The Caithness Business Index has posted the following article:

Protecting Family Budgets But Will You Feel Better Off?

[IMG][/IMG] Protecting family budgets is a priority for the Scottish Government's spending plans for the year ahead. Public Finance Minister Kate Forbes set out a range of measures in the Scottish Budget to help support family incomes including: giving a 3% pay uplift for public sector workers earning up to £80,000 investing £645 million for the expansion of early learning and childcare to provide 1,140 hours of childcare a year, saving a family as much as £4,500 per child investing an additional £16 million in concessionary travel and bus services £21 million for the initial rollout of the Scottish Child Payment maintaining the widest range of free?to?access public services in the UK including free personal care, free prescriptions and free tuition increasing the basic and intermediate rate thresholds of income tax by inflation and freezing the higher and top rate thresholds, meaning no taxpayer in Scotland will pay more income tax in 2020-21 on their current income Ms Forbes said: "Wellbeing and fairness are at the heart of this year's Budget. [Read Full Article]