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.
 

A PUBLIC meeting will be held next week at which more details of the new care home in Inverness will be revealed. Outline planning consent has been granted for the proposed care home at Burnside to replace Ach an Eas and Burnside.

Vulnerable people are having their lives disrupted as charities are forced to compete with each other to take over council-funded services, it has been claimed.

NORTH Lanarkshire Council are to go ahead with plans to house two people in a villa worth more than £¼m as part of a supported living programme.

By shoring up its adult social care budget to the tune of £1.5m, East Lothian Council has taken steps to help county residents who are deemed to be “most in need.”

RELATIVES and community leaders are calling for a public inquiry following a report which criticised East Lothian Council’s handling of the closure of a troubled nursing home.

A care home worker accused of taking an indecent photo of an elderly resident in Dundee has been sacked. The woman was initially suspended from her job at Lochleven Care Home following the allegations.

MORE than 200 “high risk” violent and sex offenders living in Edinburgh are being monitored by police, it emerged today.
It is the first time the scale of the caseload facing authorities has been revealed.

Disgraced health chief Tom Skinner has been caged for two-and-a-half years. The 63-year-old former secretary of NHS Borders will also face a further two years on licence after prowling child porn sites for sick images of kids.