Key court documents have been released relating to the sacking of social services chief Sharon Shoesmith after the death of Baby Peter in London.

BASW has welcomed plans to redefine the role of the General Social Care Council (GSCC) in a move that would restrict its activities to social work, but warned that a further proposal to make the body ‘financially independent’ of government will mean social workers bearing the cost.

A jury was still yet to reach a verdict in the trial of a former care home manager accused of murdering two elderly residents in Somerset.

Beneath the sash window of a care home in Wimbledon, lit by a shaft of spring sunlight, Lady Cicely Mayhew sits in the leather chair she occupies most days. Now 86, she reminisces about her adventures as the first female British diplomat, and her childhood growing up in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.

Gordon Brown will tomorrow return to the issue of immigration by promising that no more unskilled workers will be allowed into Britain from outside the EU for the foreseeable future.

Child protection services in Kent are managing to cope with “enormous pressure”, a report has found. Kent County Council’s review identified a 22% rise in referrals to children’s services between April 08 and March last year.

A jury has gone out to consider its verdicts in the trial of a south London nursery manager accused of force-feeding children.