Parents are being increasingly pressured into home-schooling leaving councils unable to ensure children are adequately educated, the Children’s Commissioner for England has said.
Hospitals could carry out more than 290,000 extra routine operations each year if they improved the way they schedule surgeries, according to a health watchdog.
Scottish councils are to be given the power to levy a local tourist tax as part of “the most significant empowerment of local authorities since devolution” under a budget deal struck by the Scottish...
The final local government finance settlement has handed Northamptonshire County Council a lifeline by allowing the cash-strapped authority greater council tax flexibility.
Councils face a spending gap of £8.7bn in their bid to provide services aimed at preventing social problems in areas as diverse as homelessness, debt and crime.
Council tax arrears in England are soaring after millions of households have been stripped of funding from schemes to help them with their bills over the last five years.
