{mosimage} Social work starting salaries have risen by more than 6% in Wales since a hard-hitting report warned of the profession’s massive recruitment and retention crisis a year ago. The report’s author last night hailed the figures – up from £20,970 to £22,293 – as a positive response to the dire warnings contained in last year’s research. But delegates at a conference in Llandrindod Wells will hear that much more needs to be done to solve a shortage of more than 2,000 workers across the nation.

Tony Garthwaite, the author of Social Work in Wales: A Profession to Value, said, “There is clear evidence that our report has been taken seriously throughout Wales. We recommended immediate and long term action for tackling some very complex and difficult issues and we are now seeing the first signs of that strategy beginning to work.

The number of arrests for booze-fuelled violence and anti-social behaviour in Gwent fell by almost 450 in the last nine months since 24-hour drinking was introduced last year. Critics of the new licensing laws feared an increase in violence, predicting a bleak vision of brawling drunken louts stretching police and ambulance resources to the limit. But since the more relaxed licensing laws were brought into force last November, the latest figures show a very different story in Gwent.

Controversial plans to build a new children’s home for vulnerable youngsters in Swansea have been scrapped at the last minute. Proposals had been put forward for the new centre on land at Milford Way, Blaenymaes. It would have replaced West Cross House – which is being demolished to make way for new Welsh medium school Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg (YGG) Llwynderw.

A chief constable is encouraging officers by giving them points for the number of arrests they make. Richard Brunstrom, the head of North Wales Police, is giving beat officers 10 points for every arrest and a similar number for good quality intelligence reports. They will earn 20 points for seizing vehicles, three points for setting up community contact meetings, and one point for a stop and search.

An 84-year-old man is beginning a four year sentence for the rape of a girl aged 11 almost 44 years ago. Cardiff Crown Court heard that Merlin Griffiths, from Aberaman, south Wales, was 40 when he carried out the assault in October 1962. When the girl told her mother about the rape it was dismissed as a “fantasy”. Griffiths was arrested after the woman made her accusations again.

Health chiefs in Wales are launching a campaign urging parents to have their children vaccinated against infections which cause meningitis and pneumonia. From Monday, every child up to the age of two will be offered the pneumococcal disease vaccine. Up to 50 children aged under two in Wales and England die from pneumococcal infections each year.

A political row has blown up over the awarding of research grants by Assembly social justice minister Edwina Hart’s department to an academic team which includes a close party ally. Plaid Cymru’s shadow social justice minister Leanne Wood has called for a top-level investigation into her concerns about contracts awarded to the University of Glamorgan’s Welsh Institute of Health and Social Care. The Institute’s senior fellow is Tony Beddow, chair of Swansea County Labour Party and former chair of Ms Hart’s own Gower constituency party. An Assembly Government spokeswoman has angrily rejected Ms Wood’s allegations, saying all the contracts had been awarded in line with correct procedures.

Medical mistakes in Wales have cost YOU more than £335m in the past seven years, we can reveal. That is the figure the NHS has been forced to pay in compensation and legal fees for botched operations and dodgy diagnoses since the National Assembly was set up. In the past year alone, NHS trusts and local health boards have paid out a total of £37m, including more than £1.2m in lawyers’ fees.

Calls to raise allowances to help foster carers look after children in Wales have been made by a charity. The Fostering Network, in a newly published report, claims £3m more is needed to help some foster carers. It wants to see minimum allowance levels set but payments varied among the 22 Welsh local councils. The Welsh Assembly Government said it valued foster carers’ contributions and would look at the financial issues and payment methods shortly. The Fostering Network wants to see minimum allowances ranging from £115 to £198 per week.

Additional investment of £3 million per year is needed to stop hundreds of Welsh foster carers being left out of pocket as a result of fostering, according to a report published by charity the Fostering Network tomorrow. A survey of all 22 local authorities found that foster carers in nearly half are still receiving allowances below the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum levels. The £3 million would be required in order to provide all foster carers with the Fostering Network’s rates. Allowances are designed to cover the costs incurred by a foster carer in looking after a fostered child. The survey found actual allowances as low as £67 per week for the youngest children, compared with the recommended rate of £115.