The Budget contained billions of pounds of tax cuts for businesses and measures aimed at getting people back to work, but elephants in the room such as public sector pay and struggling services...
Researchers have warned that despite some economic good news the chancellor might have “less fiscal room for manoeuvre” in the upcoming Budget than it appears.
The recent consultation to changes in the Minimum Revenue Provision regime in England has now closed and has prompted criticism of some of the more extreme approaches taken by local authorities in...
High inflation is set to push the cost of servicing government debt to twice the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast in October, the fiscal watchdog said in its outlook accompanying the...
The Northern Irish government is set to increase focus on healthcare spending in the 2022-23 draft budget, impacting on other departmental funding, including local government.
Local government fared better than many expected in Wednesday’s Budget and Spending Review – but a closer look reveals the sector is still likely to face funding pressures.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a new set of fiscal rules in his second Budget, in a bid to reduce the public debt after the huge level of borrowing undertaken in response to Covid-19.
The joint Spending Review and Autumn Budget pledged real-terms funding increases for each central government department. PF rounds-up where that money is heading.
The government’s “arbitrary” fiscal rules are not fit for purpose and should be replaced by a more flexible framework, according to a leading research institute.
Departmental spending reductions implied by the Budget are more severe than first thought, and could see funding 8% lower than pre-Covid plans in some areas, according to the Institute for Fiscal...
The government’s newly published methodology to allocate money from its Levelling Up Fund favours wealthier rural councils over poorer urban areas, according to critics.
Some deprived areas risk missing out on ‘levelling up’ money because of eligibility criteria, raising questions over the methodology, which put ministers’ seats in priority positions for funding.
Rishi Sunak's plans rely on an optimistic vision of the future and implausible spending targets, say Institute for Fiscal Studies research economists Ben Zaranko and Isabel Stockton.