Severe cuts facing care services for pensioners and vulnerable children around Scotland are exposed today in an internal document leaked to The Herald.

As local authorities prepare for the deepest budget cuts for decades, we have heard much about increasing efficiencies, joint working and rationalisation.

They have often been dubbed “Cinderella services”, neglected and denied the resources to properly flourish.

The governors of a former residential school in Aberdeen still owe the city council £100,000 – more than two years after it was shut down.

A children’s home where vulnerable teenagers had to take cold showers for more than a year due to problems with the heating system has been ranked the worst in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has warned that the tough new UK Visa caps will damage economic recovery in a join letter with business and industry leaders to the UK Immigration Minister Damian Green.

A Fife campaign group has called the ending of domestic services for disabled and older people who don’t receive personal care as the “end of an era.”

A project which offers support to disabled people is in danger of closure as part of massive council cuts.

Glasgow Social Care Providers Forum has landed Dr Kevin Doughty, one of the country’s leading experts on Telecare, as the keynote speaker at an interactive seminar at the Raddison Hotel in Glasgow on January 20.

Hospitals need dedicated workers who can identify unpaid carers looking after patients and make sure that they get the support they need.