The Scottish Local Government Partnership (SGLP) has urged the Scottish government to act over the impact of council funding cuts.

Culture minster Matt Hancock has warned that councils ‘are choosing’ to make arts cuts.
Speaking to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Hancock, Minister of State for Digital and Culture, claimed that councils are making ‘politically motivated decisions’ to cut arts and culture.
Using the example of Lancashire County Council and planned cuts to culture funding, Hancock warned that culture ‘seems to be the easy hit – the easy way to make savings’, but claimed that this was not a necessity.

Rugby Borough Council has reduced its annual waste collections by 49,591 in 12 months by using smart bins.

Birmingham City Council is facing a budget overspend of £49 million, requiring further savings of £78 million to balance the 2017-18 budget.
In its latest update to the government the Independent Improvement Panel says that ‘flawed’ planning and ‘unrealistic’ proposals have left the regions future success ’at risk’. The panel has said that the council agrees there should be independent review of that budget and its future plans.

The government has reaffirmed its commitment to spend £730 million of annual support on renewable electricity projects over this Parliament.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has also set out further details for the next Contracts for Difference auction where companies will compete for the first £290 million worth of contracts for renewable electricity projects.

The 2016 Good Growth for Cities index has shown that the majority of the UK’s cities are now outperforming their pre-financial crisis peak.

Despite concerns from county leaders, the government has reiterated its commitment to directly elected mayors, labelling them a ‘real red line’.
Speaking to the County Councils Network (CCN), Communities Secretary Sajid Javid spoke about how local government can tackle the challenges of a changing world.
While he acknowledged that elected mayors were not ‘universally popular’ within local government, Javid claimed that they remain an essential part of the devolution process and necessary to increase local accountability.