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.

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.

Young people leaving care have called for Scottish Executive plans to offer guaranteed funding for education after the age of 16 to go further. The executive wants to encourage more of Scotland’s 12,000 youngsters in care to apply for college and university to help them into good jobs. But a small-scale study suggested the youngsters want more than just funding. The 16 to 21-year-olds asked for better careers and benefit advice and help to deal with problems at a younger age.

{mosimage} Violent crime committed by women has soared in Scotland, new statistics revealed yesterday. More than 327 women committed non-sexual violent crimes, such as serious assaults and attempted murder, in 2004-5 – up almost 50 per cent in four years. Criminologists yesterday blamed the increasing use of drugs, binge drinking and wider changes in society for women’s increasing criminality. Yesterday’s figures, released by the Scottish Executive, showed that more than 21,000 women were found guilty of a crime in 2004-5, up from almost 16,000 four years earlier. But violent crime was rising even faster, with the number of women convicted for serious assault and attempted murder rising from 80 to 118 over the same period and the number convicted of robbery increased from 44 to 79. Vince Egan, a forensic psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University, said a cocktail of run-away female empowerment and binge drinking is primarily responsible for the surge in aggression.

Migrant workers from Eastern Europe are swelling Scotland’s homeless statistics, a leading charity has warned. And the problem threatens to escalate unless clearer guidance is issued by the executive to local authorities on how to handle homeless applications in Scotland. Over 800 migrant workers from eastern Europe have already registered themselves as homeless with charities warning that the problem may just be the tip of the iceberg. The first study to examine the issue of homelessness among “A8 migrants” – those workers from the newest countries to join the European Union – has found that many are living in cramped and overcrowded conditions.

{mosimage} Lethal cocktails of cocaine and alcohol will wreak a “heavy toll” in years to come, the country’s drugs tsar warned yesterday as fresh figures revealed the Class A drug was responsible for a record number of deaths last year. In Scotland’s capital alone, cocaine is now present in the blood of about 15 per cent of people who have died from drugs. And Tom Wood, chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, warned the number of people dying after taking cocaine was likely to rise even higher.

Scotland has the highest suicide rate in the UK, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. From 1991 to 2004 the suicide rate among men was 50% higher in Scotland than other UK countries, while the rate for women was double that of elsewhere.

More than 30 patients at the Carstairs state hospital have appealed to a new human rights tribunal for release, claiming they are being held under “excessive security”. The patients – most of whom have committed crimes while mentally ill – are appealing to move to lower-security units.