Directors of adult social services have welcomed the Government’s Green Paper on shaping the future care and support of older people and now want it to stimulate a national debate on new ways to fund care services. The Association which represents those responsible for providing or buying services for elderly people and adults with disabilities said the document was “the beginning of an essential and timely debate which will help build care arrangements fit for the twenty first century.”

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A new campaign has been launched to persuade qualified social workers to return to the profession. The scheme is being run by the Children’s Workforce Development Council, which is working in partnership with local authorities on the initiative and will allocate funding to those taking part.

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The learning transformation fund has been launched to promote informal adult learning. It is part of an initiative to create a new movement for informal learning.

Informal adult learning means learning for its own intrinsic value. It covers a variety of activities which include a dance class in a community centre, a self organised reading group in a village hall, a music class in an FE college, a guided visit to a nature reserve or stately home, researching the National Gallery collection on-line, writing a Wikipedia entry or taking part in a volunteer project to record the living history of a particular community.

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