Daily roundup 24 October: Manchester DCS, NSPCC law, and term-time holidays

Manchester's director of children’s services has stood down following a damning Ofsted report. The Manchester Evening News reports that Mike Livingstone’s departure follows the children’s services department being branded "inadequate" by the regulator last month. He will be temporarily replaced by Gladys Rhodes-White, an interim DCS who was previously drafted in to help Rochdale Council after its grooming scandal.


The NSPCC is calling for it to be made a criminal offence for an adult to intentionally send a sexual electronic message to children under 16. Polling commissioned by the charity found that three out of four adults believe it is already illegal for someone over 18 to send a sexual message to a child under 16. However no such specific offence actually exists.


Parents should be able to take their children on holiday in term-time without being threatened with fines or arrest, council leaders have said. The Telegraph reports that the Local Government Association said headteachers should be able to turn a blind eye and refuse to tell local authorities when families take children on holiday during term-time to take advantage of lower prices.


Moving the clocks forward by one extra hour all year in the UK could lead to children getting more exercise every day, it has been claimed. The BBC reports that researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Bristol studied 23,000 children, finding that daily activity levels were 15 to 20 per cent higher on summer days than winter days. The research team said shifting clocks forward by one additional hour for the whole year and not moving them back in October would have a worthwhile benefit on public health.


Birmingham’s embattled children’s services department has come under fire again after it emerged that 10 members of staff have spent a week in Chicago on a near £9,000 taxpayer-funded trip. The Birmingham Mail reports that the trip, part of a collaboration between social work professionals in Birmingham, Chicago and Hamburg, has been criticised by a city MP and opposition councillors.