The longstanding campaign by the Children's Society and others to highlight the plight of young runaways seems to have borne fruit in the shape of a government action plan launched yesterday.

There's no new money but on the cards is new guidance to clarify the roles and responsibilities of councils and other agencies, recommend standards for emergency accommodation and stress the importance of full assessments of children who have run away.

I was pretty struck by a figure from a Children's Society report last year that just 12% of areas had services in place for young runaways, despite 100,000 children running away from care or home every year in the UK.

Will they forever be a low priority?

I have found myself becoming increasingly frustrated by other agencies response to young people missing from care. Even when they are located, the police are very reluctant to go and get them, and the out of hours services which are meant to cover social work services dont respond either.

This is particularly the case if a young person has gone missing more than once, no matter how vulnerable they are.