Confusion and expense will continue to dog England’s creaking adult social care system until a major legislative overhaul is complete, experts have claimed.

Ed Balls moved swiftly to remove Sharon Shoesmith from her post, and states that every local council must learn the lessons of Baby P’s death. But in many ways, Shoesmith was the perfect children’s director for the new-look Department for Children, Schools and Families.

A care home owner who assaulted an 80-year-old resident has been jailed for eight weeks after losing an appeal against his sentence.

Essex County Council has introduced a social pedagogy system in its residential children’s homes – believed to be the first of its kind in the UK.

The Relatives and Residents Association has urged the Government to prioritise older people in care homes in its forthcoming green paper.

CSCI has secured a court order to strike off a residential care home in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, after the safety and welfare of 12 older residents were judged to be at serious risk.

Social services are under the spotlight once again in the wake of the Shannon Matthews case. Schoolgirl Shannon’s mother Karen Matthews has been convicted of kidnapping and falsely imprisoning her daughter.

The vilification of social workers in the wake of the Baby P tragedy could make it even harder to recruit staff to the profession, sector leaders have warned.

Hampshire’s recommendations could defuse the ticking time bomb set to explode in social care. When the government launched its six-month national debate on the future of funding adult social care, it called on councils to do their bit to spark grass-root discussion.