News round up: Thousands more children put in care as staff fear another Baby P

October 21, 2009 in Child safeguarding, Looked after children, Residential care

Thousands more children put in care as staff fear another Baby P

Family courts and the care system are close to breaking point after a record rise in young people being removed from their homes in response to the Baby P case, two organisations have reported.

Cafcass, the children’s court advisory service, said that the legal system was struggling to cope with a surge in care applications. Meanwhile, local authorities are said to be under “massive strain” in trying to find suitable foster homes for all the young people being taken into care.

Read more on this story in The Times

Girl, 16, died from heroin overdose despite mother’s pleas for social services to save her daughter

The parents of a schoolgirl addicted to heroin pleaded with police and social services for help but they did nothing to save her, an inquest has heard.

Deborah and Anthony Walsh desperately sought advice from the authorities after their 16-year-old daughter Kate began taking the Class A drug.

Labour drive to make services more efficient

Billions of pounds can be saved by ending duplication in the delivery of public services, the communities secretary, John Denham, will say tomorrow in a speech indicating a key element in Labour’s strategy to halve the public deficit by 2014.

Denham will say that 13 pilot studies designed to end duplication of local public services show £600m can be saved from local government budgets – but that this is only the tip of an iceberg of wider savings. The scale of savings being considered is both a relief to ministers as they try to reduce the deficit and an embarrassment, suggesting as it does that there have been huge inefficiencies in the way public services have worked for more than a decade.