Daily roundup 21 July: Summer childcare, compensation, and gun offences

Working families in the UK face rising childcare costs and a scarcity of council run childcare provision this summer, a survey has suggested. The BBC reports that the cost of holiday childcare has risen 4 per cent since 2016 to an average of £125 per week, according to a study by the Family and Childcare Trust. A separate survey estimated the cost of summer childcare would hit £3.44bn.


Rotherham MP Sarah Champion has written to the Justice Secretary to demand the law over compensation for child sex abuse victims is changed. The Star reports that the MP acted after it emerged that since a compensation scheme launched in November 2012 nearly 700 victims and survivors of child sexual abuse have been refused payments.


Children as young as seven have been interviewed on suspicion of gun-related offences in Greater Manchester. The Manchester Evening News reports that figures also show that the youngest to be quizzed on suspicion of knife crime was aged four. There were 242 gun crimes in the region over the last two years where at least one suspect was aged under 18, according to data supplied under a Freedom of Information request.


Senior officials "deliberately delayed" carrying out child protection measures to help Bury Council's ruling Labour group before an election, it has been claimed. The BBC reports that former chief executive Mike Owen and head of children's services Mark Carriline failed to act quickly enough after claims were made against a councillor. Although the councillor was immediately removed from the council's list of people approved to adopt children, Owen and Carriline waited up to five weeks to carry out a string of child protection measures that should have been implemented within 48 hours of the allegations being made.


A council has given the green light to plans to combine adoption services in the Black Country to help reduce the amount of time children spend in care. Dudley News reports hat plans to merge the adoption services of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton councils to form a new agency called Adoption@Heart were approved by members of Dudley Council's cabinet.