Public bodies could face pressure from growing direct costs alongside impacts from inflated prices for third party suppliers, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Councils received £700m more than they spent last year, down 90% on the 2021-22 surplus, while the overall public sector deficit fell by more than a half.
The government aims to cut the number of civil servants and reform exit payments, as part of wider plans to deliver £5.5bn of savings, according to a senior treasury minister.
The government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is reliant on detail on funding reforms omitted from last month’s white paper, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The UK government could fund its ‘levelling up’ ambitions by raising taxes on high income earners without increasing the national deficit, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The government’s announcement that it will remove bespoke Covid-19 funding could reduce councils' capacity to respond to new pandemic outbreaks, according to sector leaders.
Spending available to “unprotected” government departments will be tight over the next three years, and could lead to some areas receiving cuts, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The new levy to help fund social care reforms will only provide one sixth of the expected £36bn income for care, “short-changing” the sector, according to experts.
NHS England will need a further £10bn next year, to help cover Covid-19 costs without the need for service cuts, according to two leading health bodies.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has pledged there will be “absolutely no return to austerity” in the upcoming Spending Review, as the UK recovers from Covid-19.
Central government bodies’ day-to-day spending rose to £86bn last month, the highest monthly total since May, according to the Office for National Statistics.
November's Spending Review might not have marked a return to full-blooded austerity, but unprotected service areas are facing a financial squeeze after next year, writes IFS economist Ben ...
The public sector needs to work together to improve the future performance and sustainability of its services, leaders told the official launch of major analysis on government spend.
Transport ministers will urge the Treasury to provide councils with longer-term funding in the next Spending Review to deal with the huge number of potholes on local roads.
The majority of local government finance officers have lost confidence in their future financial positions over the last year, a CIPFA survey has revealed.
Public sector deficits were highest in devolved regions in the financial year ending in 2018, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Debate about levels of council tax is doomed to go nowhere unless we consider what we’re willing to pay for services and how, says the Local Government Information Unit’s Jonathan Carr-West.
Labour is right to identify outsourcing failures but its new policy risks creating more problems than it addresses, argues Institute for Government’s Tom Sasse.
Public services will have to receive £19bn a year for the next five years if austerity is to end as the prime minster recently promised, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
