Local councils are calling on insurance companies to do more to ensure that people forced out of their homes by last summer’s floods can return to them. The call came from the Local Government Association as it
responded to Sir Michael Pitt’s review of last year’s events.
The review includes a recommendation that local councils should take the led on the management of flood risk. 

Directors of Social Services are concerned that care needs are not being given sufficient importance under new inspection arrangements for health and social care
providers. The new Care Quality Commission is due to replace three existing inspectorates and will begin work next April.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has, though, welcomed the new body’s tougher new powers and the widening of the current definition of the level of personal care that is subject to regulation. 

Since 1996, the Audit Commission has run the National Fraud Initiative once every two years. The data matching exercise compares sets of data to identify inconsistencies or other circumstances that might indicate fraud or error. The 2006/07 exercise detected fraud and overpayments of 140 million pounds. This was up from 111 million pounds in 2004/05.