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.

Residents in Fife who find themselves in need are missing out on thousands of hours of care a week through a serious lack of social workers in the region. A chronic shortage of qualified social workers across Scotland means there are 66 vacant posts in Fife which the Council are desperately trying to fill.

The latest moves to modernise children’s services and children’s hearings were unveiled today – to ensure we are getting it right for every child. In a statement to Parliament, Minister for Parliament Margaret Curran said that a consultation on a draft Bill to overhaul services that help and support children, including the children’s hearings system, would take place later this year. But some vital changes to help agencies share information about vulnerable children will be brought forward sooner – in the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Bill. This will be introduced in September.

The automatic early release of prisoners from Scotland’s jails is to be scrapped, Cathy Jamieson the justice minister, announced yesterday. But penal experts warned the proposals – which mean that councils and new criminal justice authorities will have to supervise thousands more offenders when they are released from jail – will fail unless social workers are given more funding. The changes mean offenders sentenced to more than two weeks will have to spend half of their sentence behind bars, although the court will be able to make this “custody part” longer.

SCHIZOPHRENIA is a serious mental illness that affects one person in every 100. I first began to suffer from symptoms when I was about 12. Of course no-one knew that’s what it was then . . . it was just put down to the start of teenage hormones. But I began to have bouts of low mood and I was anxious around crowds. I started to bunk off school, I really hated it and just could not adjust to the 9-5 routine. It was the mornings that killed me, as I just could never get enough sleep.

Hundreds of vulnerable older people in Edinburgh are not being given the free personal care they are entitled to because they are still waiting to be assessed. City council chiefs have been urged to “get their act together” after official figures revealed that more than 1600 people were still waiting to receive payments of up to £145 a week to receive help washing, dressing and eating.

A leading Scottish drugs official believes that Scotland can never win the fight against illegal substances. Tom Wood, chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, said education and deterrence should take priority over enforcement. “The message has to be more sophisticated than ‘just say no’ because that simple message doesn’t work,” he said.