Children’s workers employed by Coventry Council have threatened to hold a strike over feared job losses. Following a meeting on 29 April with the union Unite, staff in the authority’s children’s and family education service said they were prepared to take industrial action over proposed council budget cuts.

Urgent questions about how Britain should care for the 1.25 million adults in social care will start to get better answers from today with the opening of the School for Social Care Research.

Key details that might have saved the life of Baby P were revealed by his own mother on videotape – but never passed to police, the BBC has learned.

LIVERPOOL is to get its first dedicated rape crisis centre in more than a decade when a new centre opens in the city next week.

Lord Laming, one of the country’s leading experts on child abuse cases, has warned that social services need to act quicker and more decisively to protect youngsters like Baby P on the “at risk” register.

ALL social workers for OAPs and the disabled could be outsourced under controversial new council plans. Buckinghamshire County Council could stop directly employing home care social workers under the cash-saving move.

Modernisers in politics are rarely respected in their own lifetimes, so Sue Anderson, the Birmingham cabinet member for adults and communities, must be hoping that the social services change agenda she is driving through with characteristic toughness earns respect at some stage in the future.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) has announced it is to establish a college of social work. The association, which has around 12,000 members, hopes by creating a college social work can “take responsibilty of its future” and ensure people get the best possible services from highly-trained and qualified social workers.

Children’s minister Delyth Morgan has announced the appointment of six members to the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) board.

A senior social worker abused his position and ruined a woman’s life after he had children with her while he was supposed to be dealing with her case.