Care news

• How can care homes charge fees after a death?

  04-05-2026 08:00
  Charges set out in a new contract for Aver Healthcare’s homes appear to contradict advice from the regulatorI hold power of attorney for my aunt who is in a care home run by Avery Healthcare. Avery recently sent relatives its new contract, which states that care home fees are payable for 14 days after a resident’s death, and levies an upfront £595 charge for “dilapidations” (damage or wear and tear).These charges contradict advice given by the Competition and Market
  
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• Britain is undermining the care workers it depends on | Heather Stewart

  26-04-2026 12:27
  Labour’s immigration plans tear up the promise made to 300,000 people recruited for a sector in crisis“We are deflated, we are sad. We feel the government is trying to pull the rug from under our feet,” says David. “It is like we are being criticised for working in a sector which the government called for us to come help with.”David – not his real name – is a care worker for adults with learning disabilities. He came to the east of England from Nigeria i
  
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• The Guardian view on social care shortages: housing charities could help England’s ‘hidden children’ | Editorial

  20-04-2026 19:41
  New rules and extra foster carers should ease the pressure on councils. But unregistered placements remain a grave concernIt is incumbent on everyone with an interest in social policy to pay attention to the most vulnerable children and young people. When those who have been neglected, abused or exploited fall through the cracks in the welfare state because local councils are unable to meet their needs, this reflects poorly on wider society and risks causing harm in the long term as well as
  
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• Nearly fivefold increase in children in unregulated social care settings in England

  20-04-2026 06:00
  Exclusive: Vulnerable children being placed in caravans and Airbnbs when Ofsted-inspected homes cannot be found‘It’s soul-destroying’: the struggle to house vulnerable childrenMinisters must get to grips with the “national scandal” of England’s shadow child social care system, the children’s commissioner has warned, as a report reveals the number of children in unregulated settings has increased by more than 370% in five years.Some of the most vulnerable
  
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• ‘It’s soul-destroying’: struggle to house vulnerable children can leave breaking law as only option

  20-04-2026 06:00
  Social workers in England say they often have no choice but to place children in unregistered settings because no one else will take themBig rise in children in unregulated social care settingsThe sinking feeling is familiar now, says Anna*. It’s Friday, the clock is ticking, and there is a vulnerable child in her care for whom – despite hitting the phones for days – she cannot find a place. Once the foster carers have been exhausted, and the registered private children’s
  
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• Systemic failures that left Southport children at risk | Letters

  16-04-2026 17:50
  Readers respond to the inquiry findings of gross incompetence by government agencies, which led to three little girls being killed by Axel RudakubanaWhile many public agencies, along with Axel Rudakubana and his parents, have rightly been highlighted as carrying the blame for the devastating attack on children in Southport, there are some elements of our national systems that repeatedly walk away untouched by criticism (Editorial, 13 April).Social services, the health service, police, Preve
  
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• Britain's shadow workforce is paid as little as 65p an hour. Who cares for the carers? | Frances Ryan

  11-04-2026 07:00
  Carer’s allowance turns 50 this year, but it’s no reflection of the labour of the millions who cook, clean and nurse behind closed doorsImagine your house is on fire, and when you dial 999 the call handler suggests you try putting the blaze out yourself. Resources are tight, you see, and demand high, and the service increasingly relies on volunteers. Or perhaps your child’s maths teacher is off sick. The headteacher texts and asks if you can leave work to explain algebra to the
  
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• Sue Wright obituary

  09-04-2026 18:39
  My sister, Sue Wright, who has died aged 57, devoted her life to raising awareness about fostering and adoption as well as practising as a child protection barrister and becoming a successful businesswoman.Our upbringing was unhappy and Sue went into foster care aged 16, but the placement did not work out; by the age of 17 she was living in a Salvation Army-run establishment with a 17-year-old flatmate, living on a £40 a week allowance. From 1982 to 1984 she found part-time work cooking an
  
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• Want to know capitalism’s endgame? Just look at private equity – it has captured our everyday lives | Hettie O'Brien

  07-04-2026 07:00
  These companies now own everything from nurseries to care homes, squeezing vital services for profit while we foot the billIt was the free croissants that gave it away. And the Scandinavian-style furniture. And the tasteful pastel walls. It was different from other nurseries I’d viewed: marginally more expensive, the aesthetic equivalent of a WeWork for toddlers. I was eight months pregnant, on a tour of various nurseries in south-east London for my daughter. At the time, I didn’t re
  
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• How we won a refund from a cash-grabbing care home firm | Letters

  03-04-2026 18:08
  One reader shares their experience of fighting to receive the money they were owed, while Roy Grimwood offers insight into the disastrous effects of a flawed economic modelAs witness to the cash-grabbing nature of these businesses (The great care home cash grab: how private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs, 28 March), I would like to draw your attention to a specific practice: that of trying to deny grieving families the balance of fees owed to them when a resident dies in
  
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• Tell us your experience of caring for elderly parents

  01-04-2026 12:38
  We would like to hear about your experiences of caring for elderly parents and how this has affected your lifeIn a recent Guardian opinion piece, Lucinda Holdforth described her experience of caring for her late mother, and her complicated feelings after she died.It is a common human theme that good parents can never really rest for worrying about their children. But it seems to me that a reciprocal burden exists for good children. We are never entirely free from the psychic weight of our parent
  
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• The great care home cash grab: how private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs

  28-03-2026 13:00
  When did care homes come to be seen as recession-proof investments? And who pays the price?On a spring morning in 1987, a 30-year-old man named Robert Kilgour pulled up beside a row of foamy cherry trees in the town of Kirkcaldy, on Scotland’s east coast, to visit an old hotel. The building was four storeys of blackened Victorian sandstone. Kilgour was a big man, a voluble Scot with a knack for storytelling. He already owned a hotel in Edinburgh but wanted to branch into property developme
  
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• When family ties become a dreadful burden | Letters

  26-03-2026 17:48
  Readers respond to an article on having to care for parents if you had a complicated relationship with themStephanie Woods is right to draw attention to how hard it can be to care for someone who didn’t care for you (The impossible task of caring for ageing parents who did not care for you, 20 March). While some carers find it a privilege to look after someone they’ve had a loving relationship with, others feel trapped by a sense of duty, or by societal expectations, to care for some
  
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• Importance of properly funded social care is laid bare in Covid inquiry | Letters

  24-03-2026 17:50
  Gerard Crofton-Martin says the resilience of the NHS depends on the strength of the care sector. Plus a letter from John RobinsonThe impact of the Covid pandemic on the NHS, which was already under significant pressure, was profound and enduring. The findings set out in the Covid inquiry report are distressing, but not surprising (NHS was ‘on brink of collapse’ during pandemic, Covid inquiry finds, 19 March). The impact on patients and staff was immeasurable.The “precariou
  
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• MPs threaten fresh inquiry into carers allowance scandal amid redress delays

  22-03-2026 08:00
  Unpaid carers say they remain ‘in limbo’ as DWP continues to pursue discredited repayment billsMPs have threatened to launch a fresh inquiry into the handling of the carers allowance scandal after unpaid carers spoke of being “stuck in limbo” by the government’s response.The warning came amid concerns over delays in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to offer redress to tens of thousands of carers who were unfairly issued with overpayment bills based on di
  
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• Superannuation should be used for aged care, not inherited by next generation, aged care CEO says

  21-03-2026 20:01
  Labor should urge Australians to rethink purpose of super, Tracey Burton says, so country’s $4tn in superannuation could help plug funding shortfallsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastLabor should more actively encourage wealthier Australians to spend more of their superannuation on their own care, an industry leader says, to help free up capacity in the struggling system to protect elderly people without means.T
  
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• Watchdog takes over running of home for adults with learning disabilities

  19-03-2026 09:45
  William Blake House in Northamptonshire under investigation after families raise concerns over managementThe charity watchdog has taken control of a learning disability care home in Northamptonshire that is under investigation after residents’ families raised concerns over its management, including payments of £1m to a trustee.The Charity Commission has appointed an interim manager to run William Blake House, which faces potential insolvency in three weeks’ time if it cannot he
  
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• Casey’s review of adult social care offers hope | Letters

  13-03-2026 18:32
  Readers respond to Polly Toynbee’s article praising Louise Casey’s speech on social care fundingLouise Casey may have the power of words behind her (The blistering speech that tells me Britain’s social care deadlock can finally be broken, 10 March), but what she’s uncovered is a truth that local authorities have been voicing for years: the national care service will fail unless ministers stabilise the local systems that underpin it.Key Cities (a cross-party network of UK
  
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• The blistering speech that tells me Britain’s social care deadlock can finally be broken | Polly Toynbee

  10-03-2026 09:00
  If anyone can convince politicians and public of the need to pay for a national care service, it’s Louise Casey. With her involved, I now have hopeNo government in my lifetime has been dealt a worse hand than Keir Starmer’s. Austerity-broken public services, an empty Treasury, a jittery bond market freaked out by Liz Truss and then stricken by the arrival of Trump 2.0 with his bully-tariffs. Now Britain’s ally is setting the Middle East on fire in a murderous war, exploding oil
  
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• Louise Casey: England’s social care system faces ‘moment of reckoning’

  06-03-2026 07:00
  Head of government-commissioned review says adult social care is held together by ‘sticking plasters and glue’England’s “creaking” adult social care system is confusing and impenetrable to the people that rely on it and held together with “sticking plasters and glue”, the head of a government-commissioned review has said in a withering critique.Louise Casey said the country faced a “moment of reckoning” over its failure to effectively and fai
  
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• Head of carer’s allowance inquiry blames DWP ‘resistance’ for failure to fix crisis

  04-03-2026 17:52
  Liz Sayce tells MPs some civil servants tried to minimise extent of problems and deflect blameThe head of an official inquiry into carer’s allowance has criticised “forces of resistance” inside the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that undermined ministerial attempts to fix longstanding problems with the much-criticised benefit.Liz Sayce, whose review of carer’s allowance was published in November, said rather than owning the problems, some at the DWP had tried to &
  
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• Labour council accuses minister of ‘moral bankruptcy’ over social care dispute

  02-03-2026 09:59
  Hartlepool leaders ‘furious and appalled’ after meeting with Steve Reed about growing cost of social careThe housing, communities and local government secretary has been accused by a Labour council of showing “arrogance, indifference and moral bankruptcy” towards children in social care.In an unusually forthright attack, Labour leaders of Hartlepool council said they were “furious and appalled” at Steve Reed after a meeting with him last week. A cross-party de
  
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• ‘The negligence is staggering’: elderly and dying Australians left waiting for urgent aged care

  28-02-2026 20:00
  Alan Nicolle was already approved for urgent aged care supports, but delays and confusion under a ‘Kafkaesque’ system made his final days exhausting and painfulFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastDying Australians approved for government-funded aged care home support are struggling to access it, with carers describing a system plagued by delays and lack of control around how funding is spent.The accounts of
  
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• Australia’s broken aged care home support system is ensuring that loved ones live and die without dignity

  28-02-2026 20:00
  Alan Nicolle was already approved for urgent aged care supports, but delays and confusion under a ‘Kafkaesque’ system made his final days exhausting and painfulFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastDying Australians approved for government-funded aged care home support are struggling to access it, with carers describing a system plagued by delays and lack of control around how funding is spent.The accounts of
  
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• Kinship carers in England to be given financial support in government pilot

  27-02-2026 01:01
  Charities hail ‘groundbreaking’ scheme for grandparents and others who take full parental responsibility for a childGrandparents who step in to provide full-time care for their grandchildren to prevent them being taken into care will be given guaranteed financial support under a government pilot scheme.Charities welcomed the trial as groundbreaking and said if fully rolled out across England it had the potential to transform the lives of tens of thousands of children looked after und
  
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• Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts

  27-02-2026 00:25
  Care roles hit particularly hard by UK’s lurch to the right on migration, according to analysis of Home Office dataHospitals and care homes in the UK face “an impending car crash”, experts have warned, as research shows the number of overseas nurses and carers has collapsed.Analysis of Home Office quarterly data reveals the number of overseas nurses granted entry to the UK has fallen by 93% over three years. Just 1,777 overseas nurses were granted entry in 2025, compared with 2
  
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• Ed Davey accuses care home trustee of embezzlement amid watchdog inquiry

  25-02-2026 19:34
  Lib Dem leader says crisis at William Blake House is ‘one of my worst nightmares’ after Guardian revealed inquiry into financesEd Davey has accused a trustee of a learning disability care home of embezzlement and called for watchdogs to take over the charity to resolve a crisis he described as “one my worst nightmares”.The Liberal Democrat leader’s intervention at prime minister’s questions came hours after the Guardian revealed the Charity Commission had open
  
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• Charity watchdog opens inquiry into running of care home for vulnerable adults

  25-02-2026 08:00
  William Blake House paid its chair £1m in fees and is weeks away from possible closure over £1.6m in unpaid tax billCharity watchdogs have launched a formal inquiry into the management of a learning disability care home that paid its chair £1m in fees and is just five weeks away from possible closure over a £1.6m unpaid tax bill.The Charity Commission rapidly upgraded the status of its investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement and poor governance at Willia
  
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• Charity watchdog launches inquiry into management of children’s care home

  25-02-2026 08:00
  William Blake House paid its chair £1m in fees and is weeks away from possible closure over £1.6m in unpaid tax billCharity watchdogs have launched a formal inquiry into the management of a learning disability care home that paid its chair £1m in fees and is just five weeks away from possible closure over a £1.6m unpaid tax bill.The Charity Commission rapidly upgraded the status of its investigation into allegations of financial mismanagement and poor governance at Willia
  
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• At the algorithm’s mercy: Jean may have to leave her SA home as ‘outrageous’ tool cuts aged care support

  19-02-2026 15:00
  Exclusive: South Australian woman, who has cerebral palsy, fears losing her independence after government assessment reduces her fundingGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast“I want to stay at home with my roses.”They’re the flowers Jean Mathew’s husband surprised her with before he died more than 25 years ago, and they’ve spread throughout her garden ever since. Her home is full of memories, but the roaming cream rose bush is part of why she wa
  
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• Fostering target brings hope for thousands of children | Letter

  17-02-2026 18:39
  I have seen first-hand how rewarding fostering can be, and I highly recommend it, writes Dr Krish KandiahRe your editorial (The Guardian view on fostering: reform is welcome, but excess profits must be tackled, 10 February), I’ll never forget the midnight feast that nobody ate. Four children sat shellshocked in my lounge, having just been removed from their home. They didn’t know or trust us. We tried our best to make them feel comfortable with cookies, doughnuts and crisps, but it w
  
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• ‘Betrayed’: 21 Hartlepool councillors threaten to quit Labour over care budget

  17-02-2026 12:48
  Exclusive: Council in one of England’s poorest areas says it needs urgent help with ballooning children’s social care billKeir Starmer is facing a mass resignation of Labour councillors in one of England’s poorest areas over a “betrayal” of funding for children in care.Labour councillors in Hartlepool, County Durham, said they were “between despair and open revolt” over an “unfair” cash settlement that would leave them unable to balance the b
  
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• Families bid to take over their children’s care home that amassed huge tax debts

  16-02-2026 07:00
  Parents wish to ‘take matters into our own hands’ as William Blake House faces potential winding up orderA group of families have launched an audacious bid to take over their disabled children’s residential care home after it emerged the charity running it faces closure after amassing huge tax debts and paying £1m in fees to one of its trustees.William Blake House faces a potential winding up order in seven weeks and is under investigation by regulators over serious finan
  
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• Reeves appoints higher pay advocate to fight skills shortages as chief economic adviser

  13-02-2026 16:38
  Labour market expert Prof Brian Bell has called for better pay and conditions in key sectors, particularly social careRachel Reeves has appointed a labour market expert who has repeatedly called for better pay and conditions in key sectors, such as social care, to reduce the UK’s reliance on migrant workers as her new chief economic adviser.Prof Brian Bell, who chairs the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), which advises the government, has been announced as the new chief econo
  
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• Britain’s care system promotes modern slavery. A genuinely humane government would reform it | Andrea Egan

  12-02-2026 15:10
  New proposals that would force poorly paid migrant workers to wait longer for earned settlement are nothing more than an assault on working-class peopleAndrea Egan is the general secretary of UnisonBillionaires and politicians fan the flames of hate, but without migrant workers, Britain would grind to a halt. That’s especially true when it comes to health and social care: more than a fifth of the NHS workforce in England is made up of migrant staff. The same proportion of care workers nati
  
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• Parents of children taken in to care should get more help, say experts after Victoria Marten death

  12-02-2026 01:01
  Review says trauma-informed support could help interrupt ‘destructive cycles’ and reduce risk of harm to future babiesParents whose children are taken into care should receive trauma-informed support to reduce the risk of harm to any further babies they have, according to child protection experts.A national child safeguarding review, launched after the death of baby Victoria Marten, said that if “destructive cycles of harm are to be interrupted” there needed to be more fo
  
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• Nurses’ families fear being torn apart in UK immigration crackdown, survey says

  11-02-2026 07:00
  Exclusive: Most people in charity’s study say they worry about being separated from relatives under Mahmood plansFamilies of nurses and carers have said they fear being torn apart under an immigration crackdown condemned as “an act of economic vandalism”.A survey of more than 1,000 people, many of whom moved to Britain to work or study, found that three in five worry about being separated from their relatives. Continue reading...
  
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• MPs call on welfare bosses to speed up redress over carer’s allowance scandal

  11-02-2026 01:01
  Public accounts committee says ‘systemic issues’ at DWP led to carers being wrongly forced to repay overpaymentsAn influential MPs’ committee has urged welfare bosses to speed up redress for tens of thousands of unpaid carers who stand to have huge benefit debts written off after they were wrongly hit with carer’s allowance penalties.The public accounts committee (PAC) said management failures and “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
  
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• The Guardian view on fostering: reform is welcome, but excess profits must be tackled | Editorial

  10-02-2026 19:55
  Sensible plans to boost collaboration between councils may not be enough to tilt the balance away from private providersNearly 55,000 children in England live with foster carers, and despite a recent fall in the number of children in care, pressure on the system remains intense. Rising costs and the growing role of private providers in residential care and foster placements have exposed deep weaknesses, yet reform has lagged behind the crisis in children’s homes. Only now have ministers se
  
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• Out of the red, but at what cost? Birmingham council asset sales have left city reeling, say residents

  10-02-2026 12:43
  As council declares it’s ‘no longer bankrupt’, people say closure of services have added to social isolation and crimeWhen Birmingham city council announced last week it was “no longer bankrupt”, after years of budget cuts and asset sales, one retired police officer was left feeling despondent.Wendy Collymore had experienced first-hand the impact of the council’s cost-cutting drive on the UK’s second largest city when the adult day centre her elderly fat
  
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• Government’s top welfare official to step down

  09-02-2026 20:11
  Peter Schofield’s departure for personal reasons comes after weeks of fierce criticism of DWP over carer’s allowance scandalThe government’s top welfare official is to step down after weeks of fierce criticism of his department’s handling of a longstanding benefits failure that plunged thousands into debt and became known as the carer’s allowance scandal.Sir Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, announced to staff on Monda
  
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• Joy Davies obituary

  09-02-2026 17:25
  My mother, Joy Davies, who has died aged 89, was a chemist, social worker and passionate advocate for people with severe learning difficulties.Born in Ormesby, North Yorkshire, to Olive (nee Postgate), a midwife, and Thomas Hansell, a butcher, Joy went to the Cleveland school (now Teesside High) in Eaglescliffe. She left aged 16 and decided against working on the family farm near Swainby in North Yorkshire, choosing instead to join the Ministry of Agriculture, based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her w
  
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• UK’s ‘unsung army’ of full-time unpaid carers needs more support, report says

  08-02-2026 01:01
  Resolution Foundation finds one in three carers from poorer families unable to work because of responsibilitiesA growing “unsung army” of 1 million people with full-time caring responsibilities needs better support, according to a report that found one in three unpaid carers from poorer backgrounds were unable to work because of their duties.The trend is the result of an ageing society and rising ill-health and disability concentrated in the poorest half of the country’s workin
  
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• DWP chief accused of overseeing ‘culture of complacency’ that led to carer’s allowance scandal

  04-02-2026 21:39
  Commons committee chair says DWP repeatedly failed to prioritise the vulnerable and was slow to fix errorsThe government’s most senior welfare official has been accused of presiding over a “culture of complacency” that led to thousands of unpaid carers inadvertently running up huge benefit debts.Debbie Abrahams, the chair of the work and pensions select committee, said the Department for Work and Pensions had repeatedly failed to prioritise vulnerable people, was unwilling to l
  
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• Ministers to crackdown on profiteering in care sector and make renewed fostering push

  04-02-2026 01:00
  Josh MacAlister issues warning as government launches £88m ‘call to arms’ to recruit 10,000 new foster carersPrivate providers of child social care in England will be pushed out of the system if they are found to be profiteering, the children’s minister has said.Josh MacAlister, who is in charge of overhauling the care system for children, also called for a fostering equivalent of the Homes for Ukraine scheme to provide homes for tens of thousands of children. Continue re
  
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• Ministers to crack down on profiteering in care sector and make renewed fostering push

  04-02-2026 01:00
  Josh MacAlister issues warning as government launches £88m ‘call to arms’ tofind homes for 10,000 foster childrenPrivate providers of child social care in England will be pushed out of the system if they are found to be profiteering, the children’s minister has said.Josh MacAlister, who is in charge of overhauling the care system for children, also called for a fostering equivalent of the Homes for Ukraine scheme to provide homes for tens of thousands of children. Continu
  
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• Families call for inquiry into residential care charity that ran up £1.6m debt

  02-02-2026 06:00
  William Blake House in Northants accused of mismanagement after revelation it paid one of its own trustees £1mA group of families have called for an urgent inquiry into a charity caring for their highly vulnerable disabled relatives which is under threat of closure after running up debts of £1.6m in unpaid taxes and paying £1m to one of its own trustees.Earlier this month, a judge gave the charity, William Blake House, just weeks to pay off its debts to HMRC or face a winding u
  
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• Reform councillors say they will not close Lancashire care homes

  22-01-2026 18:28
  Announcement that homes slated for closure will instead receive investment follows months of public outcryReform councillors have said they will not close a group of care homes in Lancashire after months of public outcry.Members of Lancashire county council, where the party won 52 of 84 seats in the May 2025 local elections, announced earlier this week that the homes slated for closure would instead receive investment. A protest in Preston on Saturday had attracted hundreds of people. Continue r
  
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• MPs criticise behaviour of senior DWP officials over carer’s allowance scandal

  21-01-2026 16:45
  Top DWP civil servant accused of giving out ‘a lot of blancmange’ over department’s response during hearingMP’s have criticised the “absolutely unacceptable behaviour” of senior welfare officials over the carer’s allowance scandal in which hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers were unfairly landed with huge debts.Sir Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, came under fire on Wednesday from a select committee, wh
  
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• Halifax care home manager sexually abused children for decades, court hears

  19-01-2026 19:02
  Malcolm Phillips, 92, is accused of abuse between 1976 and 1994, while former assistant is alleged to have helped himA care home manager in West Yorkshire isolated and sexually abused vulnerable and “unwanted” children using his “unfettered access” to them over a period of almost two decades, a court has heard.Malcolm Phillips, 92, is accused of “using children for his sexual gratification” at Skircoat Lodge care home in Halifax between 1976 and 1994. His assi
  
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