The beleaguered local authority at the centre of the Edlington torture case controversy is to face an official investigation into its management and leadership, it was announced today.

Social care employers are to be offered £1,000 subsidies when recruiting unemployed 18-to 24-year-olds.

The manager of a care home murdered two elderly residents whose painkilling drugs she had been stealing, a jury was told yesterday.

NEARLY 1,000 Essex children who need social workers do not have them because of staff shortages. The shocking findings show while the number has fallen by 850 in the past month, there are still nearly 1,000 child care cases without an allocated social worker.

The latest government guidance for independent reviewing officers (IROs) should go further, according to the National Association of Independent Reviewing Officers (Nairo).

A psychiatry professor has been appointed to oversee how dementia is dealt with in England. Professor Alistair Burns will lead a strategy launched one year ago by then health secretary Alan Johnson.

A MAN responsible for the welfare of vulnerable North-East children has been struck off as a social worker for sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl.

A damning review of social services’ failures during the child torture case forced an “unqualified” apology from the authority’s interim director of social work last night.

A former manager of a care home in Somerset has denied murdering two women in her care after she allegedly became addicted to prescription drugs.

There are an average of 60 sex offences against children recorded every day in England and Wales, a new report has found.