SPENDING on hiring agency social workers has leapt by £100,000 in a year. Carmarthenshire Council spent £292,152 on hiring agency workers last year (2010/11), compared to £195,412 in 2009/10.

NEWPORT council needs to recruit more in-house foster carers to reduce the need to place children with outside agencies, a review has found.

OWNERS of an independent Welsh care home are going to court to stop council bosses closing them down.

A 49-YEAR-OLD manageress of a Gwynedd Residential Care Home has been committed to the crown court on 13 fraud charges of abusing her position of trust and gaining money for herself from the accounts of an elderly resident in her care.

SOCIAL care staff at Flintshire County Council have been rewarded for their hard work at an awards ceremony.

CONCERN has been raised over a critical inspection report of children and young people’s services in Neath Port Talbot.

Welsh-speaking dementia patients could be left to struggle because of a lack of Welsh-language provision within the health service, campaigners have said.

THE first of four new elderly care homes due to be built at a cost of millions of pounds could open less than two years from now.

NEARLY 400 care workers transferring to a new boss have been told their jobs will be protected. Neath Port Talbot Council has agreed a 25-year contract that will see Gwalia taking over its residential and respite care, and its supported housing.

All 22 councils in Wales have blasted Welsh government plans to reduce the number of local safeguarding children boards to six.