The Home Office is facing a fresh financial crisis after it emerged it has failed to secure funding to run 8,000 new prison places, including two jails in Liverpool and London.

{mosimage}The expansion of prison capacity has been touted by John Reid as his greatest success since taking over as home secretary, but senior officials have told the Guardian that, while money will be made available to underwrite the building of the prisons, the Treasury has refused to foot the bill to run them.

With annual costs per prisoner standing at £44,000 the deficit will reach £350m a year when the prison building programme is completed.

The Home Office budget has already been frozen for three years, so daily running costs for the extra places in England and Wales required to meet the prison overcrowding crisis will have to be met by cuts elsewhere, in Mr Reid’s budgets for police, probation and immigration.

“We can raise the capital cost to build them, but we haven’t got the revenue money to run them,” said one senior Home Office official. Whitehall sources confirmed that the chancellor, Gordon Brown, had agreed to underwrite the costs of the private sector raising £1.7bn to build Mr Reid’s 8,000 extra places over the next five years.

But his decision not to fund running costs is a fresh blow to Mr Reid, who said last July that the building of the extra 8,000 prison places was a crucial factor in stabilising the situation when he took over at the crisis-battered department.

Footage of four women goading toddlers to fight has “stunned” police and social services in Devon. The seven-minute footage, filmed at a house by one woman, was shown in a case at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court.

A home which provides care for 87 elderly people is under investigation by police over allegations of assault. Two people at the Ringshill Nursing Home in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, were under investigation, police said.

Patient safety could be improved if hospitals tagged people with barcodes, the Government said on Thursday. Lord Hunt, the minister for quality, urged the NHS to consider the technology after trials showed that the number of errors could be cut.

The death of the first child ever to die in a privately run secure unit was “a disaster waiting to happen”, the head of the Youth Justice Board at the time of the incident said yesterday.

Tory leader David Cameron has called for more powers to “compel” fathers to look after their children in an effort to tackle gang culture. He told the BBC he backed tax breaks to help families stay together and promoting a “culture of responsibility and respecting authority”.

{mosimage}Mr Cameron’s comments follow the shootings of three London teenagers in less than a fortnight. The Tory leader called for a “complete change in our values”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I believe in marriage. I believe in people making a commitment to each other and staying together and trying to bring up their children properly.” Children were often attracted to gangs if they lacked a father figure, he said.

Mr Cameron said: “It’s not just about passing a law or getting a bit more money. We have got to sit up and realise we are running things by the wrong values. We need to support families.” The Child Support Agency was “meant” to collect money from fathers to pay for raising their children, but men in other European countries faced “tougher rules and had to stand by” their families. Mr Cameron said: “Part of it is social pressure.”

Modelling is a lonely profession which strips those who enter it of their autonomy and leaves them waging a “war against their bodies,” research has revealed.

Thousands of council staff are being trained to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England. Ministers have given councils £29.5m to pay for staff, who will be able to give on-the-spot £50 fines to individuals and take court action against premises.

Sexual health care should be funded nationally in England to ensure people do not miss out, campaigners say. They warn that government funds are not getting through because local healthcare providers need to use the money in other areas.

The General Social Care Council (GSCC) has welcomed today’s announcement by the Government to open the Social Care Register to domiciliary care workers and managers.