Social workers in Derby will begin industrial action this week after learning that their car allowances will be cut. Unison balloted workers across Derby city council, including social workers, for action which will mean they will no longer use their cars for work.

Plans to build a new rehabilitation unit at a former mental hospital have sparked calls for other parts of the site to be returned to use.

The NHS is failing youngsters with autism, a charity warned today. More than 70% of children with autism also have a mental health problem which is preventable or treatable, such as depression or obsessive compulsive disorder.

HEALTH chiefs have unveiled plans to create a new £10 million centre aimed at plugging a hole in mental health care for women patients in York.

A consortium of 700 charities is bidding for contracts worth £100m from the National Offender Management Service, the executive agency of the Ministry of Justice that seeks to prevent adult re-offending.

A 21-year-old care leaver has released a single called Keep Dreaming to promote this autumn’s National Care Leavers’ Week.

Social care professionals have warned against publishing the full serious case reviews of Baby Peter, Khyra Ishaq, the Edlington brothers and Shannon Matthews, fearing another media storm against the social work profession.

New research published today confirms that traditional commissioning models are inadequate.  Published at a time of budget cuts and efficiency savings, the report highlights the need to measure outcomes and value for money in the widest possible way, by focusing not just on the benefit of the service delivery to the individual end user but on the wider social value created as well.   

The UK Border Agency is to set up a £4m “reintegration centre” in Afghanistan so that it can start deporting unaccompanied child asylum seekers to Kabul from Britain, the Guardian can disclose.

LIVERPOOL council has introduced an immediate recruitment freeze as it grapples with the “biggest financial crisis to hit the city for decades”.