Care: More care required

TODAY The Scotsman reveals claims that unscrupulous firms are receiving millions in payments from the taxpayer supposedly to train staff for care work with the elderly. Instead they are pocketing the cash while passing off candidates as qualified despite the fact that these students are illiterate or lack basic skills in English. We quote one individual, once a training assessor for one of these companies, who claims she was routinely ordered to "pass" students despite their lack of att

This is not the first time training schemes have been the subject of fraud. In 2001, the then enterprise minister, Wendy Alexander, was forced to scrap Individual Learning Accounts after it came to light that some training organisations were signing up students for bogus courses.

The new problem lies in the fact that the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), which is responsible for vetting students on these courses, does not assess candidates individually but delegates much of the work to the private training organisations themselves. This creates conflicts of interest which the unscrupulous can exploit. The obvious solution is for the SQA to introduce a tighter assessment procedure.

Scotland lacks qualified staff for the care sector. One result is that complaints upheld against care homes rose by two-thirds last year. The SQA must deal with these new allegations as soon as possible.