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KATE Forbes is facing her toughest budget yet, with more financial challenges to follow, the country’s leading economic thinktank has warned.
Economic experts have warned that the fiscal frameworks of the UK’s devolved governments must be made more robust to future crises and better able to support COVID-19 recovery. The research team – from the University of Stirling, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde – found that the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments had “largely coped” with the economic pressures brought about by the pandemic. However, they attributed this to “luck, huge sums of money and ad-hoc bypassing of normal rules”. They also sai...
Thank you for signing up to our Politics newsletter. Something went wrong - please try again later. Sign Up Experts have warned Scotland could have been plunged into financial turmoil if the coronavirus pandemic had hit harder north of the border because the current UK funding arrangement may have been insufficient. Researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Fraser of Allander Institute and Stirling University found there were concerns devolved governments across the UK could find themselves with insufficient funding from the UK Government if they were hit particularly hard...
David Eiser of the Fraser of Allander Institute By David Eiser Budgets are always trailed as being the most important of their time. But the 2021/22 budget can lay a genuine claim to this title. Ten months since the first Covid restrictions, society remains firmly locked down, with economic activity still 7% below pre-pandemic levels – well below what we would normally think of as being the trough of a deep recession. In this context, Kate Forbes delivered a sober budget statement, refreshingly devoid of buzzwords. The accompanying Scottish Fiscal Commission economic forecasts had...
On the meter THE legal aid bill of the convicted husband of a senior Crown prosecutor has now topped £35,000 – with more public money still to come. Stephen Roberts, the husband of Nicky Patrick, Scotland’s procurator fiscal for homicide and crime, was convicted of running companies when he was disqualified as a director. As I revealed previously, Patrick held the largest shareholding in one of them, Log Six, although there is no suggestion that she knew about the management of the business. Roberts was due to be sentenced on Monday at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court but the case has be...