Police Scotland would need to make radical service cuts that could include the removal of the 101 phone line without additional funding, a senior office has warned.
County council leaders have warned that they face a financial situation worse than at any point in recent years, with services at risk, if their budgets are cut in the government’s push for savings.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has reached an agreement with local government unions, avoiding the resumption of strike action but facing criticism for “unnecessary” delays.
Councils could need to shrink projects they have submitted to the Levelling Up Fund because the government has refused to adjust the pot for inflation, a senior minister has said.
Recruitment and retention issues have led to a 3% reduction in the social care workforce – the first decline in the sector since 2012, experts have said.
The public sector could be set for an exodus of workers if the government fails to compensate departments for higher-than-expected pay offers, according to economists at the Institute for Fiscal...
The battle between Scotland’s police officers and their employers has ended with a 5% deal – bringing them into line with other public sector pay deals.
The government’s choice to not go ahead with a Spending Review this year means departments will need to make difficult decisions on services as inflation erodes their budgets, experts have warned.
The Bank of England has insisted it will put interest rates up “by as much as needed” to get inflation under control, in response to market reaction to the government’s announcements last week.
The Treasury has confirmed that the government will stick to the current funding settlement for departments, despite concerns over the impact of inflation on budgets.
UK interest rates will rise for the seventh time in quick succession as the Bank of England tries to bring inflation down, although the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said recent government...
The inflation crisis shows just how important ‘levelling up’ the UK should be to the government, former CIPFA president Mike Driver told the PF Live Scotland conference.
The pace of inflation slowed in August for the first time in nearly a year, figures from the Office for National Statistics show, but prices still rose by nearly 10% in 12 months.
The government’s energy cap is likely to lower inflation in the short term, but one expert warned that it might not yield longer-term savings on servicing the government’s large stock of interest-...
New prime minister Liz Truss has been urged by council leaders to stand by her pledge to allocate more funding to social care as inflation bears down on their authorities’ budgets.
