NEGOTIATIONS to secure £200,000 of funding for Beechwood House — Inverness’s only 24-hour emergency centre for alcoholics — have failed, sparking fresh fears that the facility may be forced to close.

Glasgow City Council has today launched a programme offering an alternative to remand for young people going through the court system.

A Dundee child protection worker today said she strongly believed Brandon Muir’s killing was both predictable and preventable.

I was gutted, but it does help you,” says 17-year-old Rab Williams, of the electronic tag that he wore as part of a four-month curfew.

Drifting “predatory” males are a worrying part of a complex cocktail of social problems faced by child protection workers, according to a leading social work chief.

Harriet Dempster is calling for a public debate, but she may not get it on her own terms. The head of the body that represents Scotland’s social work chiefs wants to see communities and ordinary people taking more of a role in issues such as child protection and domestic violence, rather than leaving the burden on social workers.

Social work chiefs have denied allegations of a whitewash after a report out today concluded that the violent attack on a toddler by his mother’s drug-addicted boyfriend could not have been predicted.