Daily roundup: Children's bill, child protection, and youth offending

The government has extended the period of time the Children and Families Bill will be discussed by Parliament. The bill, which is due to complete Report stage in the House of Lords next week, was due to be finalised by 4 February. But children's minister Edward Timpson has introduced a measure that will extend discussion in the Commons on it for a further six weeks, with the bill now due to receive Royal Assent by 21 March.

More could have been done to help three children who were found drowned in their family after their 23-year-old mother fell to her death from a car park last April, a serious case review has found. The BBC reports that the children had been subject to a child protection plan for neglect since 2011. A serious case review found the deaths were “completely unexpected", but more decisive action could have helped.

Youth offending work in Wrexham had made substantial progress, an inspectors have found. A Probation Inspectorate report of the town’s youth justice service found that work to reduce reoffending was satisfactory, assessments and plans were good, pre-sentence reports were high quality and concise, and caseworkers had access to a broad range of interventions which they delivered well.

Young people who regularly eat their main meal with their parents are much less likely to be play truant from school, says an analysis from the OECD. The study shows that a positive engagement with school or family can be a bigger factor than being rich or poor in whether children miss lessons. The UK is above average in the international comparisons for missing whole days of school and below average for playing truant from individual lessons, the BBC reports.

Numbers of children suffering from rickets is on the rise, the Daily Mail reports. New NHS figures show there were 833 hospital admissions for children suffering from the condition in 2012/13 – a fourfold increase on ten years earlier when there were 190.

Health minister Norman Lamb has confirmed that 33 NHS hospitals are conducting ongoing investigations into alleged child abuse by the late DJ Jimmy Savile. An investigation has also been commissioned by Sue Ryder in relation to Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds. Responding to a parliamentary question from Conservative back bench MP Tim Loughton, Lamb said the investigations are due to be completed by June 2014.