Social work departments are desperately short of qualified staff – including one authority with a 39% vacancy rate – the UK’s largest public sector union warned today.

The number of adults receiving council-funded residential care in England fell in 2007/08 compared to the previous year, a report from The NHS Information Centre shows.

More than 100 projects across England aimed at bringing services for children and families under one roof are set to benefit from £200m of Government funding.

A social worker who has helped people for more than 30 years has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list. Andrea Collingridge from Narborough provides pre-birth risk assesments to ensure children are safe before and after they are born.

Bath and North East Somerset Council has admitted it employed a social work manager who had a conviction for conspiracy to murder.

THE family of a former Liverpool care home manager who died branded a paedophile has failed in an extremely rare posthumous bid to clear his name.

The current four-tier eligibility system for adult social care should be scrapped and replaced with two broader categories, the Local Government Association.