Northern Ireland's first home-grown budget in 29 years proffers a substantial increase in spending on the health service in the province and a boost for agriculture and rural development.
Efforts to minimise pressure on the health service this winter went up a gear this week as leading figures warned that the NHS faces a tough three months.
Ministerial interference in next year's finance settlement is threatening to divide local government, with London boroughs accusing the government of trying to cheat them out of £49m to placate its...
Home Secretary Jack Straw has distanced himself from a report which calls for the merger of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission.
Education minister Jacqui Smith is preparing to eat her words this week as the government maintains its increasingly desperate attempts to keep Pimlico School's ailing Private Finance Initiative deal...
Child support services are close to collapse in the Vale of Glamorgan, according to a report on the council's social services described by one Whitehall official as 'the most damning we have produced...
The European Commission has accused the government of breaking European law over the controversial Pimlico school Private Finance Initiative in a move that has wide-ranging repercussions for other...
Local authorities are being urged to press ahead with setting up arm's-length housing management companies 18 months before they will be allowed to spend any extra money on their stock.
Local authorities are gearing up for annual spending spats with schools after the government backed down on its threat for direct education funding in this week's finance green paper.
Local authorities were trying to pick up the pieces of disrupted services as fuel began to trickle slowly back into garages and council depots after the government's ultimatum to petrol companies to...
Local authorities have voiced fears that next week's Finance green paper will be nothing more than a damp squib with vague proposals designed to smooth tensions until after the General Election.
A £1.3m government-funded research programme that will play a key role in deciding how Britain's local authorities meet new tough recycling targets over the next five years has been given away to...
Union leaders have launched a swingeing attack on the government's promotion of private sector involvement in public services at the Trades Union Congress in Glasgow.
The Conservatives' opening shots in the coming election campaign, featuring radical plans for change in education and local government, have been greeted with predictably swingeing criticism from...
The public sector has a serious image problem which is discouraging young people from seeing it as a worthwhile career and creating a recruitment crisis, according to the chief executive of the King'...
Just weeks after publication of the NHS National Plan, finance staff are being given the first glimpse of what the future holds for them in a modernised NHS.
Public, private and voluntary organisations are to work with 345 schools on out-of-hours educational projects for which funding was announced this week.