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Royal Bank of Scotland has cut another 500 UK jobs, mostly at its investment banking division, it announced in a statement. The news led to the company’s price losing half a percentage point on the stock market. RBS has got rid of tens of thousands of jobs in the last couple of year s since the credit crunch.

After projections that it will lose nearly 3,000 officers, Scots police officers wants a crisis meeting to talk about spending cuts to the country’s eight forces. They want politicians from the main parties to attend a special meeting before the Scottish government is due to publish its budget in November. According to the Scottish Police Federation, the proposed drop in funding could see police numbers cut to levels not seen since 1995.

Six people had to be evacuated because of a huge blaze which spread through a building site. There were fears the timber-framed flats under construction could collapse as the blaze took hold on the Hampshire premises. The people had to be moved from their homes as the fire threatened to spread as 12 specialist support vehicles and dozens of fire fighters fought to tackle the major incident.

Finance bosses at Wolverhampton council are slashing off £4m from spending next year. At least 10 jobs will go in the first round of cuts, made up of six in property services and four in finance. The council is expecting to lose the best part of £12m next year and is reviewing every detail of spending.

Who would be an economic forecaster since the data on the recovery is so conflicting? The most recent market analysis found that conditions in the labour market got worse during the past three months north of the border. A survey of job market activity found recruitment agencies reporting a slight growth in demand for part-time workers; but overall the jobs market went into reverse as demand for permanent staff experienced a drop.

Union members at the TUC’s annual gathering have backed joint industrial action if "attacks" on jobs, pensions and public services go ahead. Union delegates backed a motion which included calls to build "a broad solidarity alliance of unions and communities under threat".

After much summer speculation, the reality of the coalition deficit-busting measures is taking shape with the news that Hampshire Constabulary plans to axe 1,400 posts. This numbers 20 per cent of its workforce, including police officers, in the wake of government departments trimming their budgets by about a quarter.

The increasingly important marine research sector will provide a boost to employment – that is the hope for a scheme which has been given the green light in Wales. The SEACAMS (Sustainable Expansion of the Applied Coastal and Marine Sectors) project involves a number of universities.

A fire service spokesman said more than 25 factory workers on site were uninjured in a fire at a big car parts plant – and a Time and Attendance UK Fire Roll Call system would keep staff safety paramount in a similar occurrence. The Linamar factory in Swansea suffered an overnight blaze which started in the workshop area, and spread to parts of the plant and the control room.

All of the nine Regional Development Agencies will be closed down as part of the government’s deficit-busting cuts, and already interested parties are working on ways to fill the gap that will be left by the organisations. Plans to shut down England’s nine RDAs, set up by the Labour government to drive forward economic growth, and replace them with Local Enterprise Partnerships were detailed in the last budget.

A cost-saving idea being mooted for under fire local authorities is to share chief executives. The coalition recently discovered a £1.5 billion black hole in the public finances. Hence, as an alternative to cutting front line services, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles suggested: “It’s obviously a bad week to raise things that Germany does better than us, but they’ve really got the idea in local government.

Some areas of the public sector have pre-empted this autumn’s Government cuts by not taking on staff. Devon and Cornwall Police will not recruit for the next 18 months; while its Police Authority, which governs the force, said it would be reducing the number of public meetings it holds over the next 12 months in a bid to become more efficient.