LESSONS must be learned from the financial mess which has engulfed Sheffield's Pakistan Muslim Centre, currently at the centre of a major restructuring deal aimed at making it stand on its own two feet.
In the past, the centre has been far from this, needing grants and loans to keep it afloat. At the core of its problems seems to be the substantial Single Regeneration Budget and European Union funding which helped kickstart the organisation. But it also laid the foundations for a reliance on public funding from which it never escaped.
In fact, the city council stepped in with a £320,000 loan to bail out the centre several years ago, which remains unpaid.
The public, rightly, will question the fact that the debt is to be written off and that substantial assets appear to be as good as handed over to the centre. But, aside from total collapse, that seems the only realistic option.
Public funding is vital to launch such groups but they must be prepared from the outset to be self-reliant.
Do bobbies really need this lesson?WITHOUT doubt local police need to get to grips with the gang culture which is threatening to ensnare a generation of vulnerable youths.
But the public - and bobbies - will question the value of training courses teaching every single officer how to recognise the signs of gangs.
Surely our police are wise and skilled enough to know who are in gangs - and likely to be recruited - without having to sit in a classroom and be taught how to suck eggs.
Men in tights...COULD the trend that went out of fashion not long after Shakespeare's day be about to make a comeback in the modern man's wardrobe? Stylists reckon the best big thing in male attire will be tights, especially worn under above-the-knee shorts. They're said to be particularly popular in Germany... but would you take style hints from the nation where lederhosen never really went out of fashion?
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