The Scottish Government is to pilot raising a levy on exhaust pollution from heavy vehicles, as part of a renewed drive to meet long-term C02 emissions reduction targets.
Scottish finance secretary Derek Mackay has backed down on a bitterly opposed plan to commandeer £100m of council tax receipts into implementing national schools policy, but has been told by smaller...
A tripartite review of Holyrood’s budget processes to prepare for its new devolved tax powers will go beyond that remit and look at future proofing the Scottish Parliament’s processes...
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...
MSPs have approved a Scottish Government order to increase the council tax for Scotland’s wealthiest households, but only after delivering a rebuke to ministers for failing to replace the tax with a...
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.
Scottish public spending could face a severe squeeze over the next few years as the transfer of fiscal powers leaves the public finances markedly more dependent on the uncertain performance of the...
A root-and-branch review of the Scottish Parliament’s budgetary process is to be undertaken in order to reflect Holyrood’s increasing fiscal powers and its changing relationship with Westminster.
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...
A prominent free market think tank has backed Scottish Government plans to cut and then scrap Air Passenger Duty and urged other parties to unite behind the plan, which is strongly opposed by both...
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...
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...
