Babies left in filth as mother binged for 24 hours

‘Where’s mummy?’: Babies left in filth as mother binged for 24 hours

A single mother left her four young children including two babies home alone while she went on a 24-hour drink and drugs binge, a court heard.

Worried neighbours contacted police after seeing the woman’s eldest child, a four-year-old girl, hanging out of a window crying: ‘Where’s mummy?’

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail

Children’s services being undermined by demoralising inspections

Children’s services are being undermined by “simplistic, process-driven” inspection and monitoring, the head of the body that represents senior children’s social work managers claimed today.

In a thinly veiled swipe at the regulator Ofsted, Kim Bromley-Derry, the president of the Association of Directors and Children’s Services, said the way inspections were being carried out was “draining confidence and capacity”.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Tories would allocate NHS money to public health boards

The Tories would give newly-created public health boards ringfenced NHS money to spend across local government and housing and save on future health costs, the shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said today.

Local authorities had led the way in piloting preventative care for the elderly that helped older people live independently, Lansley said, and a Conservative government would use a a separate public health budget to invest in such measures.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Child welfare expert defiant over Ofsted criticism

Tension over the performance of the Ofsted inspectorate since the Baby Peter affair burst into the open today after an angry intervention by the child welfare expert who was sent in to Haringey at the height of the crisis.

John Coughlan, who was temporarily seconded by ministers to run child protection services in the North London borough last year, accused Ofsted of “defensiveness to the point of destruction” and openly defied its criticism of his own local authority.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Social services sees rise in adults at risk of physical and sexual abuse

Social services departments have seen a rise in the numbers of vulnerable adults referred to them because they are at risk of physical and sexual abuse, as well as financial fraud, a study has found.

The survey of directors of adult services suggests the fallout from the death of Baby Peter has influenced social workers’ attitudes to vulnerable adults – with more older people or those with a learning disability deemed to be at risk of abuse being referred for assessment.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Burnham rules out plan to scrap disability benefit

The health secretary, Andy Burnham, will today rule out a controversial plan to scrap disability benefit paid to 2.5 million younger people.

In a major speech on the future of social care, he will say he has decided not to use disability living allowance (DLA) to fund the new national care service.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

School delayed hammer attack inquiry over fears of liability

An official review into a “racist” hammer attack on a schoolboy was unacceptably delayed because his school’s insurers feared it would effect their liability, a judge ruled yesterday.

Henry Webster, then 15, was repeatedly hit on the head with a claw hammer at Ridgeway School in Wroughton, near Swindon, Wiltshire, in January 2007 and left with life-threatening injuries.

Read more on this story in The Independent

 Maddie on our minds

EVERTON fans wear T-shirts to show the search for Maddie McCann is still on during a Europa League game in Portugal last night.

The club gave out 6,000 tops bearing the words: We’re still looking for you.

Read more on this story in The Sun