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8 Apr 21
Trade unions have dismissed a pay offer for Scottish local government workers as “a slap in the face” and are balloting their members on new action.
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26 Jan 21
Funding from the Scottish Government will only meet between 60% and 70% of overall financial pressures identified by councils, according to the country’s local government spending watchdog.
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8 Oct 20
A new package of funding and financing flexibilities for local authorities in Scotland will allow councils to use capital receipts to meet funding pressures.
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14 Apr 20
Social care workers in Scotland are set to receive an immediate 3.3% pay increase, backdated to 1 April – following negotiations around increasing their pay to the real living wage.
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13 Jan 20
An additional £1bn in revenue funding will be needed to preserve essential local services, Scottish councils have warned.
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7 Jan 20
The Scottish Government has been warned that years of cuts to council budgets will put its own targets on economic growth, climate change and child poverty at risk, as well as weakening pride in...
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14 Oct 19
Kerry Lorimer meets Gail Macgregor, resources spokesperson for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, who has proved to be a doughty champion for local democracy and fiscal empowerment.
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10 Oct 19
The Scottish Government will today be urged to give councils the fiscal and functional powers they need to benefit from devolution.
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11 Apr 19
Significant sums of public money are at risk as financial controls within councils come under increasing strain, according to the public spending watchdog for Scottish local government.
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6 Mar 19
Local government workers in Scotland will see their pay rise by 9.5% over three years after a new deal was struck with employers.
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6 Feb 19
Improvement in some council services is starting to slow for the first time in almost a decade against a backdrop of declining public satisfaction, according to the latest overview of local...
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5 Feb 19
The unwillingness of public bodies to relinquish control of budgets is hindering the integration of health and social care in Scotland.
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15 Nov 18
Greater fiscal autonomy for Scottish councils is shaping up to be one of the key battlegrounds ahead of publication of the draft budget in December.
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5 Nov 18
Scottish councils have called for a 2.5% increase in funding in the forthcoming budget, saying recent tight settlements and a lack of fiscal autonomy have left local government with “no room to...
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11 Oct 18
Scottish finance secretary Derek Mackay has set out plans to consult on a discretionary local visitor tax ahead of the draft budget.
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17 Sep 18
Local government workers in Scotland have been urged to accept a revised 3% pay deal in order to avoid job losses and cuts to services.
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7 Mar 17
The performance of Scottish local authorities in coping with continual financial squeezes varies widely, according to the Accounts Commission.
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14 Nov 16
Scotland’s biggest local authority grouping has pulled out of talks with ministers and officials over a Scottish Government plan to hand £100m of council tax revenues directly to head teachers in an...
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31 Oct 16
Poor record-keeping means that some Scottish councils pay for the upkeep of property they don’t own, according to the official in charge of the Scottish Land Register.
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6 Oct 16
Councils have urged Scottish Government ministers not to marginalise local government in running Scotland’s schools, warning that any centralisation of provision would lead to increased costs and...
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29 Sep 16
A Scottish Government report has accused the country’s councils of diverting millions of pounds of central government money away from supporting delivery of ministers’ free childcare pledge.
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22 Sep 16
Social work funding in Scotland’s councils has reached a tipping point and services can no longer be sustained under existing approaches, according to a hard-hitting report today from the local...
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22 Aug 16
Four councils that broke away last year from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities are threatening the Scottish Government with legal action over its insistence that it will negotiate only...
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15 Aug 16
Scottish Government plans to fund a national scheme to improve educational attainment through the council tax will “destroy” the link between local taxation and services, local authorities have...
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8 Aug 16
A conflict is brewing between the Scottish Government and local authorities over ministers’ plan to fund a key plank of its national education policy from increases in local taxation.