A group of foster care workers have voted to form the first ever trade union for the profession.
With carers concerned about their lack of employment rights, not being listened to when a child is removed from their care and rates of pay, 60 current and former carers met in Parliament to vote on whether to unionise.
Foster carers can be employed by private agencies but the majority are given work by local authorities. There are currently around 55,000 fostering households in the UK which care for some 64,000 children.

Andy Street has vowed to turn the West Midlands into Britain’s economic powerhouse as he enters the race to become the region’s first elected mayor.
The managing director for John Lewis said that the region must ‘not squander this opportunity’, saying that the Midlands faces a choice between growing its economy or falling backwards

A trial is underway in Conwy, north Wales, in which bins will only be emptied once a month in a bid to boost levels of recycling.
In an attempt to cut the council’s £1.75 million annual bill for disposing of unnecessary waste in landfill sites, black bin collections will only be collection to once in every four weeks. The council found that more than half the items placed in black bins in the county should have been recycled.

The Liberal Democrats are prepared to raise taxes to fund an NHS ‘that meets the needs of everyone’, the party's annual conference will hear.

Millions of pounds in unpaid business rates are being written off by councils due to a loophole in licensing and business laws being exploited.
The Local Government Association (LGA) is calling for new powers to allow town halls to suspend the licences of businesses which wilfully or persistently fail to pay their business rates, with licences only then being reinstated when the debt has started to be paid off.

Smoking rates in England have fallen to the lowest on record, with the availability of e-cigarettes a likely reason for the drop.

Belfast City Council has unveiled plans to transform three of its leisure centre with a £60 million cash injection.

The control of education services in Slough is set to be returned to the powers of the council, after the Department for Education ordered that the children centres be run by Cambridge Education.

Prime Minister Theresa May is set to criticise the West’s response to the migration crisis, at the UK summit in New York, calling for a new approach to tackling the crisis.

Local authorities have commissioned surveys to examine waste and identify those who fail to separate rubbish and recycling.