Daily roundup: Khyra Ishaq, rising care applications, and childcare in France

The family of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq who was starved to death in 2008 are to sue Birmingham City Council over failures in her care, the BBC reports. Her mother and her ex-partner were jailed for her manslaughter and admitted to child cruelty charges relating to the girl’s five siblings. A serious case review was published in 2010 that said the death could have been prevented had social workers responded better to concerns raised about her welfare.

The number of care applications is continuing to rise, latest statistics from Cafcass have shown. Last month the organisation received 847 applications, a 4.3 per cent increase on the same month last year. The figure is 11 per cent down on November 2012, when there were 937 applications. Cafcass said this is likely to be due to a “seasonal reduction in demand that occurs each December”. For the nine months between April and December last year there were 8,135 applications, up eight per cent on the same period last year.

The minister for childcare has reiterated her support for changing ratios in childcare settings. In a blog on Conservative Home, Elizabeth Truss praised the French system of Écoles Maternelles, which she said operated “with fewer staff who are better qualified and better paid than their English equivalents”. “It is no coincidence that we have the most restrictive adult-child ratios for young children of comparable European countries as well as the lowest staff salaries,” said Truss. Meanwhile, the Labour party will host a meeting with childcare experts and providers today. Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg accused Truss of wanting to cut nursery jobs. “She wants to copy France, where quality is lower than the UK, according to independent reports,” he said.

The chair of the Westminster Drug Project has called for responsibility for drug policy to be transferred from the Home Office to the Department of Health. Yasmin Batliwa made the call in response to the findings of a recent UK Drug Policy Commission report that said a better system for formulating and evaluating drug policy is needed in the UK. Batliwa said: “There is a strong tendency to view problematic drug use as a criminal justice issue but we know from experience that the best way to help people is to understand drug abuse as a health and social care issue.”

The Mayor of London has appointed Ray Lewis as a senior mentoring advisor to City Hall. Lewis, the executive director of the Eastside Young Leaders Academy, is being drafted in as part of the expansion of the Mayor’s mentoring programme. He will assist with the delivery of mentoring programmes across London organisations as well as advising the Greater London Authority (GLA) on their own programme. The GLA will be awarding up to £700,000 of funding to mentoring projects in 8 London boroughs.

And finally, young people in Cambridgeshire have allegedly been risking their lives and causing damage to property taking part in a craze for “free running”, also known as Parkour. According to the local press in Huntingdon, people are concerned that “gangs” of young teenagers have been jumping and climbing on roofs at heights of up to 30ft, before taking pictures of themselves and sharing them on social media sites.