File on 4 Investigates

Each year scores of senior civil servants and ex-government ministers quit Whitehall for higher-paid posts in business. Companies in the fields of defence, health, energy and transport are particularly keen to recruit experienced politicians, policy makers and managers with close links to the wheels of power and procurement. This is the so-called "revolving door" between government and the world o...

Why are ambulances queuing up to unload patients needing treatment at hospital Accident and Emergency Departments? Some senior A and E medics say there are too few beds and not enough staff in a front line service struggling to cope. Cash strapped NHS Trusts are closing casualty units, or replacing them with lower grade Urgent Care Centres but what's been the impact on patients? Allan Urry asks wh...

The Border Agency is charged with preventing drugs, weapons and would-be illegal immigrants from getting to the UK. But three years after being created, the Agency has been accused by MPs of failing to enforce immigration rules. Faced with cuts to its budget and the loss of around one-fifth of its staff over the next four years, the Agency is looking to new technology to improve its effectiveness....

In the wake of the financial disaster, policy makers and regulators around the world pledged to make banking safer and more transparent. But the reality, many experts claim, is proving very different. For this edition of File on 4, Michael Robinson investigates some of the apparently straightforward financial products banks now offer and uncovers disturbing complexity. One product, called Exchange...

Over the last month Britain's biggest provider of care homes for the elderly, Southern Cross, has been beset by financial woes. But across the country an even deeper crisis is unfolding as local authorities implement massive budget cuts. This week File on 4 investigates how cutbacks are leaving elderly people with insufficient care, and councils with a major financial headache. The programme also...

A review into the care of patients in vegetative or low awareness states has been launched by the Royal College of Physicians. There are thought to be as many as 5000 such people in the UK. The working party will look at concerns that assessment and diagnosis of patients is not consistent across the country and will ask whether the cost of long term care is affordable to the NHS. Ann Alexander exa...

For two decades, the Private Finance Initiative has been a controversial way of building new hospitals, schools, roads and prisons. Well over £200bn of taxpayers' money has been committed to the companies managing these projects. The coalition government describes some PFI contracts as 'ghastly' and wants some of this cash back. One cabinet minister says 'the people on the other side must have bee...

Is Iran exploiting the turmoil caused by the Arab Spring, and the uncertainly following the killing of Osama Bin Laden? After Iranian military rockets were found on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Allan Urry assesses new evidence alleging Iran's closer ties with al Qaeda and the Taliban. And, with more illicit shipments of weapons from Iran being seized in the Middle East, in breach of a UN arms...

The investigation following an air disaster is supposed to make air travel safer. But do the reports always get to the truth about why planes crash? Emma Jane Kirby examines claims that international air accident investigations are often slow, incompetent and influenced by political sensitivities. So how does this affect the victims' families as they fight manufacturers and airlines for compensati...

Do we understand enough about how memory works to properly assess evidence in sex abuse cases when allegations date back decades? Can juries make decisions based on their common sense in complex cases? The number of so called "historic abuse cases" making their way through the coruts has increased in recent years following changes in the law that make it easier to bring them to trial and a greater...

Is the NHS doing enough to combat the crisis in organ donations for transplants? Allan Urry examines the challenge of ensuring more suitable donors are available at a time when those waiting for life saving operations are increasing. Surgeons are reporting worse outcomes for some patients, as poorer quality organs have to be used because of chronic shortages. This comes despite a big drive by the...

File On 4. Banks and fraud squads across the world are beginning the task of tracing a vast fortune stolen from the Egyptian people by members of the Mubarak regime. Some estimates have suggested the missing money could run into many billions of pounds. Ministers, businessmen and members of the president's family have deposited vast sums in Swiss bank accounts and bought luxury properties in Londo...

Following the recent first conviction and hefty fine under new Corporate Manslaughter legislation, the UK's health and safety regime has been hailed a success. Falling death and accident rates appear to confirm an improving trend. But the families of some of those seriously injured and killed in workplace accidents say too many employers are still gettings off too lightly even when they've been fo...

Success of the Government's proposed NHS reforms in England rests on family doctors. GPs will be responsible for commissioning treatment for their patients, and managing the £80 billion NHS budget. But how much do we know about the effectiveness and value for money offered by doctors in General Practice? Gerry Northam reports.

Business travel and Christmas holidays were ruined for hundreds of thousands of people by snow. While many airports abroad bounced back quickly from bad weather, some in Britain began to resemble refugee camps. But discontent among passengers and airlines goes well beyond winter readiness. Julian O'Halloran asks how one operator BAA, justifies its grip on no fewer than half a dozen British airport...

Each year, around 250 parents and carers are accused of killing or injuring children by shaking them or inflicting some other form of head injury. But an acrimonious scientific debate over the theory behind so-called Shaken Baby Syndrome, has turned toxic among the expert witnesses whose evidence is so critical in determining guilt or innocence. Andrew Hosken examines claims of a campaign of dirty...

Are police doing enough to tackle corruption in their ranks? Following a number of high profile trials in which officers have been jailed, Allan Urry investigates the crimes they committed and asks if more could have been done to stop them. A constable given a life sentence earlier this month for a series of sex attacks on vulnerable women he met while on duty, had previously been put on trial for...

Reporter Jenny Cuffe investigates claims that one of the groups behind the blasphemy law in Pakistan is also active in the UK. The religious extremists are accused of spreading a hate message against members of other Islamic sects who they regard as infidels. One group that's been targeted accuses the authorities of not doing enough to protect them - and says political correctness has resulted in...

Homes but no loans. Despite the threat of a new slide in house prices and rising levels of negative equity, the number of property-buyers having their homes repossessed has declined over the past year. But now many economists predict interest rates will rise in the course of 2011, fuelling fears that Britain's housing market could be facing a double dip. With banks chasing profits and affordable m...

Legal aid has been withdrawn from a long-running case against a pharmaceutical giant. Children born with severe disabilities, including spina bifida, were suing the manufacturer of an anti-epilepsy drug which their mothers took during pregnancy and which they blame for causing birth defects - a claim the company denies. After years of legal proceedings which the claimants' solicitors say have so f...

Europe's Missing Millions Over the last seven years, the European Union has paid out billions of Euros in grants designed to revitalise Europe's poorest regions. But an investigation for File on 4 has revealed the extent to which these payments are open to widespread fraud, abuse and mismanagement. Angus Stickler tracks how money has gone astray across the 27 member states and asks why funding con...

A new law regulating care homes in England came into force last month. All homes must be registered and ensure they meet certain standards of quality and safety. The regulator - the Care Quality Commission - is promising to monitor homes and take action against those who fail to meet standards. But unions say the numbers of inspectors has been cut. They are warning of fewer inspections and say sta...

It's been dubbed the Great Train Robbery, but Allan Urry asks who's robbing who? With fares set to rise, the programme examines why Britain's railways are so much more expensive than other European countries. Passengers in some parts of the UK complain they are caught out by a complex and confusing system of ticketing, which unfairly penalises them. Does it have to be so difficult to find out what...

Under the Prime Minister's project for The Big Society, the coalition government wants charities to have much greater involvement in the running of public services. At the same time, substantial cuts are expected in official regulators which check that charities are competent and honest. Recent financial scandals have shown the vulnerability of even the most prestigious organisations to systematic...

Jenny Cuffe investigates how British-based Somalis are being lured into fighting for the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists of al-Shabaab. There have been consistent rumours that dozens, perhaps scores of British-based Somali men have travelled to Somalia to join the militant Islamist group which was banned by the British Government earlier this year. In September the rumours were given new urgency when th...