cat and mouse with the international community and buying time until it is ready to develop a nuclear weapon? Evidence is emerging that Iran is co-operating with North Korea, a country which has already developed its own weapon. The latest report from the UN's international watchdog, the IAEA, is due out next month - but has the IAEA been strong enough in its dealings with Tehran and Pyongyang? Reporter Rob ...
May 28, 2013•37 min
