News of a meeting between members of the Campaign Against Charges (CAC) group and Stephen Moore came after campaigners brought a full meeting of Fife Council to a halt last Thursday.

Police were called after protesters handcuffed themselves together and refused to leave the council chamber, chanting 'Why, when, how much'.

A five minute adjournment was called in the hope the situation could be resolved, but after half an hour when even the police could not persuade them to leave, an attempt was made to restart business.

However, the group caused further disruption and the meeting had to be abandoned. No action was taken against the group.

Spokeswoman for the campaign group, Maureen Closs, said members were forced to ask their questions in public as no-one from the council would listen or answer them.

But Mrs Closs was pleased to receive a letter inviting CAC members to meet with Mr Moore, and to hear that councillors would be provided with a briefing paper regarding the implementation of the charges by Friday, following the demonstration.

She said: "It's a sad day when we had to go to these lengths just to be kept in the loop — but it's not just us and councillors who should receive the briefing.

"Every person who is involved in home care services should receive the same information and shouldn't have to rely on CAC forcing information from officers via the press.

"The only official information that people have received from the council is the original leaflet which went out in October and which was full of inaccuracies, and the letters which accompanied it, similarly out of date.

"The revised leaflet only went out to people who attended the public meeting at the beginning of February and people who can access the website. It is really quite disgraceful."

A spokeswoman for Fife Council said: "Stephen Moore wrote to the Campaign Against Charges group on Thursday to say if they have any issues they wish to discuss his door is always open, as it always has been to any individual or group who have concerns over social work in Fife.

"He has not had any response to that letter as yet."

She added that a briefing paper is due to be given to councillors by the end of the week, as part of the decision to keep them up to date on progress.