Daily roundup 2 February: Public health, piercings and National Crime Agency appointment

Councils have been left unable to plan how they will provide public health services for children because the government is yet to announce how much each council will receive from government. The Local Government Association claims councils were expecting to hear about their funding settlements for 2016/17 and 2017/18 at the end of last year, but now face a "race against time" to plan budgets within a matter of weeks.


Tongue piercings could be banned for children under 16 in Wales, as a result of changes to legislation set out in the Welsh government's draft Public Health Bill. The Daily Post reports that the government intends to make the "intimate" piercing of under-16s an offence by the end of the year.


Surrey's police and crime commissioner considered dismissing the new director general of the National Crime Agency Lynne Owens in her former position due to concerns over child safeguarding in the county. The BBC reports that Kevin Hurley considered seeking her dismissal before she took over the national policing role.


Children's services are the most important council-run service and should be protected from cuts, people in Shropshire have said. The Shropshire Star reports that a survey found that protecting vulnerable children and education were seen as being three times as important as health and housing services.


Proposed cuts to children’s centres and the youth counselling service by Buckinghamshire County Council would be counterproductive, the local authority's budget scrutiny committee has said. According to Buckingham Today, a report by the committee said the proposals would be short-term savings that have medium- to long-term costs to other council services.


More than 2,000 children in Northern Ireland are waiting for an autism diagnosis with some waiting more than two years, figures have revealed. The Belfast Telegraph reports that there is a postcode lottery of waiting times across the country, with waiting times of 94 weeks in Belfast.