TOP marks for its services for older people, children, and disabled people from key independent agencies – these are some of the highlights in North Lanarkshire Council’s Performance Report for 2008/09.

A care home assistant who ripped off a 92-year-old resident was caught after a lawyer became suspicious about how many takeaway curries the pensioner appeared to be ordering.

Care of the elderly in its current format is unsustainable and could mean 40% of school leavers having to go straight into the sector to cope with demand, according to the head of Scotland’s care regulator.

The care home attended by Neve Lafferty, 15, and Georgia Rowe, 14, the teenage girls who leapt to their deaths from a bridge, reported more than 200 cases of missing youngsters in the last year, it has emerged.
 

Local MSP Iain Gray has stood down as chairman of the East Lothian Care and Accommodation Project with an attack on East Lothian Council’s plans to put services for people with learning disabilities out to tender.

It was shortly after 8.15pm on Sunday that David Bunting first saw the two girls walking along the edge of the road near the village of Bishopton in Renfrewshire, Scotland. Bunting, 23, a landscape gardener from nearby Erskine, spotted the pair again 10 minutes later as he made his way home. By this time, they were near the junction with a local hospital, which lies in the shadow of the Erskine bridge.

Professionals who work with children in care are re-examining their procedures to ensure that enough support is being given to children who are similarly vulnerable to Niamh Lafferty and Georgia Rowe.

DEAF and deafblind people across Dumfries and Galloway are to be helped by a new development project which was launched this week.

A national child protection unit has been created, aimed at providing specialist guidance for social workers across Scotland.

SIGNIFICANT improvements have been made in a short time in child protection services in Moray, according to a follow-up report by inspectors.