Adult social services staff have been warned to brace themselves for a substantial increase in the numbers being referred to them for help, as the credit crunch starts to take its toll on family life.

SOCIAL services chiefs in York have been told by a national watchdog they must be more consistent in the way they operate. City of York Council has received its final report following the Commission For Social Care Inspection (CSCI) analysis of the city’s services, which has outlined areas where improvements need to be made.

Many vulnerable people who need social care do not receive it Ways of making England’s social care system fairer have been recommended by a government-backed review.

A RUNCORN man who founded an international children’s charity has died at the age of 64. Ron Newby MBE, founder and chief executive of Global Care, grew up in Runcorn as one of eight children before moving to the Midlands to study and work.

The Scout Association is to start offering its members sexual health and relationships advice. New guidance, geared mainly to 14 to 18-year-olds, advises leaders to discuss contraception and encourage resisting of peer pressure to have sex.

Family courts are to be opened to the media, it has been reported. Justice Secretary Jack Straw is set to announce the decision to reverse Government policy next month, according to The Times.

A FORMER care worker swindled nearly £20,000 in benefits after being released from prison for sexually abusing girls. Gail Stack was jailed for six years in 2000 after being convicted of a string of sex attacks on young girls.

POLICE have released an e-fit of a woman wanted in connection with a suspicious call to the home of a mother and her child in Jubilee Crescent, Louth on Wednesday July 9 this year.

HOLIDAYS to Barbados and football season tickets could be paid for by the county council as part of a radical shake up of social services.

Northamptonshire County Council looks set to shake-up its adult social care services. The council’s cabinet is considering for older people, shifting its focus toward domiciliary care, supported by telecare, and doing-up existing care homes. And for people with learning disabilities, the council is to enter into a joint commissioning plan with Northamptonshire Teaching Primary Care Trust.