New ways of ensuring agencies work together to provide better support and intervention for those children affected by domestic abuse are to be piloted across Scotland, Ministers announced today. Pathfinder pilot projects will run in four areas of Scotland: Edinburgh, Falkirk, West Dunbartonshire and Dumfries and Galloway, over the next two years.

Crime in Scotland fell by 5% in the year to last April, Scottish Executive statistics have shown. There were 417,783 recorded incidents, with the clear-up rate – the number of crimes solved – remaining the same as in the previous year. Violent crimes were down, but the number of rapes and attempted rapes reached record levels. Ministers said this was partly because police had been encouraging the reporting of sexual offences.

A centre offering support for people with mental health problems in times of crisis has officially opened to coincide with the launch of International Suicide Prevention Awareness Week today. Edinburgh Crisis Centre will provide a 24-hour support telephone helpline 365 days of the year, to people or carers of people in Edinburgh experiencing a mental health crises.

Scotland’s only young offenders institution is overcrowded, increasingly violent and home to hundreds of underfed prisoners, according to a new report. Lady Cullen, chairman of the Polmont Visiting Committee, and wife of one of the country’s top judges, blamed the poor conditions on an increase in offending and under 21s being given custodial sentences.

The average cost of keeping a youngster in secure accommodation is £4,100 a week. Scottish Executive figures found the cost last year ranged from £3,900 per bed per week to £4,600. The total estimated cost was £15.7 million, a 3.5 per cent fall on the previous year. The number in secure accommodation ranged from a minimum of 73 to a maximum of 90 during the year – the lowest minimum and lowest maximum figure since 2000. Over the year, 251 youngsters were admitted to secure accommodation, half of them aged 15.

Scotland faces a flood of ultra-pure cheap heroin after the United Nations reported record levels of opium production across Afghanistan this year. The country has produced its largest-ever drugs harvest following a 59% surge in production in defiance of a British-led international effort to curb the country’s drugs economy.

Concerns have been raised over figures which show a significant reduction in the numbers of public authority sheltered accommodation places in Scotland. The Scottish Executive said its latest statistics, covering 1999 to 2004, showed a drop of 2500 – almost 10% – in the number of small flats within purpose-built complexes provided by a local authority or housing association. Critics said the reduction was astonishing when set against the expected increase in Scotland’s elderly population.

Children with the behavioural condition ADHD are continuing to be prescribed drugs such as Ritalin, despite an ongoing investigation. BBC Scotland has learned a review of the medical guidelines used by doctors to diagnose and treat ADHD will not be available until March 2008. Parents groups and education experts have claimed children could be prescribed the medication needlessly. They have called for the review to be urgently accelerated.

Pundits from the world of football joined Deputy Health Minister Lewis Macdonald in Glasgow in a bid to get people talking about Scotland’s hidden killer – suicide, at the start of this year’s International Suicide Prevention Awareness Week (ISPAW). On  average, more than two people every day die from suicide in Scotland.  It is the biggest killer of young Scottish men, yet arguably it remains one of society’s last remaining taboos. Well-known ‘talkers’ Sky Sports’ Charlie Nicholas and Setanta Sports’ Scott Booth are backing the Scottish Executive’s Choose Life campaign to help drive home the message that talking about suicide can save lives.

Eight new homelessness prevention projects, developed local authorities and their partners, are to receive £230,000 in funding from the Executive’s Innovation Fund. They cover a range of different issues and it is intended that areas across Scotland will be able to learn from the experiences of new ways of tackling homelessness. The announcement of was made as Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm during a visit to Alloa to meet with those involved with Forth Valley Street Sport’s previous initiative working with homeless men in Clackmannanshire.