EDUCATION budgets could be slashed and a raft of other services cut back after Aberdeen City Council revealed it needed to save £25 million next year.

HIGHLAND Council’s social work committee approved a new homelessness strategy today in a bid to counter homelessness. Across the region the number of households applying for homeless assistance has more than doubled since 2000.

Assaults against local government workers in Scotland have increased by 43% in the past year, a Unison Scotland survey has suggested.

Children living at risk of abuse or neglect are not being given adequate protection, according to a report on Aberdeen’s child protection services. Inspectors said they were particularly concerned about the numbers of children living in high risk situations with drug-abusing parents.

Smokers in Falkirk will not be able to foster children under three from next month – unless there are “exceptional circumstances”. Council members voted to implement the ban to meet guidelines outlined by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).

Child protection officials yesterday said new screening systems meant help was now going to the most at-risk youngsters.

Record numbers of women are giving birth in prison – with the figures doubling in the past four years. In 2005 there were three babies born to women in HMP Cornton Vale, rising to five the following year and then seven last year. This year there have been six already and more are expected.

A COUNCIL cash compromise is leaving kinship carers worse off, it was claimed yesterday. According to the Kindred Spirits group, the only people the weekly £45 payment helps, are those who were coping financially anyway.

The number of watchdog bodies in Scotland is to be cut by at least a quarter, from 11 to five. There are currently 29 audit, inspection and complaint agencies, employing 950 people and costing almost £60m a year.

Edinburgh-based disability charity Ecas has launched a befriending service for physically disabled adults living in Edinburgh. The service which operates across the City is the first of its kind in terms of an able-bodied volunteer befriending a physically disabled person; additionally the project has initiated a ‘facilitated friendship’ service which helps two disabled people to keep in touch and stay friends, which also breaks the traditional volunteering mould.