The Home Office is seeking to double the rate at which it deports failed asylum seekers from Scotland – in a drive to clear a backlog of cases. The immigration service is pursuing a target of removing 10 people every week after staffing problems led to it achieving only half that rate last year, it was disclosed yesterday.

{mosimage} The target was condemned as uncompassionate and arbitrary by refugee groups. However, in a parallel development, the head of the new Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) indicated its officers were willing to consider the length of time people stayed in Scotland as a factor in deciding whether they should be allowed to remain.

The move appeared to be a concession to Hugh Henry, the Scottish education minister, who last month said he would urge the Home Office to consider that many asylum seeker children are positively integrated into local schools and communities.

He said he wanted this to be taken into account as part of a “sensible and pragmatic” approach to a review of some 1100 “legacy cases” in Scotland.

Lin Homer, BIA’s chief executive, was speaking as she visited the Glasgow offices of the newly-devolved Home Office agency which officially took over from the old Immigration and Nationality Directorate yesterday. She said the review of legacy cases, those decided before the introduction of a new fast-track asylum system last month, would consider a range of factors in deciding whether people could remain in the country on a case-by-case basis.

Police yesterday revealed details of the largest-ever cannabis factory uncovered in Scotland. In an unprecedented operation, an organised crime gang was alleged to be cultivating vast quantities of the drug with a street value of £1.2m.

They are, many believe, the statistics that say most about today’s Scotland. Fully 50,000 of this country’s children are growing up in homes where there are drugs. Perhaps 100,000 more know an aunt, a brother or another close relative who is addicted.

The machetes are worst. As heavy as they are sharp, they cleave cheeks and split jaws – mash faces. Victims never look the same again, their twisted smiles revealing the true scale of Scotland’s toll of violent crime.

Prescription charges in Scotland rose by 20p to £6.85 per item yesterday, the same day the Welsh Assembly scrapped the charges altogether. There were fresh calls yesterday for charges to be scrapped across the NHS in the wake of the Welsh decision.

Three-quarters of charities in Scotland’s biggest city face immediate funding problems, according to new research. A study by the Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector (GCVS) has found that of 120 voluntary bodies questioned three-quarters had not managed to secure adequate funding for 2008, and 96% have concerns for their future.

An Aberdeen man is expected to appear in court in San Francisco after being extradited to the US on charges of supplying date rape drugs. David Calder, 36, lost a lengthy battle against his extradition in February.

Voluntary organisations across Fife will bear the full brunt of Council cost-cutting with funding awards slashed in a bid to save £250,000. In the past years, grants for vital voluntary organisations and charities have steadily increased, however, this year they will remain at the same level as 2006/7 to save money.

Scotland is facing a care crisis among the elderly with a number of private businesses threatening to close homes in a dispute over funding.

A vulnerable Inverness man who was supposed to receive daily support lay dead for up to a week before his body was discovered, it has been claimed. David Ireland (32) lived in “supported” accommodation and was meant to receive daily visits from carers.