A Day nursery has again been given the lowest rating by inspectors from Ofsted. Bright Future, in Vale Road, Colwick, was given an “inadequate” rating by the education watchdog after a visit on September 24.

Community health services for people with dementia need to be expanded ten-fold in Sheffield to meet the needs of sufferers, warns a charity.

Merseyside’s criminal justice system could be thrown into chaos as solicitors prepare to defy government reform of their pay scales.

A multi-million cash injection for a drugs rehabilitation programme in England has produced only a handful of success stories, it was revealed today.

Nurses will be asked to weigh patients weekly as part of a Government plan to stop the elderly starving to death in hospitals and care homes.

A massive £130 million funding boost for drug addiction treatment has led to only 70 more users quitting drugs – at a cost of almost £1.9 million each.

{mosimage}Spending on drug services in England rose by 50 per cent from £253 million in 2004-05 to £384 million last year, figures from the National Treatment Agency have revealed.

But over the same period the numbers leaving treatment programmes ‘clean’ – having successfully beaten their addictions – crept up by just 1.2 per cent from 5,759 to 5,829.

The figures have sparked fierce criticism, with opposition MPs demanding an urgent inquiry by independent spending watchdogs, and accusing ministers of “incompetence and distorted priorities”.

Critics claim the Government has focussed too much on getting greater numbers of addicts into treatment while paying little attention to the outcome of the expensive courses.

Last week there was outrage when it emerged that many treatment centres routinely offer addicts extra drugs – including heroin substitutes and anti-depressants – as a reward for providing drug-free urine samples.

The government must step up its battle against child poverty, ministers admitted yesterday, as they announced a new unit to coordinate work on the issue.

Children’s charities have welcomed the government’s plans for a cross-departmental child poverty unit but say more funding is needed to halve child poverty by 2010.

Britain is at risk of producing a new generation of latchkey kids because parents of older children are struggling to find suitable care for them, a report warns today.

{mosimage}It says just one childcare place is available for every 200 children aged 11 to 14, and argues that they are becoming the overlooked age group – unable to access the childminders used by younger children or the youth clubs enjoyed by their older teenage siblings.

Still Home Alone, produced by the charity 4Children, also warns that the problem will worsen next year under changes to the welfare rules.

Lone parents will need to seek work when their youngest child turns 11, five years earlier than under the current rules.

It argues that councils and youth services should work with schools to provide activities at the end of the day and over holidays, urging the government to back such schemes with start-up funds of around £20,000. It also calls on the government to offer long-term funding in deprived areas, where parents may be too poor to pay for after-school clubs.

According to the last census, there are about 4 million children aged between 11 and 14. But official estimates suggest there are only about 20,000 childcare places for this age group.

A charity for disadvantaged children that is supported by the Princess Royal and Lawrence Dallaglio, the former England rugby captain, has been accused of wasting money on “larks”.