File on 4 Investigates

The UK's £12 billion pound foreign aid budget is one of the few areas of Government spending protected from cuts. The commitment to spend 0.7% of Britain's gross national income on aid means at least 60 billion pounds will be spent on overseas development in the next five years. Many of these projects are delivered by large companies that receive tens of millions of pounds from DFID (the Department for International Development). They can charge over a thousand pounds a day for a consultant and their directors earn six figure salaries but how effective are they are and the programmes they are paid to deliver? Simon Cox investigates the UK's aid industry and asks how taxpayers can know that they're getting value for money. Reporter: Simon Cox Producer: Gail Champion.

Sixty thousand people have crossed the Mediterranean and made it to Europe so far this year.Frontex, the EU border agency, warns that between 500,000 and 1 million people - Eritreans, Syrians, Afghans, Somalis - could be waiting to leave the shores of Libya for Italy.Its latest report says resources are being devoted to migrants' care but not towards screening and collecting basic information such as their nationality - which means many are quickly moving on to countries like the UK. According to the report, 'this puts the EU internal security at risk'.There are also fears terrorists belonging to the so-called Islamic State could secrete themselves among the migrants.So how easy is it for people to avoid security checks as they journey across the EU?European countries are supposed to stop illegal migrants and enter their fingerprints and details on a central database. EU rules state that the country where people are first fingerprinted must look after them and consider their asylum applications.This means many migrants set on coming to this country try to stay under the radar in Italy and France, hoping to reach the UK without being processed.Jane Deith follows the routes used by some of those headed for Britain.She also investigates the smugglers who help them - from individuals using their own cars, to organized crime gangs offering money back guarantees on a new life in the UK.Is Europe losing the battle for control?Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Paul Grant.

Later this month the medicines regulator, the MHRA, is due to complete its review into the clot-busting drug Alteplase, the frontline treatment used in many cases of stroke. A number of experts in the UK, US and Canada have raised serious doubts about the drug's safety and effectiveness. They are concerned about potentially fatal harm to patients through an increased risk of bleeding in the brain and they question the credibility of scientific research on which Alteplase was licensed. Supporters and regulators say any risks are outweighed by the benefits of improved recovery. BBC Health Correspondent Adam Brimelow assesses the evidence and the dilemma posed for doctors and their patients. Producer: Sally Chesworth.

With the urgent need for more housing, Britain's planning laws are under pressure like never before. Greenbelt land and even sites designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are being earmarked for development. So how far can we protect the countryside when the need for houses is so acute? Allan Urry reveals new figures on scale of the problem and investigates claims that the planning system is being stretched to breaking point.Reporter: Allan Urry Producer: Emma Forde.

Next month the National Audit Office is due to report on the outcomes for young people leaving care. There are claims that, under financial pressure, local authorities are pushing too many teenagers into independent living before they're ready. File on 4 investigates new figures that suggest many young care leavers are failing to cope - with large numbers ending up in custody, homeless, sexually exploited or pregnant. Social services chiefs say the welfare of care-leavers must be a key priority for the new government. But who holds them to account when they fail those they are meant to have looked after? And, with more cuts on the way, can the system cope? Fran Abrams reveals how hands-off caring can have tragic consequences.

Mental health services are facing a period of unprecedented change. The Department of Health has committed itself to reducing the disparity between spending on physical and mental illness, and a new payment system means services will be funded differently in the future. In the meantime there are concerns that vulnerable patients are dying because of pressures to release them from hospital too quickly, and a failure to provide adequate support in the community.Can a new focus on what has traditionally been dubbed a 'Cinderella service' reverse the impact of years of cuts? Reporter: Adrian Goldberg Producer: Gail Champion.

Emma Caldwell was a young woman from a good home who developed an addiction to heroin after the death of her sister and then descended into street prostitution. When her body was found dumped in a ditch in Lanarkshire in May 2005, the police launched an unprecedented murder hunt. But ten years on, after an investigation costing millions of pounds, no one has ever been convicted of her killing. Eamon O Connor investigates what went wrong. Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane.

It's taken a long time to break through the culture of denial, but child sexual exploitation cases from Rochdale to Oxford have shown that grooming of children can happen in any community.There seems to be a growing acceptance that what the Deputy Children's Commissioner says is true: 'there isn't a town, village of hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited'.Councils that thought they were immune from groomers and traffickers, are now training staff to spot child sexual exploitation. And children are being taught how to avoid falling prey.But, as children become more aware of grooming, are abusers increasingly turning their attention to people with learning disabilities?In the first of a new series, File on 4 hears warnings from disability workers and detectives that abusers are increasingly targeting people with disabilities - because they're less likely to know what grooming is, less likely to tell, and if they do, their case is far less likely to go to court.Jane Deith visits the only safe house in the UK for women with learning disabilities who've been victims of rape and sexual exploitation, and hears even this secret address is now on the radar of gangs trying to groom the residents.Women with learning disabilities tell their stories of being groomed and exploited, how they eventually broke their silence, only to be told the crimes would not be prosecuted. Of an estimated 1400 cases of sexual abuse each year, only 1% result in a conviction. If offenders aren't being punished, can we prevent the abuse by protecting those at risk? Councils worried someone is being exploited can go to the Court of Protection for permission to restrict their relationships on the grounds they don't have the mental capacity to consent to sex. But it's a difficult thing to rule on. File on 4 hears from disability workers who say men and women are being left open to rape and abuse, but also from campaigners who say the state is denying people their fundamental human right to sexual relationships.Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Sally Chesworth.

With Britain on heightened alert following Islamist shootings in Paris and Copenhagen, how well prepared are we to deal with a similar attack?Allan Urry discovers how extremists in neighbouring European countries were able to get access to guns and hears concerns about the ready availability of illegal weapons from Eastern Europe and North Africa.So what risk does that pose for the UK? Britain prides itself on tough gun control, but is that enough to prevent determined would-be terrorists getting access to firearms?Reporter: Allan Urry Producer: Gail Champion.

Is the pressure on teachers reaching crisis point? Record numbers are leaving the classroom and thousands of teachers recently responded to the Government's workload survey to say they were struggling with their workload. They blamed the pressure of Ofsted inspections and pressure from school management. Official absence statistics are silent on the causes of sick leave - but now File on 4 reveals new figures on the number of teachers off long-term because of stress. Jane Deith hears from those who say they were pushed to the brink by the pressure - some suicidal and others hospitalized or diagnosed with depression. Teaching has always involved long hours and heavy workloads but, with schools' performance open to unprecedented scrutiny, some education academics argue that the 'surveillance culture' is now seriously harming teacher's health and their ability to provide high quality education. Are they right? How alarmed should we be about the mental well-being of our children's teachers? Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Matt Precey.

In Canada, everything is big - including powerful pension funds such as the Ontario Teachers fund which owns half of Birmingham airport and other large projects around the world. It's all a far cry from the British pension scene, where a hundred local government pension funds each run their own affairs separately and pay costly fees to City firms for investment advice. Many of them still have financial deficits. Taxpayers have been forced to pick up bills to pay off those shortfalls and already hard-pressed local services have been stretched further. Lesley Curwen investigates how these individual funds are run and asks whether we should have larger funds with cheaper costs - like Canada does. And she asks whether more councils should be using pension money to invest in housing and infrastructure as a way to boost their local economies?Producer: Anna Meisel Reporter: Lesley Curwen.

Secure children's homes look after some of the country's most vulnerable youngsters. Largely run by local authorities, they provide safe accommodation for children placed on custody grounds or for welfare reasons because they present a danger to themselves or others. The demand for places is rising but the number of beds is falling. So where does that leave those they are meant to cater for? With the government currently conducting a review into the system, File on 4 gets rare access to one home in the Midlands to meet children and staff; and talks to those struggling to find places for children across the UK. Reporter: Fran Abrams Producer: Emma Forde.

With a growing number of compensation claims arising from cases of historic sexual abuse and more recent high profile cases of sexual grooming, Tim Whewell investigates the key role which insurance companies play. In representing the local authorities where scandals occurred, insurers naturally seek to limit liability but are they doing so at a cost to victims? Lawyers say they have to battle to get access to files and other information - causing further distress and delaying help for those damaged by abuse. Some say the fight is getting harder as insurance companies have toughened their approach in recent years. And, with a national inquiry into historic cases of child sex abuse, how much influence did insurance companies have on the way some past investigations were carried out? File on 4 talks to senior local authority insiders who say they were told to alter their approach to abuse investigations to protect the insurers' interests. But was that at the expense of children at risk? Reporter: Tim Whewell Producer: Sally Chesworth.

Satellite images reveal the extent to which sites of important historical interest have been looted in Syria. Some of these are in areas controlled by Islamic State where looters are believed to pay a tax to allow them to operate. Iraqi military say evidence from a senior IS member revealed the group is making millions of pounds from the trafficking of looted antiquities Simon Cox investigates the global trade in stolen artefacts and traces smuggling routes through Turkey and Lebanon and onto the international antiquities market. He hears concerns that dealers and collectors are not doing enough to verify the provenance of ancient works of art and asks whether the authorities in the UK and elsewhere are doing enough to prevent the trade. Why, for example, does the UK remain the most significant military power not to have ratified a UN convention to protect cultural property during armed conflict? Reporter: Simon Cox Producer: Paul Grant.

Around 28 thousand people are claiming asylum in the UK. They're accommodated in some of the nation's most deprived areas while their cases are considered. Now, with numbers on the rise, some communities say they're struggling to cope. Allan Urry reports from the Northwest of England where, in some areas, there's concern about growing pressures on health services and schools. In Liverpool the City's Mayor, Joe Anderson, talks of an asylum "apartheid" and says other towns and cities need to take a fairer share. In Rochdale in Greater Manchester, there are more asylum seekers than the whole of the south east of England. The local MP Simon Danczuk says he's worried the pressures could undermine the good community relations that have always existed in the town. Recent stories of asylum seekers living in fancy hotels have led to outraged newspaper headlines but are they a symptom of bigger failings in the UK's system for housing those who come here seeking refuge?Reporter: Allan Urry Producer: Matt Precey.

Where have all the nurses gone? File on 4 looks at the reasons for the nursing shortage in the NHS in England and the cost of plugging the gaps at a time of peak demand. A decision four years ago to cut training places to save money is still haunting the health service. There's no shortage of people wanting to be nurses but the NHS is badly understaffed. Recruitment in countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy has quadrupled in the last year as NHS trusts fail to find enough domestic nurses. But with thousands of European nurses encouraged to come here with incentives like relocation bonuses and free accommodation, why are hospitals still breaking guidelines on the level of acceptable vacancies? And how much has that contributed to the winter crisis in Accident and Emergency Units across the country? Hospitals aren't the only area of concern. Professional bodies like the RCN say there has been a reduction in the number of experienced senior nurses working in the community. Has the recent focus on increasing nurses on hospital wards meant other areas have suffered? And what impact will that have on the Government's long term plan to solve our hospital crisis by caring for more patients at home? Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Gemma Newby.

Benefit sanctions are supposed to be part of a system helping people back to work. But critics say they penalise the vulnerable and are among the reasons for the growing use of food banks. So how fair is the Government's system of withholding state payments for those who don't comply with welfare rules? Allan Urry hears from whistleblowers who allege some JobCentrePlus staff are setting claimants up to fail in order to meet internal performance targets. Why did a recovering amputee lose his benefits because he didn't answer the phone?Reporter: Allan Urry Producer: Nicola Dowling.

With serious assaults at a record high, File on 4 investigates the growing tension within Britain's prisons.In the first of a new series, BBC Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw meets recently released prisoners and families of those inside to hear about their safety fears.And he talks to the Prison Officers Association about their concerns for the frontline members who they say are facing unprecedented levels of pressure and danger in a "chaotic" system.The Howard League for Penal Reform has used Ministry of Justice figures to calculate that around 40% of prison officer jobs have been cut - leaving inmates spending longer locked in their cells and less time preparing for their release.Lawyers and campaigners tell File on 4 that overcrowding and gang activity are adding to a "toxic mix" of problems leading to instability and tension.Twenty five years after the prison system was shaken by a series of riots centring on Strangeways in Manchester, is a new crisis starting to unfold?Reporter: Danny Shaw Producer: Sally Chesworth.

Is demand for long term nursing about to tip NHS finances over the edge?Under the system of "Continuing Healthcare" people with complex medical needs can claim the costs of nursing and medical help to keep them out of hospital. But the system has become mired in controversy with many people claiming they've been denied funding to which they are entitled.Now there's a deluge of backdated claims against Clinical Commissioning Groups. File on 4 finds the backlog is creating long delays in new assessments of patients.And it hears claims the assessments themselves are a postcode lottery, with the chances of being deemed eligible varying wildly between GP commissioning groups.The programme also hears evidence of NHS commissioners and councils fighting each other not to take responsibility for patients.Patients and their families are going to the health ombudsman in their hundreds.18 clinical commissioning groups are already going to end the year in the red, with some threatened with being put in special measures over their finances. Now they owe millions of pounds in backdated claims, plus interest.Is this creating an incentive to squeeze spending on continuing care? GP commissioners are about to be asked to put £1.9 billion into the pot for new joined-up health and social care services. Do they have the money, or the will, to buy into joined-up care?Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Nicola Dowling.

The UK generates nearly 300 million tonnes of waste every year. That's rich pickings for criminals who illegally dump what we don't want, damaging the environment and threatening our health. The black market in rubbish is said to be worth a billion pounds. With such huge sums at stake there's concern that organised crime is increasing its grip on the sector. Allan Urry examines the efforts of Britain's Environment Agencies to try to hold the line. But it's tough going at a time when cuts have led to a reduction in staffing. Reporter: Allan Urry Producer: Carl Johnston.

Recent high-profile collapses of high street names such as Comet, Phones4U and other companies have left thousands of people out of work and have cost the taxpayer millions in statutory redundancy payments and unpaid taxes. This week File on 4 goes behind the headlines to examine the role of the companies' private equity backers. Were these failed businesses which were bound to have to close? Or might they have survived for longer under different ownership? Fran Abrams investigates. Producer: Emma Forde.

As inquiries into child abuse in Rotherham continue, File on 4 investigates claims of a hidden problem of sexual abuse within Britain's Asian communities.While the victims of recent grooming scandals have mostly been white girls, campaigners say Asian boys and girls have also been subjected to abuse over many years.Male and female survivors tell Manveen Rana there's a powerful culture of denial stopping many speaking out and getting justice. They say communities too often close ranks and ostracise or threaten those who complain, while leaving perpetrators to carry on.Reporter: Manveen Rana Producer: Sally Chesworth Assistant Producer: Yasminara Khan.

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 the threat posed by Ebola? He also investigates the treatments that are now, belatedly, being developed - treatments that have existed for decades. Vaccines and other drugs are being rushed into production at an unprecedented pace, by-passing the usual safety controls. However, all predictions are that many more people will die before the disease is brought under control. Even then, will it become endemic?Reporter: Simon Cox Producer: John Murphy.

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.

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 Affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw, asks whether law enforcement has kept pace with the changing face of fraud and if there are enough resources to tackle financial crime and bring fraudsters to justice.Reporter: Danny Shaw Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane.

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 of the UK. The programme reveals how security checks on cargo are being compromised and hears concern about the gaps in surveillance of our coastline.Producer: Emma Forde Reporter: Allan Urry.

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. Banks are already receiving big fines over the LIBOR interest rate scandal but the focus is now shifting to the way prices in the foreign exchange, gold and interest rate swap markets have been set. Reporter Lesley Curwen assesses the evidence that banks have got together to manipulate the markets and asks what it means for the reputation of London as a global financial sector and public confidence in banking. Producer: David Lewis.

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 nothing. A new probe is underway, focusing on who could be guilty of a criminal cover up. But what became of the innocent? Jane Deith hears from some of those who experienced life in Knowl View. Telling their stories for the first time, they describe childhoods twisted by sexual abuse. Now questions are being asked about whether the failure to end the abuse at Knowl View led to a culture in which the subsequent grooming of young girls in Rochdale was allowed to happen. Alan Collins, a specialist child abuse lawyer representing some of the men who're suing Rochdale Council over abuse at Know View, believes things would have been different had Cyril Smith been prosecuted and convicted: "That would have sent a clear message through Rochdale and much further afield that there was clearly a problem and that problem would not have been so easy to brush away. I think that had a very long tail and that that tail continued right up until recent times."Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Sally Chesworth.

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 and which can cause fatal, serious and life-long side-effects for those lucky enough to survive. In the battle to get the most up-to-date treatments for children with some of the most aggressive cancers, increasing numbers of families say they are forced to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to travel abroad to take part in pioneering drugs trials elsewhere. Meanwhile UK researchers say they face a constant battle for funding. They also warn of a loophole in European regulations which they say stops break-through drugs that have been developed for adult cancer sufferers, being developed to benefit children. As science takes the treatment and understanding of disease to new levels, Jane Deith asks whether enough is being done to give children a fighting chance. Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Nicola Dowling.

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 businesses said they had experienced late payment in the last two years and that, in total, there was £30bn outstanding to them. But File on 4 has found that it's not just in private business that serious problems are occurring. The programme speaks to business owners who say that that ineffective rules and sanctions have left them badly out of pocket on contracts undertaken in the public sector.Local authorities, the NHS and other Government departments have strict rules about how long they should take to pay their contractors. But Jenny Chryss reveals how some small firms are having to cut back on staff because bills still aren't being settled promptly. And she reveals how big contractors who do get paid on time, often delay before passing the money down the supply chain. So are critics right when they say the Government's proposed new measures still aren't enough to deal with the problem?Reporter: Jenny Chryss Producer: Emma Forde.

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 operating in Syria, Somalia and other places - on the practical and moral dilemmas involved.Producer: Paul Grant.

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 publicly for the first time, says concerns he raised were ignored by senior managers. The programme also investigates claims of inappropriate sexual contact between staff and detainees and allegations of sexual abuse by staff. Several employees were dismissed last year over sexual encounters with women being held at the centre and the House of Commons Home Affairs select committee have called the managing director of Serco to give evidence about the sexual abuse claims.Simon Cox investigates - and hears why some MPs believe it is time for the centre to be closed.Reporter: Simon Cox Producer: Sally Chesworth.

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 claims that vets based in abattoirs to monitor animal welfare - and inspectors who check meat we eat is safe - regularly face threats and intimidation.Allan Urry investigates the grim realities of the slaughterhouse.Producer: Carl Johnston.

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 promise to deal with the legacy of the past?And how much do we really know about the deals that have already been done to protect people from prosecution?BBC correspondent Chris Buckler investigates.Producer: David Lewis.

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 taking to the courts to try to get redress?Fran Abrams has been examining the universities' record.Which of them have seen the biggest rise in student concerns, and which have managed to buck the trend? Producer: Emma Forde.

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 doors open and the other struggling to cope with the volume of patients in her busy urban practice in Salford.One in seven primary care practices in England reports having to make redundancies as a result of the Government spending squeeze.Recruitment for new GPs is still to hit Government targets and more doctors are leaving general practice through retirement or to work abroad.So are the promises of greater access to your GP really deliverable?

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-examine verdicts which relied on circumstantial evidence?And why did the CCRC twice refuse to pursue the case of a man who spent 17 years in prison for a serious sex crime he didn't commit?Producer: Rob Cave.

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 gangs who pick them off the streets with the offer of money and accommodation. But many say they end up working long hours for little or no pay and are too frightened to leave. Some - including people from the UK - are taken abroad to countries such as Sweden and Norway to pave driveways and other labouring jobs. Others are working in the construction industry here but being paid much less than the minimum wage.Police say the traffickers and those who exploit the homeless and vulnerable are highly organised and often use their victims' identities to open bank accounts and commit further crimes such as benefit fraud, netting thousands of pounds and leaving their victims with huge debts.So who's monitoring the marginalised? Will the new Bill do enough to deal with the dark side of Britain's labour market?Reporter: Jane DeithProducer: Paul Grant.

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 successfully took a court case against his opponent after narrowly losing an election, says some campaigners have lost sight of what is right and wrong.And a judge who sits in election fraud cases attacks the system as "shambolic" and "wide open to abuse".So is our voting system too vulnerable to fraud? Are the authorities doing all they can to root out corruptions? And is it time to end postal voting on demand?Producers: Emma Forde and Sally Chesworth.

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's top accountants to ask how their profession is changing and what the future holds.The last 20 years have seen many services which used to be run by local councils outsourced to the private sector. Capita, formed by a former government accountant, has taken the lion's share of these contracts, which often involve a team of Capita accountants deciding where to make cuts in local services. In Birmingham a massive IT and 'business transformation' contract between Capita and the City Council is proving highly controversial - with claims that it is diverting money away from public services and into private sector profit.Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) form another kind of management model which accountants helped create and which added to the growth of the Big Four accountancy firms - Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers - over the last two decades. Birmingham is home to one of the biggest PFI contracts ever signed, with a private contractor in charge of roads, trees and street lights. Have the accountants engineered a good deal for Birmingham?The next big growth area for the accountants is the NHS as doctors seek their help in commissioning and managing local services under the health service reforms. But what does this mean for the people on the NHS front line?Reporter: Simon Cox Producer: Lucy Proctor.

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 Commission praises Dr Foster's "powerful analysis of hospital trusts" and the Health Secretary says: "We expect all hospitals to examine this data carefully and take action wherever services need to improve".But some leading statisticians question the reliability of mortality statistics as an indication of clinical quality. And they believe that many pockets of poor practice go undetected in hospitals with good mortality scores.Critics also see the publication of such data as an invitation to the press to distort the available evidence by calculating numbers of 'needless deaths' within the NHS. Such calculations have in fact been produced and then given widespread publicity. The NHS Medical Director calls them "clinically meaningless and academically reckless". But they continue to make the front pages.Gerry Northam reports from hospitals which have "worryingly high" mortality statistics according to Dr Foster and asks how much this really shows about their quality of care.Producer : Ian Muir-Cochrane Editor : David Ross.

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 opponents claim the reforms are being rushed in and will put the public at risk.Last month, it was announced the plans have been delayed. They were due to come into effect in May but the start date has been put back until July.The new private providers will only be paid in full if they achieve a reduction in reoffending. The programme speaks to one of the companies bidding for the contracts which says payment by results will lead to innovation and visits a prison which says it is already achieving success in a pilot scheme working with prisoners serving under 12 months.But Home Affairs correspondent Danny Shaw also talks to probation staff about their fears for the future of partnership working and hears why some of them are threatening to quit the service.Producer: Paul Grant.

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 embankments that collapsed, leaving passengers stranded? Allan Urry investigates why our infrastructure is struggling to cope with the storms and asks whether bad planning has made a bad situation worse? Producer: Rob Cave.

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 being met. The government's human rights watchdog has been pressing the issue, along with tax officials who say many companies are breaching minimum wage legislation.This week File on 4 reports on the results of its own survey of local authorities in England. Have councils increased spending to keep pace with inflation in the past few years, or have they actually driven down costs? And are they providing even the most basic level of resources that social service chiefs say are needed to keep those in their care safe and well? Reporter: Fran Abrams Producer: Emma Forde.

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 Northam investigates the extent of food fraud across the UK and reports from Brussels on whether the EU has learned enough lessons from last year's scandal. Producer: Carl Johnston.

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 Global Restructuring Group.Billed as the equivalent of an intensive care unit designed to help nurse distressed businesses back to health, did the Global Restructuring Group kill some of them off instead? And was RBS able to profit as a result?With a rising tide of complaints against the taxpayer-owned bank, the Financial Conduct Authority is beginning its own investigation. So, was RBS being predatory or prudent?Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Nicola Dowling.

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 generating shareholder income at the expense of the customers who are looking for lower bills and sustained investment in their water supply?Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane.

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 spread of chemical warfare and which is overseeing the removal and destruction of the Syrian weapons. He also investigates the efforts of terrorist groups including Al Qaeda and al Shabab to develop nerve agents of their own; and examines the global attempts to limit the availability of "dual use" chemicals which are essential in the manufacture of every day products from fertilisers to toothpaste but which can also be turned into powerful explosives for use in IEDs and other bombs. Producer: Paul Grant.

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 commissioners advertising dozens of other big money tenders, File on 4 looks at the secrecy surrounding NHS contracts when they're awarded and when they're challenged. Does commercial confidentiality make public accountability impossible? And how far does the competitive market improve healthcare for patients?Reporter Jane Deith Producer Ian Muir-Cochrane.

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 Chancellor recently announced an addition to the scheme - called Help to Work - which places new demands on those the Work Programme has failed to move into employment. But, with the economy still struggling in many areas, is it asking too much? Gerry Northam investigates. Producer: Sally Chesworth.