I have been trying the available PHP packages to install PHP 5.6 on OS X; every goes smoothly except Apache simply will not use the installed version. I've done this before and done all the commenting myself; however the package does all this; it looks correct but it's just ignored. Next I did the whole thing again using HomeBrew and once again; all went perfectly, no errors - but info.php only shows the Apple version.

This must have something to do with the way Apache is spread around in OS X but it's driving me mad, because at the moment I have no graphs in LS and that is not good. I know this is slightly OT, but if anyone has succeeded in getting Apache to work from another compile of PHP, please let me know. Thanks for your time - it's much appreciated.

I suppose you are using OS X built-in Apache + PHP features (allowing multiple PHP versions)... You will probably find more support at OSX related forums, because LS users under OSX are mostly working with MAMP or MAMP pro

Yes, sorry - I'm running OS X El Capitan + Server