Social work news

• Government sets limit on council tax rises in 2025-26

  17-11-2024 22:23
  
  The government has set limits on increases in council tax in 2025-26.
  English local authorities will be able to raise core council tax by 3% and the adult social care precept – which is ring-fenced for the sector – by 2% – the same limits that have applied over the past two years. Authorities generally made full – or near full – use of this limit in 2024-25.
  Councils will not be able to raise taxes by a higher amount without gaining public consent through a local re
  
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• ‘I’m not saying I’m not scarred. But scars do fade’: Baroness Lola Young on her childhood in care

  17-11-2024 12:00
  The crossbench peer grew up in care and went on to become an actor, an academic and one of the first black women in the House of Lords. Now she has written a memoir documenting her remarkable storyIn March 2012, Lola Young, who sits as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, clambered on to the rush-hour bus that would take her from the children’s social care office in Islington, north London, to her home. In her arms was a box: a collection of papers she was so anxious to open she did it
  
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• Improving social care is a big task and these talks are a good place to start | Heather Stewart

  17-11-2024 11:36
  Productivity and quality in a sector that is its workforce will require even more money after national insurance risesKemi Badenoch’s second go at prime minister’s questions last Wednesday was judged a flop at Westminster but she did draw attention to one genuine issue: the impact of the national insurance rise for social care.It is 14 years since the Tories sank Andy Burnham’s plan for a “death tax” to fund social care. Over that time, as demand has continued to ri
  
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• Cover-up of child abuse in Church of England tried to ‘protect the work’ of twisted theology | Helen King

  17-11-2024 11:00
  It’s difficult to face the fact that those who call themselves Christian can abuse, and hard to believe anyone thought silence was the right responseIt has been an unprecedented 10 days for the Church of England. The Makin report into abuse by John Smyth, barrister and Church lay reader, was leaked and landed a week ahead of its scheduled date, but still more than four years behind the original timetable.Much of the content is familiar to anyone who read Andrew Graystone’s 2021 book
  
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