Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, marked the start of National Giving Week by announcing plans to establish a centre to lead research into philanthropy and charitable giving. The Centre is being created by the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in the Cabinet Office, in partnership with the Carnegie UK Trust, the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Scottish Executive (SE).

Bosses are ill-equipped to take on staff with mental health problems, it has been claimed. Government efforts to move people off benefit and into work risks failure unless employers get more support to recruit and retain such staff, a Disability Rights Commission spokesman said. A poll of small and medium businesses by GfK NOP for the commission found two thirds had no procedures for managing staff with mental health problems.

Teenager Stevie Riva was once a bright pupil who won awards for reading and writing. He looked forward to going to school and loved spending time with his friends. Although at times she found it difficult to cope with Stevie’s autism, the youngster’s mother, Gina, was able to gather her strength while her son was at school and was proud of how much he had progressed. However, as Stevie entered adolescence, his behaviour became too challenging for his teachers and he was excluded from the special needs school he attended in Edinburgh.

More than 17,000 Scots are claiming incapacity benefit for being addicted to drugs or alcohol, a figure that has doubled in the past decade. The Scottish breakdown equates to one in 20 of those receiving state payments because they are too ill to work.

The social and economic cost of mental health problems in Scotland amounts to around £8.6 billion annually – equivalent to nearly the entire NHS budget this year.

Scottish prisons are reforming their drug-testing regime and stepping up security after a damning report on their own staff’s concerns about heroin use behind bars.

The Social Care Association are to hold their fourth consecutive annual lecture in Scotland on 23rd November. The keynote speaker, at what is now entitled the Dr Ian Mallinson Memorial Lecture, will be Diana Kerr, Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, Edinburgh University.

A leading charity which provides support for people with learning disabilities has been forced to terminate a council agreement because of insufficient funding. The move by Ark Housing Association, which has been working with Aberdeenshire Council, follows a similar decision earlier this year by Turning Point in Glasgow and highlights a growing crisis in the voluntary sector.

Most councils are not meeting minimum standards on supervising violent criminals, according to a report by inspectors. Home visits are insufficient, supervision is failing to address offending behaviour and risk assessments are inadequate, according to the results of a nationwide review by the Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA). Earlier this month The Scotsman revealed that emergency orders had been placed on more than 60 high-risk sex offenders to control their movements, amid growing police frustration at the numbers being released from jail with few restrictions.

The Scottish Borders region is losing out on new residential care facilities because Scottish Borders Council social work bosses fear an invasion of elderly English people – taking advantage of the Scottish’s Executive’s much-vaunted free personal care regime – will put undue strain on local services and budgets. That is the view of Liberal Democrat councillor Jock Houston who this week supported a proposal from Trinity Medical Properties Ltd for a £6million nursing home, with 60 beds and employing 40 staff, in Kelso Road, Coldstream.