The boss of an old people’s home in Longtown has been charged with stealing property and cash worth £3,278. Ann Watt, 45, was relieved of her duties at Cumbria County Council’s Eskdale House in March pending a police probe into “misuse of funds”.

No doubt about it, Francis Ward, Head of Skills, Research and Intelligence for Skills for Care has the power of persuasion when it comes to his favourite topic – the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care.

A committee of MPs is to investigate the misuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Misuse hopes to pin down the true scale and nature of the problem, and find ways to tackle it.

The English Community Care Association (ECCA), the leading representative body for independent care homes, has welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement of the Government’s intention to have a much clearer and long-term relationship with the third sector.

Local authorities are not referring enough children to voluntary sector children’s homes, reports a new study. This, the first major examination of voluntary sector provision of residential care, found 58% of providers had experienced a downturn in levels of occupancy in the last two years.

Drug addicts will be given shopping vouchers under a scheme which will cost up to £5 million a year. The plans will see around 36,000 drug addicts in England given between £70 and £150 a year for accessing treatment and health programmes and staying clean.

Just two per cent of working parents have signed up for childcare vouchers, research has revealed. The finding came from a poll of nearly 1,200 parents commissioned by childcare voucher company Childcare Choice.