Daily roundup: Our Place funding, DCS pay and cancer care

The government is providing £4.3m additional funding to the 12 areas piloting the Our Place programme, which helps communities develop innovative ways to improve local services. Projects include joint police and resident street patrols to tackle antisocial behaviour, and support for young people to find work. A report also highlights initial benefits achieved through the Our Place pilots.

Rochdale Borough Council has confirmed that it paid its interim director of children's services through a private company she owns rather than directly – an arrangement that could reduce her tax liability. The payments to Gladys Rhodes White's consultancy company - covering a period from January 1 to April 30 2013 - while lawful have now ceased, the council said. Such arrangements allow income to be taxed at the 20 per cent corporation tax rate rather than 50 per cent for income tax, reports Rochdale Online.

Failure to provide young people with the extra support they need after treatment for cancer could jeopardise their education and prevent them from fulfilling their potential, according to a report by CLIC Sargent. Only a handful of the 22 young people aged 13-19 that were interviewed for the report said there was enough information or guidance to support a secondary school pupil with cancer. The report, No Teenager With Cancer Left Out, recommends all young people with cancer should have a formal needs assessment.

Tighter controls are needed to prevent children consuming high-caffeine energy drinks, the BBC reports. Professor Mike Lean, an expert in nutrition, said children should be banned from buying highly-caffeinated drinks in the same way as alcohol. Research for the European Food Safety Agency suggests more than two-thirds of the UK's 10- to 18-year-olds have drunk high-caffeine energy drinks despite manufacturers advice that young people should not drink them.