Promises, Promises

This the second part of Briony Ladbury’s blog on children safeguarding and the NHS. Safeguarding professionals are routinely coming into conflict with senior managers and commissioners who can’t always see the value of putting money behind developments unless there is a proven evidence base. Whilst an evidence base is important,...

Prime Minister David Cameron recently pledged £1 billion for mental health services as part of his much vaunted Life Chances Strategy. Some £290 million will be spent on perinatal mental health care up to 2020, £250 million for mental health services in hospital emergency departments and more than £400 million...

Social care is littered with language that doesn’t belong. Some of it has been copied from business, while other phrases come from the NHS – which can be equally inappropriate. Some words have so many multiple meanings that using them renders discussion meaningless; they become those conversations that 10 people can...

Back in December we wrote a blog about Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to take over local authorities that fail to deal with child protection services. For many it signalled the start of privatising local services away from councils. This was the blog at the time. [View the story “What...

When the Chancellor recently announced he had signed up four government departments for 30% cuts as part of the next spending round, I was convinced local government would not be one of them.  It was. So what do we do now? Councils are on their knees, their eyes understandably more...

Lets have the big conversation about how we deliver integrated services of excellence everywhere and not make unachievable threats to one part of a system.

We have a duty to help refugees in desperate need; they need to be treated with respect and dignity. But instead Hungary is locking them up.

How Suffolk responded to reports of missing persons in Ipswich that subsequently led to the murder hunt for the Ipswich prostitute murders

This is the first in a series of guest blogs by ex Detective Superintendent Alan Caton OBE about the Ipswich prostitute murders . In the winter months of 2006, I found myself at the centre of the biggest murder investigation ever in the UK. At that time I was the...

Prostitution is a very complex and difficult subject on which there are many controversial and diverse views.

In this, my third blog in the series, I will outline how Suffolk Police and their partners responded to the issue of prostitution after women were murdered.

When the new Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Harassment and Honour Based Violence (DASH) model was introduced in 2009, for the first time it enabled police services and partner agencies to use a common checklist to identify and assess risk with victims of domestic abuse. Since then model has become solidly...

In the UK and internationally the face of public services has changed dramatically in the past three decades. This is as a result of political beliefs and fast moving government policies that impact on provision in the wake of the financial crisis. This has influenced how we as professionals will...

Government has published a new action plan for tackling child sexual exploitation, including an extension of the wilful neglect offence to children’s social care, education and elected members where people have been found to have failed in their duty to take action in respect of cases of abuse and neglect....