LIFELINE health services in Knutsford are expected to close after council bosses approved plans to ‘improve’ adult social care.

A planning application has been submitted for a new £6m development in the East Sussex resort of Seaford.

The Centre for Deaf People in Bristol is to lose its funding from the city council. The authority says the centre, which has been based in the city for 125 years, does not provide a good quality service.

Four members of staff from Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s children’s services have been praised following the recent Ofsted inspection.

Nadine Dorries has lost her amendment on abortion by 118 votes to 368, following an intensely emotional debate in which she accused Lib Dems of blackmailing the prime minister.

Leeds City Council has approved plans to close five of its care homes, saying it cannot afford to maintain them.

A damning inspection of Peterborough’s safeguarding practices has prompted the director of children’s services to resign.

Funding should be invested in retaining social workers rather than recruiting new entrants into the profession because of the high costs of training them, according to research.

Responding to reports this morning about four children in Dundee allegedly removed from their parents because of concerns over obesity, the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) has asked the media to show greater confidence in social workers and to properly inform the public about the complex and independent legal processes that are followed before any decision to take a child into care is made.

Convictions for sex offences against children under 16 have increased by almost 60 per cent in six years, it has emerged.