Toys and other gifts will be distributed to a range of needy causes around the country.Val Dorren, of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, said: “There is a very melancholy atmosphere as we work. Some of the messages people have written are lovely and it’s amazing because they have come from people all over the world.”The labels, messages and cards were being taken to a site in Regent’s Park and dried and stored until the Spencer family has decided how best to preserve them. The rest were put into plastic buckets to be used as compost in the Palace’s gardens.Craig Huddleston, 13, of the 1st London Colney Scout Group, said: “It’s a really sad job. I’d seen all the flowers on television but it’s far more moving to be here in real life. There will be about 100 people working on the clear-up process every day.”Wearing plastic gloves, volunteers were carefully separating the freshly- laid blooms from the floods of decaying bundles and loading them on to a horse-drawn dray to be delivered to hospitals around London. We want to remove the flowers and tributes with the same spirit that they were laid.

It really is a massive task and we have had to take on extra staff .. to help with the work. It is expected to take up to six weeks to clear the tonnes of flowers, teddy bears and other tributes laid at sites all over the capital.
David Welch, chief executive of Royal Parks, the body overseeing the operation, said: “We are trying to do the job in the most sensitive way possible. The painstaking and delicate task of clearing away the oceans of floral tributes left to Diana, Princess of Wales got under way yesterday. Guides and Scouts were among the dozens of volunteers who started gently moving the flowers from the now dusty piles which line the walls of St James’s Palace. Two women tourists who stole teddy bears and flowers that had been left outside Westminster Abbey in tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, were jailed yesterday for four weeks. Magistrate Roger Davies, sitting at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court in central London, said he had a duty to jail the women in order to reflect the public sense of outrage and to deter others.
Maria Rigociova, 54, a teacher, from Nitra, western Slovakia, and Agnesa Sihelska, 50, a communications technician, eastern Slovakia,had spent the night in police cells after being arrested at 1.30am yesterday.After the case, their solicitor, Philip Hill, said they would be appealing against the sentence on the grounds that it was excessive..

Deputies would also win rises of around pounds 3,000.Low wages have led to a situation where at least 400 schools in England and Wales have been unable to recruit a permanent head teacher, according to NAHT figures.General secretary David Hart said: “When the Chancellor of the Exchequer shortly publishes the Government’s position on public sector pay, he must accept that recruitment problems have to be recognised in pay terms.”Teachers will only apply for the most senior posts in the profession and undertake the significant responsibilities attached if they believe that the salaries offered constitute the `rate for the job’.”Any Government which tries to `buck the market’ with a public sector pay policy, which seeks to artificially hold down salaries, risks provoking an even greater recruitment crisis.”Statistics drawn up by NAHT found that more than six out of every 10 advertisements for senior posts in small and average primary schools this year led to 10 applications or fewer.IThe School Teachers’ Review Body will consider the NAHT evidence before making its report to Education Secretary David Blunkett in February, in time for revised salaries to become effective on 1 April next year.. Head teachers’ leaders yesterday submitted a 10 per cent pay claim – treble the rate of inflation – and insisted that only a substantial rise would reverse a growing recruitment crisis. The salaries of heads and deputies had fallen significantly behind those of managers in comparable posts in both the public and private sectors, said the National Association of Head Teachers.
The union, which last week published figures showing a dramatic drop in the number of application for headships and deputy headships, said the decline was directly linked to inadequate pay for high-stress jobs.The pay claim is certain to be resisted by the Government, which is keen to keep salary levels down to prevent an inflationary spiral.The NAHT demand would see heads of large secondary schools earning an average pounds 54,000 – around pounds 3,000 more than at present – and heads of large primaries around pounds 39,000 – a rise of pounds 4,500. We are shining a spotlight very sharply on what an authority is doing to raise standards in schools.”Mr Blunkett said: “The programme of inspections and published reports will allow comparisons of performance to be made … If an authority does not meet the required standard, I will not hesitate to intervene.” Inspectors will also examine the role of elected councillors in raising standards.Ofsted has already carried out pilot reviews of some authorities at their invitation. A report on the London Borough of Hackney, inspected at the request of the Secretary of State, is due out next week..

Among metropolitan authorities, Manchester and Sandwell, West Midlands, are worst, Bury best and Sunderland the median. Among shire counties, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire are worst, Surrey best and Kent the median.Unlike schools, authorities will not be graded. Mr Blunkett has said that he will take new powers to take over failing authorities, but at present no legal definition of a failing authority exists. Teams of inspectors from the standards office will visit each authority and question schools at the services the council provides.Mr Woodhead said: “We think that it is important for all aspects of the education service to be subject to rigorous external scrutiny. Schools were judged on 11-year-old national test results and GCSE results.In London, the worst are Southwark and Tower Hamlets Kingston-upon-Thames is the best and Brent the median. A recent inspection of Barking and Dagenham had revealed that while the schools performed badly, the authority functioned well.Yesterday’s list includes six authorities from among those with the lowest- performing primary and secondary schools, three from among those with the best and three which are in the middle. The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), which picked the councils, divided them into three groups, London, metropolitan and shire counties.