Social work services helping Scotland’s most vulnerable children are facing their first real budget cuts since devolution, it has been claimed. The body representing the country’s most senior social workers said they could no longer meet politicians’ demands to improve care for young people because of persistent underfunding and an exploding caseload.

A help centre for mental health sufferers which was suddenly closed by social work bosses is to re-open after one of its users committed suicide. Susan Wilson, 38, was buried on Monday, the same day as her friends at the Springboard complex in Hawick were told the service was being re-started.

East Dunbartonshire Council and Strathclyde Police have announced important new measures to try to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children when they go missing from Council care. The joint protocol which incorporates elements of child protection, community safety and joint decision making, will help the Council and police identify at an early stage those children and young people who are at greatest risk from going missing from their placement in a residential unit.

The actions needed to deliver social work services that meet the needs of the 21st century are set out in a five year plan, published today. Nearly 100 actions for the Executive, service providers and professionals are detailed in the Changing Lives Implementation plan, which will be backed by £15 million over the first two years.  Further funding will follow in the subsequent three years.  The plan will deliver the vision set out in Changing Lives, the 21st Century Review of Social Work, which was published earlier this year.

The poor standard of care and inadequate staffing levels at a nursing home contributed to the death of a pensioner, a sheriff said yesterday. George Fairlie, 74, a resident at the Alexandra Nursing Home in Paisley, died in October 2002, after contracting “preventable” gangrene in hospital following what his family claimed was sustained neglect by the care home’s management. Sheriff David Pender’s fatal accident inquiry report said tests following Mr Fairlie’s admission to hospital showed he was “severely dehydrated and malnourished” and, as a result, his blood pressure had dropped so low that it was “barely compatible with life”.

A sheriff has sharply criticised the care given to a 74-year-old man who died in hospital after being left in a Paisley nursing home severely dehydrated and malnourished.  George Fairlie was a resident  at the Alexandra Nursing Home and died in 2002.

Public sector IT provider Anite and the Scottish Executive have signed a national contract that aims to deliver inter-agency access to health and social care information. Anite’s contract with the Scottish Executive means that in nine local authorities its social care product SWIFT will be integrated with Scotland’s eCare Multi-Agency Stores which hold health and social care information.

Edinburgh City council chiefs have said they faced a £7.5 million funding gap for free personal care for the elderly. They said other services to older people were suffering because of the cash shortfall, with longer waits for home helps, frozen meals and aids and adaptations. And Kingsley Thomas, the council’s leader for health and social care, claimed the funding formula that determined how much each council received for free personal care put Edinburgh at a disadvantage.

A manager at a nursery in Dunblane has been suspended after being accused of assaulting a four year old boy. The 42-year-old woman was charged with assault and breach of the peace after an incident at Ashburn Nursery. She has also been temporarily suspended from active duty after police were called. The Care Commission watchdog said it was happy with the action which management at the private nursery had subsequently taken. The nursery has declined to comment.