Britain’s 6 million unpaid carers who look after relatives or dependants are bamboozled by “incomprehensible” official guidance on benefits, MPs say today.

A new approach to care and support – based on the recent green paper – will involve tough talking and some even tougher decisions, warns Jenny Owen, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services

The government’s campaign to recruit 5,000 more social workers has already attracted 6,800 enquiries, just a week after it launched.

The Baby Peter tragedy has made a positive impact on the number of young people entering the child welfare profession, says Kent County Hall’s social work chief.

The mother of a nine-year-old boy tortured by two brothers aged 10 and 11 plans to sue Social Services over the attack. She is furious authorities failed to monitor the “little savages” who subjected her son and his 11-year-old uncle to a horrific ordeal – and wants to work with James Bulger’s mum for tougher laws on child yobs.

Social workers must intervene earlier in chaotic, violent families, child protection experts warned today, as more details emerged of the backgrounds of the young brothers who carried out a prolonged torture attack on two other children in parkland near Doncaster.

Most vulnerable children in Wokingham are being dealt with by a social worker within seven days, under a drive to improve serious issues with children’s services.

THE chief executive of Haringey Council who was in charge during the Baby P scandal has announced she is stepping down. Dr Ita O’Donovan will retire from the top post in Haringey in February next year, a job she has held since March 2006.

A council boss has denied children are at risk because social workers are struggling to keep up with demand. Matt Dunkley spoke out after Ofsted inspectors urged for more social workers to be employed by East Sussex County Council to tackle the huge rise in child protection referrals following the tragic case of Baby P.

Many more children need to be taken into care at birth to stop them being damaged beyond repair by inadequate parents, the chief executive of the children’s charity Barnardo’s has told the Observer.