A council is seeking to employ extra staff to help check how many pensioners were wrongly charged for their care. The Dumfries and Galloway authority has set aside £1.5m to reimburse people who paid for food preparation which they were entitled to receive for free.

The appointment of five members to work with Lord Sutherland on his Independent Review of Free Personal Care have been confirmed. Anne Jarvie, Mary Marshall, Professor David Bell, Jim Dickie and Rory Mair have accepted an invitation from Nicola Sturgeon to sit on the independent review group.

On the eve of a watershed government report explaining why children in Scottish care homes from the 1950s until the 1990s were allowed to be sexually abused, the Sunday Herald has uncovered yet another disturbing scandal.

Drunken yobs and vandals in west Scotland will be hit with on-the-spot £40 fines from next month. Police will have the power to issue the fixed penalties for riotous’ drunken behaviour, urinating in the street and being drunk and incapable in public.

Scotland’s victorious Homeless World Cup Team are to finally receive official recognition after a series of humiliating snubs. Ministers will hold a reception for the players at the Scottish Parliament next month following a number of official knock-backs for the team.

Seriously ill cancer patients are having their syringes rationed – while prisoners get free heroin kits to take drugs safely. The parents of six-year-old Anton McManus are among those incensed by a system that forces them to reuse the syringes needed to keep him alive every day.

Figures showing that one child is smuggled into Scotland every week could be just the tip of the iceberg, according to campaigners. Save the Children is now calling on the police to take more action to clamp down on the problem.

Midlothian Council’s under-fire social work department is to come under the microscope again. The division, which came in for criticism earlier this year in an HMIe child protection inspection, is to undergo two major inspections in the next nine months.

The number of drug-related deaths in Scotland has increased by a quarter, according to new figures. The General Register Office for Scotland (Gros) said there were 421 drug-related deaths last year, 85 more than in 2005, representing a 25% rise.

Health bosses are failing to deal with severely underweight Fifers who are desperate to battle life threatening eating disorders, it has been claimed. The Press can reveal a growing frustration among sufferers, medics and counsellors who feel let down by NHS Fife’s approach to complex conditions such as anorexia and bulimia.