A leading public finance expert has criticised the Scottish National Party's plans for a local income tax, claiming they are based on shaky financial assumptions that would create a significant...
Politicians suffer from myopia and tunnel vision they look only to the short term and take a blinkered view of the issue in hand. This is a sentiment with which many people would agree.
More than £12bn of public funds is spent every year on support for small business but to what effect? A Conservative Party task force found the programmes to be ineffective, bureaucratic and...
Ministers and councillors should have more direct control over quangos and arm's-length bodies, Tom McCabe, Scotland's finance minister, has suggested.
NHS staff in Scotland are to receive their entire 2.5% pay increase in April following a surprise decision that conflicts with the phased deal on offer to their counterparts in England and Wales.
Ministers must close female prisons and replace them with community-based units to prevent the criminal justice system becoming a 'social dustbin' for vulnerable and abused women, penal experts have...
Public sector managers are to be made more accountable for the advice they give to elected members, Tom McCabe, the Scottish finance minister, has disclosed.
The Scottish Executive has been forced to defend its controversial civil service relocation policy following a critical report by an influential committee of MSPs saying the scheme is 'flawed and...
Number 10's online road-pricing e-petition was a huge hit. Not in terms of the likely fate of that policy but because it encouraged nearly 2 million people to put their point of view. Not a bad...
Ministers would set the education and community care budgets of every council in Scotland and take responsibility for managing these services under a radical plan drawn up by a leading civil servant.
Fire and rescue authorities have responded positively to the reform of the service but there has been no clear reduction in reducing the risks from fire, Audit Scotland has found.
A council heavily criticised in a watchdog report has become the first in Scotland to cut its council tax since local government was reorganised in 1996.
Holyrood could face a radical shake-up after Scotland's May elections. So what difference would it make to public services? David Scott quizzes the key politicians
Scots council tax bills are to rise by less than the rate of inflation. A number of factors, including a generous funding settlement and fears of the impact at the ballot box, have all played a role
Whitehall's largest trade union is threatening to hijack the local elections in May by exposing candidates supporting the government's controversial civil service reform agenda.
More than a third of Scotland's councillors are to stand down at the May elections after being offered a 'golden goodbye' deal of up to £20,000, at an estimated total cost of more than £7m.
Despite the best efforts of the Disability Discrimination Act, too many disabled people are still treated as second-class citizens. The new equality duty on public sector organisations is intended to...
Rural regeneration was once top of the in-tray at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. But other political priorities are preoccupying ministers, and public services in the...
Local authorities may have seriously underestimated the condition of their homes before the government embarked on its drive to bring them up to standard, according to a new study.
Council tax bills in Scotland have risen by an average of nearly 60% in cash terms over the past ten years, a local government finance report has revealed.
