The Treasury is to limit the loan-to-income ratio of mortgages underwritten by the government’s Help to Buy scheme at 4.5:1 after the Bank of England announced restrictions on the use of these loans...
Big-data analytics has been making a major impact on cities as far apart as New York and Baghdad, saving lives and money in the process. Now the latest stage in the information revolution looks set...
Chancellor George Osborne today said he wanted to ‘start a conversation’ about a new model of city government that would see greater devolution of budgets to local level.
Public sector borrowing in May was £13.3bn, up £4.6bn from the same month last year, figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed today.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has revised its outlook on the UK’s AAA credit rating from ‘negative’ to ‘stable’ in its latest examintion of the economy.
Almost all young people could be either in work or learning by the end of the decade if councils were allowed to lead on youth unemployment schemes, the Local Government Association has claimed.
The number of people working in the public sector has fallen to its lowest level in 16 years after the part-privatisation of Lloyds Banking Group led to nearly 100,000 posts being reclassified in the...
Scotland’s uncertain constitutional future has proved no deterrent to overseas investors, according to the annual Attractiveness Survey by accountants EY.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has proposed public spending rules for the next parliament that include a commitment to cutting the level of the national debt as a proportion of economic output in...
The International Monetary Fund has warned that imbalances in the housing market present a risk to the UK’s recovery and called for planning reforms to increase the supply of land for new homes.
It’s no longer just the bottom 20% of society who are anxious about their future. In the new class structure of industrialised countries, where jobs growth is in services, white-collar and...
The Local Government Association has formed a commission to examine how the rural areas of England can boost their contribution to economic growth and improve public services.
Underlying government borrowing in 2013/14 has been revised down by £300m, the Office for National Statistics has said, but borrowing in the first month of the new financial year was up by £1.7bn...
The next government should not repeat the coalition’s use of a fiscal target based on reducing public sector debt, but instead base rules only on a five-year target for borrowing, two leading...
The government’s programmes to promote local economic growth have lacked clarity and coordination, and their achievements in job creation have fallen below expectations, the Public Accounts Committee...
A radical reform to the role of Local Enterprise Partnerships, including giving councils sign-off of economic strategies, is needed to tackle the north-south divide, former Labour housing minister...
Many local enterprise partnerships are failing to address the long-term obstacles to growth and are not putting enough emphasis on tackling unemployment, a report by IPPR North has claimed.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has revised up its forecast for UK growth in 2014 due to what it called the robust pace of the economic recovery. It also backed...
The economy grew by 0.8% in the first quarter of 2014, meaning the rate of expansion has quickened compared to the last three months of 2013, figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed...
Annuities reform was the big ticket item in the chancellor’s ‘makers, doers and savers’ Budget, but at what cost to the public purse? PF talks to pensions minister Steve Webb about...
Ed Miliband has said a future Labour government would end ‘abuses’ of zero-hours contracts by allowing employees to demand fixed hours when they have worked regularly for more than six months.
The government’s abolition of support payments to employers who have to pay out a large proportion of their wage bill on sick pay will make it harder to meet Chancellor George Osborne’s target for...
