Ebola is now regarded as an international threat to peace and security, according to the World Health Organisation. Yet, when the WHO was first warned of an unprecedented outbreak, the organisation said it was "still relatively small." Now the UK has asked for volunteers to travel to West Africa to try to bring Ebola under control. Thousands of American troops are also flying out to the region. But could all this have been avoided? Simon Cox asks why it took so long for the world to wake up to t...
Oct 21, 2014•37 min
In the biggest outsourcing to date, the NHS in England has announced it is tendering a huge £700 million contract for providing NHS cancer care in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, along with another £500million for end of life care in the region. Officials say it will streamline services and provide better treatment while critics say it's the most reckless privatisation yet. BBC Health Editor Hugh Pym investigates.. Producer: Paul Grant.
Oct 14, 2014•37 min
The nature of crime is changing, with much of it now happening online, sparking growing concern that official figures fail to account for potentially millions of fraud offences. Experts say frauds involving plastic debit and credit cards are among the crimes left out of the data. So just how reliable - and useful - are the statistics? At the same time, police economic crime units, which investigate fraud, have become increasingly stretched, partly as a result of government budget cuts. BBC Home ...
Oct 07, 2014•38 min
How well are Britain's borders patrolled and defended at a time when the authorities are battling to stem the flow of illegal immigrants coming across the Channel and tightening national security because of fears of a terrorist attack by extremists returning from fighting in Syria and Iraq? Allan Urry assesses the vulnerability of our ports, struggling with cuts to Border Force personnel and problems with a computer system that was supposed to have identified all those coming into and going out ...
Sep 30, 2014•37 min
Is a new scandal about to engulf the UK's banking industry? Was LIBOR just the tip of the iceberg? Regulators around the world are looking at the way important financial benchmarks have been calculated. These are used to set the value of pension funds, investments and international contracts worth billions of pounds. Financial regulators in the UK, across Europe and in the US are investigating whether the benchmarks have been rigged to increase bank profits - and to short change their customers....
Sep 23, 2014•37 min
Knowl View special school for boys has become infamous as the haunt of Cyril Smith. Prosecutors now say 'Mr Rochdale' should have been charged with abuse of boys while he was alive. But he was not the only one. In the first of a new series, former pupils in the 1970s, 80s and 90s tell File on 4 how a web of abusers, including local paedophiles and other pupils preyed on boys as young as eight while people supposed to protect them looked the other way. Previous police investigations came to nothi...
Sep 16, 2014•37 min
Every year more than 1,500 UK children are diagnosed with cancer. For some the outlook is good but for those struck down by one of the rarer cancers, the prognosis can be a bleak one. Two hundred and fifty children die each year from the disease. Parents have told File on 4 there is a worrying lack of research into new drugs for childhood cancers, with youngsters sometimes offered treatments which have hardly changed in the last forty years - treatments that can have a limited chance of success ...
Jul 15, 2014•37 min
Last month, in the Queen's Speech, the Government announced a series of measures to support small businesses -- including proposals to deal with the problem of late payment of bills by larger companies. It follows a long history of horror stories about major high street names leaving suppliers and sub-contractors out of pocket because of delays in settling accounts. Figures produced by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills revealed that 85 per cent of small and medium sized businesse...
Jul 08, 2014•37 min
In many parts of the world, charities are trying to deliver much-needed aid to desperate people living in areas controlled by militant groups. What do they do when counter-terrorism laws ban them from contact with those de facto authorities? Risk of prosecution has now created a climate of fear in many aid agencies - and the UN wants counter-terrorism policies redrawn to ensure lives can be saved without charity workers risking jail. Tim Whewell reports from Gaza - and talks to aid workers opera...
Jul 01, 2014•37 min
On the day a parliamentary committee is due to take evidence about the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre, Simon Cox investigates claims of sexual abuse and poor health care for the women held there. Campaigners and detainees tell File on 4 about "a culture of disbelief" which they say exists among healthcare staff and which they claim is putting women at risk. Serco - the company that runs the centre - insists it provides a good standard of care, but a former member of staff, speaking publi...
Jun 24, 2014•37 min
The recent furore over halal meat has focused attention on how our meat is killed and processed. But beyond the ethical and religious debate over halal, are there bigger concerns about how abattoirs are regulated and policed? Companies have been fined for failing to remove body parts associated with the human form of mad cow disease, BSE. Now there are plans to shake-up the inspection process which critics say this could lead to more infected animals entering the food chain. There are also claim...
Jun 17, 2014•37 min
More than 15 years ago, the Good Friday Agreement came into force - bringing an end to three decades of violence in Northern Ireland. At the heart of the peace process is a commitment to bring truth and justice to the bereaved. But many families say they're still waiting. The peace process also promised to bring Protestants and Catholics closer together. But, in some communities still divided by peace walls, there remains a deep mistrust of their neighbours. So have politicians failed in their p...
Jun 10, 2014•37 min
With fees costing as much as £9,000 a year, universities must operate in an increasingly cut-throat market place. At a time when budgets in some institutions are being stretched, students are demanding more for their money. Against a backdrop of rising complaints, the new Competition and Markets authority is considering whether to launch an investigation. So are students getting what they pay for? And when they don't, can they get the problem fixed in a timely manner? Why are some students takin...
Jun 03, 2014•37 min
GPs are under pressure to do more. The Government wants surgeries to open seven days a week and the Labour Party say they'll ensure people get appointments within 48 hours. But, at the same time, there are warnings that the family doctor service in England is on the brink of extinction because of a "perfect storm" of funding cuts and growing demand. Jenny Cuffe meets two doctors - one in rural Yorkshire, who is about to lose a quarter of his funding and does not know how he can keep his surgery ...
May 27, 2014•37 min
How effective is the system for investigating miscarriages of justice in England and Wales? Critics say the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body charged with examining potential wrongful convictions, lacks teeth and needs to be thoroughly reformed. Are they right? Allan Urry examines cases in which prisoners, campaigners and lawyers say the CCRC doesn't do enough for those who continue to protest their innocence. Should the Commission be making more use of the latest DNA techniques to re-e...
May 20, 2014•37 min
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
