SURREY County Council has claimed to be addressing the problems within its children's service, revealed on Monday in the damning Channel 4 programme Dispatches: Undercover Social Worker.

But Liberal Democrats on the council are demanding an independent investigation into the shocking shortcomings thrown up by an undercover reporter employed by Surrey as a family support worker for three months last year.

The programme showed how reporter John Coffee, a former family support worker who had not worked with children for six years, was pitched into sensitive cases – one involving a convicted murderer – on his very first day, without any induction.

For full story, see this week's Farnham Herald.