Council leaders in England have warned that a multi-billion pound deficit from years of overspending on special educational needs has become a “burning platform” that will push scores of councils into bankruptcy within months, The Guardian reported. They say time is running out to resolve rapidly growing shortfalls and are concerned the government gave no indication in Wednesday’s spending review how it will deal with Send debts, which are expected to exceed £5bn by next March.

The rate of both new business starts-ups and insolvency-related activity dropped for the second consecutive month in Yorkshire and the Humber in May, while other regions saw sharp rises in insolvency-related activity, according to the latest research from R3, the UK’s insolvency and restructuring trade body, the Sheffield Star reported. Based on analysis of data provided by Creditsafe, the report shows a 10% decline in insolvency-related activity in the region last month, while new Yorkshire and Humber business start-ups also fell by 5%.

A UK car charging company is to be rescued by French energy giant EDF, after a downturn in demand for electric vehicles (EVs) left it struggling to survive. On Thursday, EDF said that it would buy Pod Point in a cut-price deal to save the British company, the Telegraph reported. The energy giant said a takeover was the “only realistic prospect” of allowing Pod Point to keep operating. Pod Point, which has chargers available at places such as Tesco and McDonald’s, is the third-largest charging group in the UK, operating 5,600 fuelling stations, according to Zapmap.

Energy costs have pushed Active Nation into liquidation, despite the charity reporting the strongest trading period in years ,Health Club Management reported. Annette Reeve of Beesley Corporate Recovery was appointed by the company's creditors on 28 May. Former CEO, Stuart Martin, has told HCM the cost of energy became completely unmanageable and the support systems that should have helped – including Sport England’s Swimming Pool Support Fund – didn’t deliver. "It’s heartbreaking, because it wasn’t the quality of our work, our people, or our vision that failed," he says.

The U.K. economy contracted more than expected in April as President Trump’s evolving trade policy brought a halt to a surprising surge in activity, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product was 0.3% lower than a month earlier, the country’s Office for National Statistics said Thursday, marking the deepest contraction in the British economy in 18 months.

The British government announced on Wednesday hundreds of billions of pounds in spending on defense, health care and investment in infrastructure and housing, as it laid out its economic priorities for the next few years, the New York Times reported. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a breakdown of the public finances in Parliament, detailing how much money each government department will have to spend until 2029, around the time of the next general election. It brings to an end months of tense negotiations between Ms.

The U.K.’s labor market cooled in the three months to April, offering reassurance to Bank of England policymakers despite the level still being well above that required to return inflation to target any time soon, the Wall Street Journal reported. Average weekly earnings excluding bonuses rose 5.2% from a year earlier, down from 5.5% in the three months to March, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.6% in the period from 4.4% in the prior quarter, the highest since May-July 2021.