Children’s right to have safe places to play outdoors is not taken as serious in Scotland as England, according to children’s groups. Both Barnardo’s and Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner Kathleen Marshall have warned the government that youngsters physical health and wellbeing could be at stake if the situation does not improve.

Do you live in a family, or know of one, where there’s a member who is over 75? If you are we, that is Joanna Bornat and Bill Bytheway of the OU’s Faculty of Health and Social Care, would like to hear from you.

A new cervical cancer screening system in Scotland could be delayed because of security concerns, it is feared. GPs said it was unacceptable that the computer system would allow anyone with a password – including administrative staff – to access smear test results.

An asylum seeker threatened with deportation has been released from a detention centre for the second time after a Scottish businessman put up £1000 bail. Bob Blakey, 60, a building inspector who travelled 400 miles to attend a bail hearing in Bedfordshire, said he was horrified by how Zahra Byansi had been treated.

The woman who accuses her boyfriend of knowingly giving her HIV fell to her knees and wept when she was told she had the virus, a court heard yesterday. The sex clinic worker who broke the news to Miss X said:

Shelter Scotland today welcomed the news that the Right to Buy (RTB) has been suspended in some areas of Perth and Kinross. They are the seventh council to have applied to suspend Right to Buy.

Abused children have been left in “high risk” situations and those assaulted sexually forced to wait months for therapy due to a catalogue of failures by social workers, a damning report has revealed.

{mosimage}Two senior council officials resigned yesterday after inspectors exposed an appalling picture of neglect and incompetence affecting some of Scotland’s most vulnerable young children.

The investigation into child protection services provided by Midlothian Council outlined a series of failings at the council, including a lack of resources, training and proper planning for the care of children, many of whom are victims of sexual and domestic violence.

As Danny Molloy, the councillor responsible for social work, health and housing, and Malcolm McEwan, the local authority’s director of social work, stood down in the wake of the revelations, child care experts insisted the failings were not restricted to Midlothian and warned children across the country were at risk.

The Midlothian report by HM Inspectorate of Education found social workers failed to keep in contact with children at “immediate risk” and heavy workloads meant the children were exposed to the risk of abuse, harm or neglect.

It pointed to children being left in “high risk” situations and said those in local authority care or on the child protection register were not always seen regularly by social work staff.

Vulnerable children were left at risk of serious abuse and neglect after a breakdown in the management of a council’s social work department, according to a damning official report.

The founder of a Highland charity for bereaved families was facing jail last night after he admitted using the forged signature of a local politician to try to obtain over £220,000.

A teenage rape victim has spoken out against the closure of a care home she claims is her ‘lifeline’. The 16-year-old is housed in a children’s unit in the north of Glasgow where she was promised she would be secure for at least a year.