A new system that ranks drugs on the basis of harm caused to both the user and others places alcohol as the most harmful drug, above heroin and crack. The scale, developed by drug experts led by Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London, is published online today in The Lancet.

Foster carers are fighting to gain the same rights as other local authority workers and calling for greater legal protection, after Norfolk County Council was ruled to have acted unlawfully in removing two teenagers from a placement without consultation.

The Audit Commission has pointed out problems councils are having in giving individual people their own budgets to spend on social care.

A cross-party inquiry examining the prospects for looked-after children has been launched by Labour MP Lisa Nandy and Conservative MP Edward Timpson.

Children’s social services have the worst recruitment and retention difficulties in local government, the annual council workforce survey has found.

A London social worker in her fourth decade of supporting vulnerable people walked away with the top honour at the Social Worker of the Year 2010 awards event in Bedford at the weekend.

Potential parents wait for more than a year, while youngsters are left in foster care – mainly because local authorities believe adoption agencies are too expensive

MPs warned that patients with dementia and diabetes risk losing support as a result of savage budget reductions

THE NUMBER of reports of abuse and neglect of vulnerable adults in Hampshire has rocketed by 79 per cent.

The care minister has rejected as scare-mongering claims from the Local Government Association that councils will end home help for older people.