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.
Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf is to meet council leaders to push for better co-ordination in road maintenance after Audit Scotland found a third of council-maintained roads and an eighth...
An independent review of Scotland’s planning system has called for root-and-branch reform to engage the public more actively in improving the built environment by making the process more interesting...
Health service spending in Scotland will be increased by £500m in real terms during the lifetime of the next Scottish Parliament if the Scottish National Party is returned to power on 5 May, first...
The remit of the Scottish Fiscal Commission should be expanded to include independent forecasts of devolved tax revenues and examinations of the Scottish Government’s performance against its...
Scottish finance secretary John Swinney has shunned his first opportunity to set a different income tax for Scotland from that of the rest of the UK, but made clear his intention to do so if and when...
Implementing the Scottish Rate of Income Tax (SRIT) will cost up to £35m and 2.6 million people will be liable to pay it, the National Audit Office has revealed.
Two-thirds of Scots want to replace the council tax, according to an online poll run by the cross-party Commission on Local Tax Reform set up by the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish...
Abolishing prison sentences of 12 months or less could deliver significant savings to the public purse as well as improve the quality of justice in Scotland, a leading penal reform campaigner...
The 2015 Scotland Bill, encompassing the Smith Commission plans for enhanced devolution, completes its Commons passage today, intensifying pressure on Scottish ministers to spell out how they will...
The Scottish Government has quit the UK-wide Commission on Social Mobility and Child Poverty in protest at plans by UK ministers to exclude the children of in-work households from their definition of...
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has set out reforms to school testing as part of efforts to improve educational attainment in Scotland’s schools. The moves form part of the SNP...
Family carers for vulnerable children in Scotland are likely to be left worse off under Universal Credit because of the UK government’s failure to take proper account of Scotland’s different legal...
Scottish ministers are being warned of a mounting crisis in health provision after new figures showed the number of out-of-hours GP consultations last year to be approaching a million.
CIPFA has launched a new guide to the implementation of reforms to social care provision in Scotland that are designed to lead to greater personalisation of support.
Scotland’s broad-based commission on a replacement for the council tax is highly unlikely to arrive at a consensus, Local Government Minister Marco Biagi admitted in a speech today to the CIPFA...
Unprecedented pressures lie ahead for Scottish local government finances, and councils need effective long-term plans to prepare for them, the Accounts Commission for Scotland warns today in its...
Delivering world-class public audit in changing circumstances demands that we think differently and experiment. Scotland is pointing the way, writes Caroline Gardner
A former Scottish Government cabinet minister has called for a restructuring of Scottish local government and other public bodies in response to plans to devolve significant extra powers to Holyrood.
