A growing student population, increased demand for courses and a new government processing agency ill-equipped to cope are to blame for the student loans fiasco, according to the National Union of...
Northern Ireland's new finance minister is not a typical politician. A motorcycle enthusiast, he is relaxed, informal and very un-PC. Paul Gosling asks him to map out his plans for the road ahead
Leaked government figures reveal that Treasury officials planned the ‘tightest squeeze’ on public services spending since Britain was bailed out by the International Monetary Fund in the 1970s,...
Savings of £50bn a year can be made through cutting ‘non-performing schemes’, ‘over-extended government’ and ‘cutting out the middleman’, according to a report out today
A quarter of all government spending is on goods and services provided by third parties but the public sector is still poor at managing suppliers. In these difficult times, organisations need to get...
Public sector unions are gearing up to face
the prospect of inevitable spending cuts after the general election. Next week’s TUC conference will indicate how far they will go
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has challenged governments to invest in education to ensure an effective recovery from the global recession
The government must continue to devolve power to sub-regions and local authorities if it is to succeed in harnessing the ‘untapped potential’ in these areas, a think-tank has urged
A new and more positive relationship needs to be developed between the devolved administrations and the UK government if the Union is to be preserved, leading academics and public officials have been...
The new Forth Crossing will be built regardless of whether Scotland is given borrowing powers by Westminster, the Scottish Government announced as part of its Legislative Programme today
A think-tank has called on the government to set up a permanent bank to finance infrastructure projects to beef up the Treasury’s arm’s-length lending unit.
Planned capital funding is set to be halved. So how can public bodies break out of their silos, and make the most of the £21bn available? John Tizard and Robert Hill have some ideas
The Welsh Assembly Government has set out further details of an initiative to create a ‘shared responsibility’ across agencies for supporting vulnerable children and families
The government’s Total Place programme has a lot riding on it. But will scrutinising all public money spent in a location really lead to better but cheaper ways of providing services?
The severance payouts given to ‘boomerang bosses’ - ousted council chief executives who quickly find employment in other local authorities - will be reviewed by the Audit Commission