File on 4 Investigates

Ofsted has a new, hard-line chief inspector and a new, tougher inspection regime - and in the past few months that has led to a spike in the number of schools deemed inadequate. Predictably, there has been a corresponding wave of anger in schools - with a growing number taking to the courts to challenge the inspectors' views? So are the inspectors really up to the job? And who inspects the inspect...

Ministers want to extend secret hearings to Britain's civil courts - so judges can deal with the increasing number of cases involving the intelligence services. Justice Secretary Ken Clarke says it is the only way that judges can hear the testimony of spies working for MI5, MI6 or GCHQ. Getting them to give evidence in open court is not an option, he says. A small number of courts already hold sec...

Hospital waiting times are a key measure of success for the NHS. But do the official figures accurately reflect the reality for patients across the UK? In Scotland the waiting time data has been called into question after a hospital trust was exposed for manipulating the figures in order to hit its targets. There's now an investigation to see if the practice has become widespread. In England the H...

Is institutional racism still alive in the police? Black and Asian officers claim discrimination is thwarting progress through the ranks and destroying promising careers.

After details of people under witness protection were leaked to a private investigator, Allan Urry asks if police are doing enough to protect witnesses whose lives are at risk.

To the west of Edinburgh, construction of the new £1.5bn Forth road bridge will use steel from Poland, Spain and China. A local steel plant near Motherwell lost out as part of a consortium bidding for the work. It says the contract could have secured hundreds of local jobs. Officials insist that they have to follow EU rules which state that any company across the single market can bid for public c...

How strong is the government's commitment to ending schemes set up to minimise tax? A number of schemes have proved popular in the private sector, including Employee Benefit Trusts. These have been used by football clubs for tax planning purposes, but are now in the sights of HMRC as it attempts to recoup what it sees as unpaid tax. But how widespread are these trust schemes and why are they so po...

In the last two months, three fathers have killed their partners, children and themselves. File on 4 investigates what drives these men to take such drastic action. The programme talks to relatives, expert forensic psychiatrists and academics to try to find out why they became so-called 'family annihilators'. It looks at new research into such cases which points to a link to unemployment rates and...

Their judgments send markets into freefall. It is alleged that their mistakes led to the Enron collapse and the 2008 financial crisis. They are the credit rating agencies. Who exactly are they and what exactly do they do? Is this exploration of the complex world of the "Big Three" rating agencies, BBC Chief Economics Correspondent Hugh Pym takes listeners behind the scenes of the world economy. Th...

New NHS research has revealed the shocking toll of preventable deaths caused by just one medical condition. Diabetes - in which the body fails to control blood sugar levels safely - is causing 24,000 needless deaths a year in England alone. It's not just the old and middle-aged who are at risk. Young women with diabetes are 6 to 9 times more likely to die than their age group overall. And many mor...

With the EU poised to ban oil imports from Iran, Allan Urry assesses the impact of international sanctions on Britain and Europe. Designed to curb Iran's nuclear programme, the oil embargo could further push up the cost of fuel. Iranian companies are involved in a number of joint ventures that bring energy into European homes and factories: File on 4 examines what will happen to these vital projec...

Dutch and American scientists have succeeded in mutating a deadly bird-flu virus to make it easily transmissible to humans. If it got out, it could start a fatal epidemic. They keep it securely locked away in their laboratories, but want to publish the biological recipe for making it. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. government is pressing them to keep the details of their experiments secret for...

Inquests in England are increasingly hearing a new term to explain deaths in police custody: Excited Delirium. It's a diagnosis with origins in the United States, where it has been associated with consumption of massive doses of cocaine. People with ED are said to possess super-human strength and to be largely impervious to pain. They behave bizarrely, sometimes destructively. They often seem para...

Jenny Cuffe talks to foster parents who find themselves battling with local authorities over the children in their care. They describe a Kafkaesque nightmare where doors are shut, telephone calls and emails unanswered, even court orders are ignored. Meanwhile, vulnerable children are treated as pawns as social workers move them from one place to another. In one case investigated by File on 4, fost...

Are families getting justice in the coroner's court? Ann Alexander investigates concerns about the conduct of inquests in England and Wales and asks why there is so much variation in behaviour of coroners and the rigour of their investigations. Under the current system, it is up to the coroner what evidence he or she relies on, but this can leave families unhappy at the verdict and with little hop...

With plans for future use of London's Olympic stadium in disarray, Allan Urry asks whether taxpayers' billions will leave a lasting legacy from 2012. London's successful bid to stage the 2012 Olympics placed great emphasis on the benefits it could create for Britain and its capital city. Not only should the Games bequeath impressive new sporting facilities to the people of London, but the event an...

The Justice Secretary Ken Clarke wants more jobs for convicts. He told his party conference: "If we want prison to work, then our prisoners have got to be working". He encourages private companies to open workshops inside prisons, where inmates would be 'properly paid' for hard work, would pay their due of taxes and help fund victims' support. Mr Clarke points to a metal factory in a Merseyside pr...

World leaders preparing for the G20 conference are facing a threat to the global economy from the on-going Eurozone sovereign debt crisis. But as they try to avert further economic catastrophe some investors see opportunities to profit from the mayhem. Michael Robinson reveals how on-going economic volatility and uncertainty can also present golden investment opportunities - and how, through compl...

Earlier this year, an imam working in Stoke-on-Trent was jailed for raping a 12 year old boy at his mosque. In the wake of the case, File on 4 investigates whether the thousands of children who visit mosques and madrassas each week to study the Quran are being properly protected. The leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain has warned that without urgent action, his religion could face an...

With the Government's controversial reforms under fire from countryside campaigners, Allan Urry investigates radical changes to the planning system. Ministers insist more housing is needed, fuelling fears of greenfield sites being bulldozed. But as they begin to slim down bureaucracy to speed up development, how many more homes are actually getting built? Under the localism agenda, communities are...

Household gas and electricity bills are set to soar, leaving millions at risk of 'fuel poverty' and vulnerable to cold as winter approaches. The government's hopes for recovery in UK manufacturing industry are also threatened in key sectors by rocketing energy prices. Some small and medium-sized businesses have already been pushed into liquidation and there are fears that others will follow. Polit...

The Department of Health wants to slash £1.2 billion off the bill for hospital supplies -- everything from bandages and rubber gloves to operating tables and medical equipment. The planned savings form part of the £20 billion in NHS efficiency savings the Government has pledged to make by 2014. There's plenty of scope for savings. A recent survey found one Hospital Trust bought 177 different types...

The criminal exploitation of the internet poses one of the biggest threats to UK national security. As organised crime gangs and terrorists use it to communicate and plan their activities, the police and security agencies are turning to hacking to conduct surveillance and gather intelligence. In the first of a new series, File on 4 looks at the covert techniques being used to get beyond the firewa...

The Government's strategy to boost local enterprise in England began poorly. The Director of the CBI criticised it as 'a shambles' and Business Secretary Vince Cable admitted it was 'Maoist and chaotic'. Now 36 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) have been established with the aim of supporting economic growth and innovation and encouraging a network of Enterprise Zones. But some experts remain s...

The UK is the largest bilateral donor to Rwanda, giving around £83m a year. President Paul Kagame is praised by the British government for bringing stability and economic growth to a country torn apart by the genocide in 1994. But recently it was revealed that two opponents of the Rwandan regime living in London had been warned by police they were in danger of being assassinated by their own gove...