Hundreds of people across Lancashire are set to see their care packages end after a task group rubberstamped a series of social services cuts. Currently Lancashire County Council provides social care services for people with moderate, substantial and critical needs.

Twelve people with learning disabilities have recently moved into their own flats fulfilling their dreams of a much more independent life. For Iso Mullarkey, a social worker from Bishop’s Stortford, it is times like these that make her job worthwhile.

Bolton Council’s adult and children’s services department has been rewarded for helping young people to get a step on the career ladder. The team has won this year’s National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) award for its trainee social work programme.

Offenders are escaping punishment for breaking their community penalties because probation staff are not following Home Office guidelines, according to a watchdog report.

A Birmingham nurse serving life for murdering her partner by drugging him and injecting him with insulin had her sentence reduced because of her “wholly exceptional progress” in prison.

“Talking” CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be installed in 20 areas across England. They are already used in Middlesbrough where anyone seen misbehaving can be told via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff, to stop.

By 2009 all women would be able to choose between giving birth at home, in a unit led by midwives or under the care of a consultant in hospital. Lives will be at risk under ‘scandalous’ maternity plans which mean that poorlytrained assistants could deliver babies, campaigners have warned.

A seven-year-old boy and his HIV-positive parents escaped deportation last night after a children’s charity warned the Home Office that it was effectively condemning the boy to death if it sent his family back to Malawi.

From 6 April millions more Britons are to be given the right to request flexible working. People who need to alter their working hours to give them time to care for an adult are the beneficiaries. This includes people who, for example, need to get away from work to look after parents suffering dementia or family members who are disabled or ill.

More than 60 public organisations including fire services, local councils, colleges and probation boards have been “named and shamed” for failing to produce a scheme to improve services and job opportunities for disabled people.

{mosimage}The Disability Rights Commission warned that it could take legal action against the organisations after accusing them of breaking the law. The Commission said 65 public bodies had missed a deadline of last December for producing a disability equality scheme.

Under the scheme organisations were supposed to show what measures they were taking to help disabled people get better access to education, facilities such as sports centres, training and jobs.

Among the organisations named were a number of Government services including UK Trade and Investment and the Forensic Science Service. Sir Bert Massie, the Commission’s chairman, said: “The disability equality duty is a real opportunity to transform disabled people’s experiences of the society we live in.