The Scottish Government's Budget for 2024-25 takes place at a time of particular uncertainty about the future funding environment. UK government spending plans both for the coming year and for later years seem likely to be topped up, but when and by how much is unclear. The current UK government...

This chapter of our second annual Budget Report looks at Scottish tax policy and revenue, the overall amount of funding available for Scottish public services, and planned spending on different individual services in the coming financial year, 2024-25. In several important respects, the Scottish...

This chapter of our second annual Budget Report looks beyond 2024-25 to the medium-term outlook for the Scottish Government's funding, and the implications of the funding picture for the choices and trade-offs faced when allocating funding between areas of the budget. The Scottish Government had...

The aim of this report, the IFS's first in-depth analysis of the Scottish Government Budget, is to look at some of the key implications for the coming year, and for the longer term. We do not attempt to cover all of the different services that the Scottish Government is responsible for, or all...

English councils saw big cuts to their funding during the 2010s, with spending on some services down between 40% and 70% over the decade. And although like virtually all public services, funding for local government was increased during the 2019-24 parliament, councils' finances are still under...

In the past decades many European countries implemented numerical fiscal rules in order to strengthen fiscal discipline on all levels of government. This development was intensified by the financial crisis in 2008. Although plenty of research points to the discipline-enhancing effect of these...

The article presents an analysis of the level of income flowing to the municipalities\' budget from the permit fees to sell alcoholic beverages in selected municipalities. For the purposes of the article, three objectives have been set for determining the level of revenue from the fee....

The idea of fiscal decentralisation has become increasingly fashionable world-wide. But every country has unique features of the intergovernmental fiscal system. In general municipal expenditures are rapidly growing in European countries. On the other hand local tax increases are not easily...