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Social workers at North East Lincolnshire council seem to be the next group in a growing number of council staff set to go on strike.

Yesterday, the local Unison branch put out a statement saying it will reject the council's revised offer on changes to workers terms and conditions.

Social workers at Southampton council have already gone on strike over pay cuts, their compatriots in Shropshire may be set to walk out over cuts to pay and yesterday social workers in all of Northern Ireland look set to gear up for mass walk outs along with other staff in health and education.

North Lincolnshire still has a number of hoops to jump through before it even reaches the point of balloting members but given the general mood and the way other negotiations have gone a peaceful resolution looks a way off.

It's looks like it's going to be a turbulent autumn.

Image by kozumel on Flickr

Southampton council will bit hit by a second wave of strikes from social workers, angry at pay cuts of around 5%, tomorrow as talks remain deadlocked.

Unions and the council have not made any progress since social workers staged a one day walk out last week. Although the local paper reports a deal may have been brokered in preparation for tomorrow's mass meeting of union members, when I spoke to union officials earlier today they were downbeat on the prospect of a deal. However, they may have just been doing that so as not to be pressured to reveal any details ad both parties have agreed to keep talks confidential.

Though I dare say accusations by the council leader that strikers are only walking out because they are on full pay from the unions, are doing little to smooth over the situation.

However, the local paper also reports today that an employment tribunal hearing over the mass dismissal and reemployment of staff has been postponed at the council's request, so maybe there is progress.

A meeting of all union members is scheduled for tomorrow to discuss further action.

In case you missed it here's our podcast on last weeks strikes.

As student protests gather momentum on the day of the tuition fees vote in Parliament, uncertainty continues to surround the future funding arrangements for the social work degree in England.

Academics are becoming increasingly concerned about the government's plans to increase tuition fees to as much as £9,000 per year. Ministers have said certain courses will be protected, such as "science and technology, clinical medicine, nursing and other healthcare degrees". But social work is not included, and a spokesperson at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said this week that a decision has not yet been made about whether or not it will be on the protected list.

At present, fees for social work students in England, usually at least £3,000, are paid for by the Department of Health through social work bursaries.

Will this continue or will future generations of social work students be asked to pay for their training? And if it is to be the latter, where will that leave recruitment into the sector? Amid the furore of the demonstrations, the government has left many unanswered questions.

• In a separate blog entry, Social Worker-To-Be admits they probably wouldn't have chosen social work as a career had they been left up to £30,000 in debt at the end of the course.

The shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, Caroline Spelman, has ignited the debate over the quality of care delivered to those with muscular dystrophy. She criticised the government saying many in her constituency had trouble getting access to various therapies from the "overstretched, unco-ordinated" services.

Spelman said that there was little access to care planning for this client group and this was causing many unnecessary emergency admissions which formed a significant proportion of PCT spending on emergency admissions.

Ring-fencing remains the difficult question for social care. At the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Harrogate the thorny issue of the £150m funding for the dementia strategy - what some people describe as the "missing £150m" - was raised. Care services minister Phil Hope assured the audience that it was there in primary care trust budgets but that it wasn't ring-fenced because "PCTs and local government didn't want ring-fencing".

By Mithran Samuel

Interesting interview in The Herald with head of Scotland's care regulator, the Care Commission, Jacquie Roberts, in which she emphasises how how much adult care services will have to change to deal with the demographic changes of the coming decades, particularly in rolling back institutional care.

With the focus of the two main political parties being to force (sorry support) people off incapacity benefits and into work one can't help but think whether the people and the hardships many are likely to experience in this new orgy have been forgotten.

By Jeremy Dunning

It's a society where living beyond the age of 100 is commonplace according to researchers who say that most babies born in the past few years will live to be centenarians. The study by the ageing research centre in Denmark calculated that at least half the babies born in the UK in the year 2000 will reach their 100^th birthday.

writes Mithran Samuel

Councils have made good progress on personalisation, but two stories this week remind us that funding will be crucial. The Low Pay Commission is to probe whether personal assistants hired by service users are receiving the minimum wage.