PUBLIC sector workers in Scotland are taking more than five million sick days a year, costing the economy an estimated £1.1bn in lost wages and output.

A NEW team of nurses – dubbed “cut-price midwives” by critics – are about to start work in Scotland’s maternity wards in a controversial bid to reduce staffing shortages.

A TEENAGER yesterday claimed she was brutally abused in a residential school’s punishment room. Ashley Johnston, now 16, said she endured 12 weeks of torment at the Good Shepherd Centre.

She claimed she was kept for up to two days at a time in the punishment room – dubbed the “zombie room” by the girl residents.

The Record revealed yesterday that police were investigating amid allegations the punishment room was used for torturing girls as young as 12.

We received a flood of calls from former residents and their parents in response to our story.

One of the worst cases was that of Ashley, who was sent to the school in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, by the children’s panel when she went off the rails after her mum’s death two years ago.

She said she was punched in the face and body, kicked, sat on and dragged across the floor by her hair in a shocking catalogue of attacks.

She said: “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Record finally exposing the abuse that has been going on for years and it has always been covered up.

“I was assaulted by staff at least three times and spent two days at a time in the punishment room, which we used to call the zombie room because you were beaten and left to rot.

“While I was in there, staff would come in and goad me and say really terrible things like my dad would commit suicide because I was so bad and that no wonder I wasn’t wanted.

“They said these things to see if I would get angry. It was mental torture as well as physical.”

A “NEW era of enlightenment” is needed in the legal system’s response to rape cases, Scotland’s top law officer told MSPs yesterday.

CONTROVERSIAL increases to Fife Council’s home care charges will come into effect on April 7.

A LAST-MINUTE deal has been struck to ensure a Lothian care home will stay open until the end of next month – in a move set to ensure elderly residents only face being moved once.

By working with our Celtic cousins we can learn to give Scottish autism sufferers the best support possible, First Minister Alex Salmond said on a visit to the New Struan School – a Centre for Autism in Alloa.

Church leaders are warning that Scotland faces a crisis unless older people are put at the top of the political agenda.

A SCHOOL for troubled girls is at the centre of a police probe over claims a “punishment room” was used to abuse pupils.

Children’s cancer services are to be kept in all four of Scotland’s main cities.