Streamlined regulations for professionals working with care leavers have been published today, children’s minister Tim Loughton has said.

A new report says the overall quality of Serious Case Reviews shows a strong trend of improvement. The report from Ofsted said more than 40 per cent of the reviews it had looked into were judged good and only 16 per cent were rated as inadequate.

SURREY County Council’s children’s services “only meet minimum requirements” according to a surprise Ofsted inspection – and immediate action has been demanded.

The Audit Commission has claimed that many local councils are not on track to meet targets in dispersing funds for personal mental health budgets.  The personal budgets would give mental health patients greater leeway in deciding what kinds of treatments they desire.

Bullying should be made a crime according to 80 per cent of young people who responded to a survey conducted by charity Beatbullying.

A grant programme for community organisations in deprived areas worth a minimum of £1.5m was launched yesterday by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

A BRENT social worker who threw a fan at a vulnerable child has been struck off. Robert Lennox Clarke was arrested after the attack left bruises on his victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in July, 2009.

Many councils are struggling with moves to give individual people their own budgets to spend on social care, a watchdog claims.

Watchdog finds fewer than half of serious case reviews better than adequate and authorities frequently too trusting of parents

Local authorities in England who are facing massive budget cuts over the next four years are sitting on £14bn in reserves, it has emerged.