Daily roundup: children's services, drug searches and school meals

Isle of Wight council is proposing to increase by 50 per cent the number of frontline social workers while reducing senior managers by 40 per cent as part of a recovery plan for child protection services. Staff views on the proposals are being sought, with the consultation closing on 23 October. The plans have been drawn up with the help of Hampshire council.

Police carried out almost 17,000 drug searches on children under the age of 15 in London in 2010. The Independent reports that data collected by the London School of Economics reveals that 550 of those searches were targeted at children under the age of 12. The figures, which came to light in Freedom of Information requests, have been cited in a report by drugs charity Release to coincide with the end of a Home Office consultation into the practice of stop-and-search operations.

Representatives from unions, churches and children’s organisations in Scotland have written to Scottish ministers urging them to provide free school meals to children. The BBC reports that they have asked the government to give pupils the same entitlement as those in England. The Scottish government is expected to receive extra funding as a result of the government's announcement last week that all infant school pupils will be offered free school meals, although exact deails are yet to be decided.