Some vulnerable teenagers are leaving care when they are too young and are ending up homeless, unemployed and at risk of developing drug and alcohol problems according to a report today. ‘Sweet 16’, published by Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, highlights what it identifies as the gap between policy and practice over young people leaving care. 

A local authority is scrapping charges for all its leisure facilities as part of a unique partnership between the council and an NHS trust. The innovative plan has been launched by Blackburn with Darwen Council, working with the local Teaching Primary Care Trust.
The plan to invest six million pounds over three years to improve the health and well-being of people in the area comes in response to what the council and Trust are calling ‘killer facts’ about the borough’s poor health. 

This programme is now available to view on egovtv.tv, the online television channel for public service modernisation. It features an interview with the Chief Executive of Woking Borough Council who explains how councils can start to meet their environmental obligations and also make handsome savings in the process.
He describes the Borough’s pioneering Climate Change Strategy which is based on incremental developments and has produced no losers.